Written by Bill Willingham
Illustrated by Phil Jimenez and Andy LanningNew York Times best-selling, award-winning creator Bill Willingham presents a new series starring the female FABLES. Balancing horror, humor and adventure, FAIREST explores the secret histories of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, Snow White, Rose Red and others.
The first 6 issue arc follows the misadventures of Briar Rose after she is stolen away by the goblin army in FABLES #107. Fan-favorite artist Phil Jimenez (WONDER WOMAN, THE INVISIBLES) returns to Vertigo to pencil the opening storyline. Award-winning cover artist Adam Hughes (WONDER WOMAN, BATGIRL) provides covers, starting with a wraparound cover on issue #1.
Future arcs will be written by 2011 Arthur C. Clarke winner Lauren Beukes with art by Inaki Miranda, and iZOMBIE scribe Chris Roberson with art by Shawn McManus! And remember: They may be beautiful, but there will be blood.
Hey look, it’s a book that spins off of Fables! Fables is one of the longest running books that Vertigo puts out, and now they’re trying their hand at publishing a book focused more heavily on the princesses! Who do they think they are? Disney?
Follow the cut for more on this ambitious book! As a note, there is a light spoiler warning before reading this review.
I fell out of the Fables title for a while, to be honest. After the fall of the Adversary, the book seemed to lose its voice, and it struggled for two years to find that voice before I finally gave up. But given my love of Willingham’s universe as a whole and his talents for creating in that universe, I decided to give this book a go, especially because his work with the various princesses has been stellar throughout the entire series. Because of this, I decided to dip my toe back into the property.
Also, that Vertigo promo didn’t hurt.
I’m happy to report this book was a lot of fun. I didn’t expect it to be THIS MUCH fun, but it’s as much fun as the original series was in its vaunted heyday. There’s a whole new “princely” lead in Ali Baba Prince of Thieves (who I actually thought was Aladdin in the Sampler, W H O O P S), who brings a roguish element to your standard prince not seen since Flynn in the recent Disney film Tangled. His charm and wit matches well with his new sidekick, a bottle imp named Jonah, who is something like the lovechild of Disney’s Genie and Futurama’s Bender Rodriguez sans powers. Their initial chemistry drives much of the book, and while it’s not an explosive chemistry, it reads at a brisk pace, which works for such an action-oriented tale.
In many ways, Ali Baba is probably one of the first roguish heroes that inspired characters like Flynn and even iconic characters like Han Solo and even Captain Malcolm Reynolds (one good Firefly reference deserves another, eh, Bill?), so it makes perfect sense for him to read like them. In fact, if Ali Baba read any differently, this book would have been a completely different animal, and not better for it. Thankfully, he does read a bit like them. Struggling to make his way through the world by his own rules, searching for wealth and prestige
If there’s one thing that doesn’t “work” in the book, it’s the initial villain of the story, Captain Oakheart, doesn’t work as well as he should, not because he’s a bad, poorly written character, it’s just that, while otherwise, Jimenez is as amazing as he ever is, the character doesn’t match the design for any previous character like him. Since he’s one of Gepetto’s sons, there’s a very specific look he should have. While I love Jimenez’ art to pieces in the book, his woodkind do not look as they should. At least in my mind.
Other than that, it looks absolutely incredible. Ali Baba looks dashing and roguish, and Jonah’s tiny blue…er…body befits that of what you might expect one Dr. Manhattan to look like as a baby. The highlight of the book happens to be the reveal of the two princesses Ali Baba is presented with the enviable job of kissing. One is wintery and white haired, while the other, the familiar Brian Rose, is as warm as the other princess is cold, in a complementary sense. Think Scott Summers’ dilemma in New X-Men. In fact, there only problem there is in the book is how Jimenez will maintain a monthly schedule with such detailed line-art. One hopes he can keep it up, with gorgeous art like this.
In closing, one of the most welcome things about the book is its new-reader-friendliness. You don’t need to have read a single issue of “Fables” before this book to understand what’s going on. Anything you absolutely need to know is explained on the page. It was a wise choice on the part of Willingham, and one that will help him in the long run. People love their princesses after all.
Final Verdict: 8.0 — Great stuff, let’s just hope the book never resembles SNL’s recent Real Housewives of Disney, as hilarious as that sketch was.
