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Review: A Fables Round Up

I’ve been reading the Fables series by Bill Willingham for a couple months now. The problem I have when I try to review an issue of Fables is that it’s a series.  You don’t read the volumes individually; each comic builds on the stories of the previous volume and although you could go through reviews and decide read just the “good ones” that really just doesn’t make any sense.  If you’ve read the first few volumes and find them interesting, you’re going to like the others.

So instead of individual reviews, I’m just going to give some short comments on the three Fables I’ve read this month and leave it at that.  If you’re curious about the series, check out my previous reviews of Legends in Exile, Animal Farm, Storybook Love, and March of the Wooden Soldiers.

Volume 5: The Mean Seasons — Snow and the litter are banished to the Farm and Bigby heads for the hills.  Prince Charming takes over as Mayor of Fabletown and finds the job not really to his liking.  This leadership change marks a huge transition for the Fables who now need to figure out what to do next.  I really enjoyed the politics of this volume, especially reading it close to our own historic election.
Volume 6: Homelands — Boy Blue steals some artifacts from Fabletown and heads to the Homelands to find Red Ridinghood while Beauty and her Beast try to keep order at home.  Through Blue’s journey we finally learn who the Adversary is… I was not expecting that!  I didn’t like the Jack spin-off volume at the beginning, but at least the jerk is gone now!
Volume 7: Arabian Nights (and Days) — Arabian Fables descend on Fabletown seeking help as the Adversary threatens their home, but not everything is as it appears.  King Cole is back with something to do (hooray!).  The ending of this volume left me uneasy because the Fables are even less secure than they imagined.

This post is part of National Blog Posting Month for the month of November. You can find out more about NaBloPoMo here and view my NaBloPoMo profile page here. Thanks for reading!

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  • fyreflybooks November 26, 2008, 6:05 pm

    I always have a problem reviewing series books – particularly in the “Recommendation” section that I do – since my recommendation is pretty much always “if you’ve read this far, you’ll like this one too.”

  • Kim November 27, 2008, 9:37 am

    fyreflybooks: Exactly, it always seems weird. I love your Fables reviews though, they always get my excited to get the next book in the series since I’m a couple behind you.

  • Joanne November 27, 2008, 8:48 pm

    I’ve fallen way behind on everyone :0 lol

    But I did finish up Mean Seasons last night – wow I agree that reading about the new leaders in the Mayors office was pretty cool. I like seeing that they are having a harder go at it than they expected.

    But the part with Bigby’s dad showing up? I was pretty much shouting what is this all about now!?

  • Kim November 28, 2008, 8:27 pm

    Joanne: I loved the new office part, it was so funny to see them struggling with what to do. Bigby’s dad was a surprise. I think they mentioned his dad once before, but I didn’t expect it.