Fables

All of my Sandman books have been in storage for the past few months, so I've been looking for a graphic novel series to pass the time until I could get back to Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite authors). I found Eva's review of the first graphic novel in the Fables series a couple months back and decided I needed to give it a try. I'm so glad that I did. I really enjoyed the first volume and look forward to reading the rest of the series in 2010.

Bill Willingham's Fables: Legends in Exile is the first in the Fables graphic novel series telling the story of the characters from fairy tales and fables exiled in the real world. Everyone is a familiar character but there are interesting personality twists to make them feel kind of new too. The characters have a lot more depth than in the fairy tales we all grew up with, which provides a lot of entertainment watching them interact. The basic plot of the first novel is that Rose Red (SnowWhite's sister) is killed and Bigby (Big Bad Wolf) needs to figure out the mystery. It's a fairly simple story and plot, but it's a great (re)introduction to the characters. I look forward to seeing what Willingham does from here.

According to a friend who knows a bit about comics, the artwork is done in an older style. I'm kind of curious why Willingham decided that, but I liked the contrast from what I usually see.