GASP!! A Review: Fables Vol. 1 - Legends in Exile

I have heard a lot of praise about Fables over the years, but since I usually don’t go for comics with out super-heroes in them; I was never really interested. When this series was recommend to me by a friend, I decided to give it a shot since his tastes were similar to mine.

I will have to admit that I really liked this book. I was a little taken aback by the mature content, but I forgot this was a Vertigo title and should have expected it. Don’t get me wrong, I am by no means squeamish or a prude (ask anyone that knows me). I just had no idea what to expect when I started reading this book.

Looking past that, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It was very well written, intelligently thought out and fueled by a truly brilliant and original idea. A true testament to Bill Willingham’s talent. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read any of this series, so I won’t go into too much detail.

Besides the premise of this book, I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and how they were written. All of the characters has an eerie 3-Dimensional quality that was very engaging, and I had hard time putting this down after I started it. This is really hard to do it seems, judging from some the things I have done over the years. I know only of a few writers that can pull it off as Willingham did here. Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, and Kurt Busiek are the first that come to mind. All of these people are in my shortlist of my favorite writers. Doing some research in ComicBase, I find that Willingham has also written more than a few runs during some of my favorite story arcs over the last year of two. For example, the Batman and Robin parts of the War Games crossover. I might have to add Willingham to this list as well.

The bottom line here is this is a great book. If you usually read just the super-hero stuff like I do, and need a break; then give this a try. I don’t think you will be disappointed.