Fables: Legends in Exile

First, the bridge from The Color Purple to Fables: Legends in Exile:

Ummm...

I suppose the characters in both books have to hide their true selves -- Celie hides inside herself like a tree; BBW hides a wolf inside a man suit -- but I suspect in both cases the fictions they live eventually give way to their realities.

All honkeys in Fables at this point, but there is a sort of race issue in that the creatures that can't live in the Mundy world are segregated (at the farm). I dost believe this issue will be covered in Fables: Animal Farm (Book 2).

Now for my review:

Mythology is something that we all seem to be drawn to in one way or another. I, for one, seek it out in all its forms -- television, movies, books, graphic novels...

Fables is a great concept and I enjoyed getting to know the characters. Not that you asked, but my favorites were the Big Bad Wolf and Prince Charming (who, we come to discover, is not an oft-repeated pet name, but rather an promiscuous individual scumbag). I am curious to see how the series develops -- will it continue to live as a detective story or travel to another genre?

I appreciated the layout of frames within the novel and the artists' (Medina/Leialoha/Hamilton) visions of Willingham's story. The bulk of art within the book was less abstract than others I've seen but not bad by any means. This amateur art critic's interpretation would be that the "mundane" style (compared to its contemporaries and its own issue cover art within) served to cement the characters' position in the "Mundy" universe. (I'm sure later volumes of the series will prove or disprove this theory.)

The individual issues' cover art was delicious. While James Jean's anatomical accuracy is hit-or-miss, his coloring and visual foreshadowing make me want to pig out on so much more! Alex Maleev's single piece (Chapter One) was also noteworthy, presented in a gritty noir style with a special attention to contrast. While I realize the near-impossibility of putting that same time and effort into an entire graphic novel, I would have liked to see this same style employed in dream/memory sequences. (Again, later volumes will tell.)

In my eyes, the best part of the entire volume was the short story at the end ("A Wolf in the Fold"), detailing in prose the Big Bad Wolf's experiences leading up to his exile. I'm unversed in monograms of the art form, but the detailed art in this piece was astonishing -- a very good call to leave it uncolored. I will definitely be getting Volume 2.

My rating here would have been 3.5, had Goodreads allowed it. The premise is a good one, the issue cover art was fantastic, and I really enjoyed the male characters...BUT I am leaving stars for the future issues -- in which I expect to see a bigger world and a little more from the ladies. :)

 Now, for a few memorable passages:

"The only easy day was yesterday" (71).

"Once we were a thousand separate kingdoms, spread over a hundred magic worlds. We were kings and cobblers. Wizards or woodcarvers. We had our sinners, our saints, and our blatant social climbers. And from the grandest lord to the lowliest peasant girl, we were, for the most part, strangers one to another. It took an invasion to unite us" (79-80). 

 "beyond the farthest shores of never" (82)

"damned with faint praise"

"Even the highest office in service to another is too low a station for me."

"At best he was but an irritant in his unseen adversary's vast game of thrones."

 And a couple things to consider:

• Oz and Narnia...gone!
• Pinnochio's plight (à la Claudia Interview with the Vampire)
• How does anthropomorphism play out in the Mundy world? (BBW's gradient depending on the situation, pig, beast as fact rather than fiction)