Delve into Bill Willinghams’ Eisner-award winning world where every
storybook, nursery rhyme and legendary character is real and a population of them have taken refuge from their own war-torn Homelands by forming a small community located in New York City. The ‘mundys’ of the real world know nothing of their Fable neighbors and the Fables intend to keep it that way at all costs. Any Fables who can’t pass for human are confined to an extensive tract of land upstate, called the Farm. These inhabitants include such familiar names as the Three Little Pigs, Chicken Little and Reynard the Fox along with many others of which you may or may not have heard.
Old King Cole is the mayor of the Fables’ little Manhattan neighborhood, with Snow White serving as his second-in-command and Bigby Wolf (formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf, now in human form) as his sheriff. Other well-known names include: Prince Charming – the vain, thrice-divorced womanizer with a craving for power; Pinocchio – turned into a “real” boy, by the Blue Fairy, he’s now a cigar-smoking, foul-mouthed man permanently stuck in the body of a young boy; and Grimble – formerly the troll from the tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, now the sleepy security guard at Fabletown’s Woodland Apartment Building. This extensive (12 volumes and counting), ongoing series chronicles the Fables’ adventures in the mundy world as well as their efforts to win back the Homelands from their seemingly unstoppable foe, the Adversary. These are no kid-friendly storybook characters: the plot and writing are complex, the violence is ubiquitous and the gorgeous artwork brings all this, and more, to life. Highly recommended for literary fantasy fans.