Fables #57

Title: Fables #57
Writer/Creator: Bill Willingham
Guest Artist: Michael Allred

"Not a bad effort, but Willingham has the unfortunate responsibility of living up to his best story arcs each and every month." Jesse (ign dot com)

Um Jesse? C'mere a minute. I'd like to take you aside and talk to you. For just a second. You see you are wrong... on two accounts. Now don't misunderstand me. I think the job you and your colleagues are doing on that other website is just fine, great even, but your reviews always leave me wanting more. Here at Cerberus our m.o. has become the in-depth, extended single issue review. And while we may not cover the same variety of ground as you guys, what ground we do cover will be combed clean. Now back to the point at hand. You're wrong.

a) Willingham has indeed ascended to a lofty perch in comicbook royalty. Yet up on high he is not unassailable. He has produced a few stinkers and some pedestrian arcs--he is human after all. The World War II, Frankenstein v. the Wolfman arc particularly rankled me as a 'hehe, hey guys, what if we have Bigby, you know, fighting the nazis and guess what they are up to, hehe,' fanboy-esque interesting-as-an-idea, kinda-crappy-made-manifest plot-line. Not everything the man produces will be gold. This may sound a bit strange but if Willingham were infalible Fables would get... boring. And Fables has been anything but boring during the entire length of mighty run.

b) "Not a bad effort." Really? 'Cause I thought it was pretty damn fine. Subtly brilliant. Wonderful character piece that Willingham has kicked my ass with a couple dozen times during the past few years. Boy, I do love me some good forgotten son/absent father drama. Bigby and "Mr. North" finally meet and things don't play out quite as i expected. The past isn't forgiven and the future is nothing if not up for grabs; a delicate detente seems to settle between these two blow-hards. And through it all Snow (and the cubs) are the glue that holds everything together. Bigby, you done well for yourself in the female arena. And how could the fucking North Wind not have a soft spot for a lady named Snow?

Jesse, you still there? Okay, I'll grant you just about everything you said about the art is accurate. Fables has been lacking in the art department ever since day one. But so did the Sandman and after a while the signature raw/unpolished style became synonomous with Dream, the art never overpowered the idea, and in the end made the comic even stronger. Fables too suffers from artwork which may not be up to snuff with the writing. The penciling looks particularly bad compared to the series award winning coverwork. Yet James Jean can't draw the covers and do the interiors after all. Speaking of James Genius, goddam if that's not another terrific cover. Your eyes zero right in on one of the cubs taking off and you zoom around the page in a counterclock-wise circle following the other cubs (and the individual letters that make up the f.a.b.l.e.s title) as they swirl around their parents on invisible gusts until our eyes are drawn back to the top of the page looking at Bigby, who is shrouded and sullen but with his hand firmly wrapped around Snow, and it is Snow who we turn the page with, Snow whose quiet beauty has been masterfully depcected on so many Jean covers.

The next page is another story. Allred's art is visually subdued. Everything seems tinted a shade or three too dark. Where I'm imagining bright blinding fields of snow and ice I get alot of blues and grays. I think the individual character sketches are fine, sure the older 'no mouth' version of Bigby was starting to grow on me but Allred's version is not all that of a departure. All in all the art holds together and the story is fantastic. I give it a Snake-eyes... a stone's throw from a Volty.