Jack of Fables Vol. 4: Americana

This series is getting much better, and much more interesting. Jack is definitely my least-favorite Fable, but he does occasionally have irresistible charms, to which the many women he woos in his stories would attest. This volume is my favorite so far. Jack and his supporting cast traverse the great land of Americana, the American Fables land. They visit the Wild West, Gangland, a Mark-Twain-esque steamboat land, and the town of Idyll, a 1950s version of the small-town American dream (which, for some reason, is populated by zombies). I just eat stuff like this up.

It's rare that a spin-off series has any real connection to the original besides a character or two and a branding. Now, Jack of Fables is a whole different animal. Thanks to the nature of monthly comics, both this title and the original Fables are released in tandem. While you need not read both to get the follow the stories, each reveals important aspects of the Fable universe. In this case, Jack has been providing readers with incredible insight into the nature of the Fable world which we have been following for years. Any Fables fan who wants to better understand where it all came from should check out this series.
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As for this volume, I have to say that is is quite a ride. The whole series is a little unusual for its aggressively show more tongue-in-cheek style and incredibly weak 4th wall. At times, things can move a bit too fast for comfort, but the story is slick, the dialog witty, the design inventive and the art consistently fantastic. A newcomer to Jack of Fables will probably want to start with the first volume, of course, and it may take a little while to get in to (I know that I, personally, wasn't too fond of the series until about half way through the second story arc, and I'm glad for my patience.) However, it is a fantastic expansion of the Fables story and a strong title on its own, which comes with this reviewer's full recommendation. show less

The story of the Revise family continues to unfold... it feels weird to think of concepts as real persons (the Pathetic Fallacy, for one) and I have been enjoying Jack's story as much as I have been enjoying the mainstream Fables series. And I also enjoy Jack's attitude and glib comments (especially towards the third Page sister) Overall, this was a lot of fun to read, and it definitely left me wanting to read the next installment in this series!

Jack delves into the world of American fables in this volume as he searches for treasure in the fables (homeland?) Americana. Im not one for most American legends since they tend to be all about pioneers and cowboys (both totally boring and cliched in my opinion), but it was quite hilarious to see Jack team up with Hillary Page. She's in a quest to Idyll (a town in American legend I presume) where her alleged father the Head Librarian is. Turns out he's not her father, and it looks like he's about to cause some major problems since she's found out where Golden Boughs is and he has a major vendetta against Revise (the real father of the Page sisters).

Summary: Jack of the Tales, his sidekick Gary (erstwhile known as the Pathetic Fallacy), and a newly-reassembled Humpty Dumpty head off to Americana, the homeland of the American Fables, in search of a lost treasure. On their way, they run into Hillary Page, who has broken Paul Bunyan out of Golden Boughs for her own purposes. All is not well in Americana, however - the Bookburner has taken over, and his hordes of zombie policeman are intent on capturing the visiting Fables... and Literals. Also included is a one-off issue starring Wicked John that focuses on Golden Boughs' one attempt to put on a stage show - Hamlet - before everything went disastrously wrong.

Review: Americana is another fun addition to the Jack of Fables library. I've show more pretty much accepted that clues about what's really going on, and bits of the overarching plot are going to be doled out to the readers much more slowly than in the main Fables series, but we do get some more hints about who the Literals are and what they want as things move forward. My main problem with this volume was that it felt like a lot of wasted potential. Jack and company's adventures in each region of Americana (Antebellum, Gangland, The Big City, the Frontier, Idyll, etc.) passes by in two or three pages, when there is enough material that each of them could easily have filled an entire issue. Also missing was any mention of what's going on in the main Fables volumes at this point in the storyline - not even a word about why the Adversary hasn't invaded Americana (presuming that's true). Still, I enjoyed seeing a previously underrepresented branch of characters turn up in the Fables universe, and Jack's narration is as funny as ever - although once again, the delusional Babe the Blue Ox stole the show. ("The abyss, as it turns out, just HATES having its pupils dilated.") 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Hopefully this is just an introduction, and not the last we'll see of these characters and introductions - but I'm going to keep reading to find out, of course. show less

We find Jack and group of Fables tracking down the treasure that Humpty Dumpty told Jack about when they originally escaped from the Golden Boughs. They are joined by Hilary Page, who is my favorite of the Page sisters, perhaps because she is librarian. They discover a route to the fabled land of Americana, a land of American folk tales.

I enjoyed this episode and I liked that there was were a number of party members to follow as I prefer Jack in small doses. Babe the Blue Ox has emerged as a favorite character. Americana had lots of humor, lots of adventure and great artwork. I guess my only complaint would be that this volume was a little short.

Unfortunately, though, this spin off from the popular Fables comics series isn't my cup of tea. I couldn't even tell you why I read all five volumes, except that I have a weird completist gene in me somewhere that doesn't let me not finish books. The "Jack" of these books is the Jack you read about in "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" -- the "Jack" of any fairy tale or fable is apparently all one and the same. In the first volume, Jack is thrown out of Fabletown and promptly falls into the hands of Mr. Revise, a very bad man who is trying to rid the world of all notions of fairy tales and fables. In the second volume, he has an unfortunate encounter with Lady Luck -- a literal Lady Luck -- in Las Vegas. The third book show more finds him in the Grand Canyon with a sword through his chest that somehow doesn't kill him; I guess you can't kill a fable. Americana, a sort of fairy tale America, is the setting of the fourth book, where we meet Mr. Book Burner, who is apparently somehow a rival to revise, who, we learn, is somehow related to the Pathetic Fallacy, who we know as Gary. Yes, things are getting pretty complicated. The fifth book has us in Western Americana, and tells us more about the Page sisters, who are Revise's henchwomen. All of it gives me a great big feeling of "Eh!" Maybe I just don't like Jack, a classic anti-hero who treats women like dirt and cares about nothing but money. Or maybe the weavings of the plot, which appear to be trying to say something about literature -- something that would normally fascinate me -- just fall flat here. In any event, this is one series I won't be following any further. show less