Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is trouble in the land of make believe, the images of fables have made their way into the world of humanity and are living amongst us, living their lives, their dreams and facing their nightmares in a world that is every bit as fantastical as their own but with none of the happy endings…legends after all still need to breathe.
Like many a great graphic novel, it is a question similar to the age old chicken-egg scenario but with better drawings, smarter lines and more three dimensional characters, is the great graphic novel enjoyable because of the writer or because of the artist. Does the blend of gripping, and in the case of Fables: Legends in Exile, amusing narrative add to the colour supplied by artist, or does the artist fill in the blanks to give extra definition to a man’s work? Like the Pope perhaps supplying the outline and commission to Di Vinci, sometimes one is remembered more than the other. In the case of Di Vinci quite rightly so but in the context of the graphic novel, like the team behind the incredible Locke and Key series, Gabriel Rodriguez and Joe Hill, it’s hard to imagine where the lines blur with the work of writer Bill Willingham, penciller Lan Medina and inkers Steve Leialoha and Craig Hamilton begin and end.
New York City is where fables have come to live after their homelands were captured and terrorised. Those that escaped with their lives now live side by side with the everyday good, bad and the decidedly ugly of the boroughs of New York. Jack of Beanstalk fame is a two bit con-man whilst Snow White has the responsibility of the fabled ones under her charge, Prince Charming works his way through every female possible and the Big Bad Wolf, in human form for now is a detective who is charged with finding out who killed the beautiful party girl Rose Red.
The way Bill Willingham delivers the script is one of genuine elation, to treasure what can be considered in many cases dull and badly drawn upon characters and turn them into creatures of reality, is to give the fable an injection of truth. Away from the glass slipper, who is to say that Cinderella is not a spoilt brat, that the Three Little Pigs didn’t sue the state for the actions of the Big Bad Wolf and that Snow White can’t have marital problems. It is sheer genius to have come up with a scenario like this and thanks to all four men who work on the Fables series, it works its charm on the reader and leaves them gasping for more
Truth is a rare commodity in graphic novels, it is the belief in the character and the scenario which sells the novel in the first place and where better to see the truth than in the hands of those who slay giants, pick fights with pigs who don’t know good house planning and through the eyes of artists and writers who make the absurd simply enticing and compelling.
Fables: Legends in Exile is available from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall