Fables: Volume 1: Legends in Exile

by Bill Willingham (story), Lan Medina (pencils), Steve Leialoha and Craig Hamilton (inks), Sherilyn van Valkenburgh (colors), Todd Klein (letters), and James Jean and Alex Maleev (original series covers), 127 pages

When all the different kingdoms of folklore and fairy tale are overrun by an avaricious enemy only known as the Adversary, the denizens of the old worlds regroup in the mundane land of New Amsterdam. In order to survive, they must pull together, so they sign accords granting amnesty for all their past deeds and forge ahead for centuries as carriages give way to yellow cabs and New Amsterdam becomes New York. Things are going as well as they can when Rose Red, civil servant Snow White's wild-child sister, goes missing, leaving a bloody mess behind in her apartment. Bigby, once a scourge of civilization as the big bad wolf, is now a lawman of Fabletown and sets out to solve the mystery before it stirs up too many past grudges and tears their delicately maintained society apart.

Cheezy noir with semi-familiar personalities all tossed together for a somewhat fun, if a bit hokey, entry into a fairy tale-infested universe. Golly, it's been a long time since I read an American-style comic book á la Marvel or DC (the latter's Vertigo imprint, in this case). It'll take me a while to get reacquainted with the color palette and the drawing style, which are not my cup of tea, but I enjoyed aspects of the hammy, tongue-in-cheek story. Philandering playboy Prince Charming (ex of several of the leading ladies), irresponsible slacker Jack of Fables, Beauty and her Beast (in marriage counseling--again), and newly-engaged Bluebeard all make appearances this volume and help fill out this world of literary and cultural refugees. It'll be interesting to see who else shows up in the future and how well they do or do not fit our expectations from what we remember of their sources.

Habibi by Craig Thompson

I'm stealing a review from Amazon by J. Wofford because I was having such a terrible time trying to get my thoughts about Habibi into review form and they summed it up perhaps a little more flourishy than I would have but our hearts are in the same place. My one word review: wow. My three word review: read it now. 2011, 672 pages.

"Habibi is a fable of exploitation and the cruelty of the strong toward the weak. It is a love story, though the the kind of love it celebrates--maternal, platonic, erotic--remains elusive throughout. It is also a sermon complete with hell-fire and brimstone and strident pleading about the dangers of the sin of waste. Most of all it is prophecy dressed in poetry's clothing--an artful shriek announcing of the end of the world.

All of this lovely fable-telling and street-preaching comes packaged in a graphic novel. And what a novel! And how graphic! Author and artist Craig Thompson gives us pages filled with toil, tears, and blood--whether his own or someone else's is hard to say. The book is beautiful, yes. Every dot, every line tells of human longing and agony. Every panel draws your eye, delights, repulses, demands--requires your attention. Many of the pages, with their intricate arabesque patterns, must have taken endless hours for Thompson to craft. No wonder that nine years have passed since Thompson's last major work, Blankets. The drawings in Habibi are a gift, bought at a price, and it does seem a sin to refuse them.

The story, too, is masterfully crafted. It tells of two urchins, Dodola and Zam, who find each other in the mire of the Arab slave trade. Dodola survives by prostitution and wit, nurturing and protecting Zam until he, too, begins to yearn for her body. Their journey through the filth of a decaying world, through magic and old lore, and through their own damaged souls proves constantly engrossing."