It's been a good year for DC's Vertigo imprint. Universal acclaim is being heaped upon Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man. But a couple of months before the surprising sell-throughs for the initial issues of that series, Bill Willingham's Fables turned its own share of heads. The opening story arc was a wondrous murder mystery, and the writer's grabbed my attention with a playful yet serious story about the dangerous world of separatist politics.
Rose Red's punishment for faking her own death is to accompany her sister, Snow White, on the road while she tends to her administrative duties in Fabletown's protected and sheltered community for those storybook creatures who can't pass for human in the city. In addition to checking in on the Farm and returning the wayward pig named Colin back to his home, White is also hoping to reconnect with her estranged sister. They soon discover they'll have more pressing matters to addres, as something unusual is going on at the Farm.
If Mark Buckingham's name wasn't in the credits for this issue, I never would have guessed he was involved in its creation. It just goes to show just how powerful Steve Leialoha's inks really are. Buckingham's layouts are detailed and offer a nice balance of the wondrous and the everyday, while Leialoha's inks make for a consistent tone with the first few issues of the series. His inks really bring depth and detail to Buckingham's usually simple style.
One of the more unusual and interesting super-hero titles in the past few years has been Marvel's Black Panther, and the reason is simple: the writer, Priest, injected politics into the genre in a clever and entertaining way. Willingham has done the same in Fables, and that political tone has fostered a surprisingly effective tone of realism in the most unreal of circumstances. Willingham is somehow able to appeal to the reader's child-like sense of wonder while stimulating the cynical, intelligent adult side all at once.
Despite those strengths, they wouldn't mean a thing if Willingham hadn't crafted such compelling characters from the storybook figures from our youth. I love of the dichotomy of responsibility versus rebellion that Snow White and Rose Red represent, and Bigby's Clint Eastwood-esque personality is surprisingly entertaining, even in his limited role in this issue.
