Fairest, Vol. 1: Wide Awake

Now that the Jack of Fables spinoff has ended, I was intrigued by this. I had fairly good expectations for this book, and wow, these expectations were EXCEEDED. I was wondering what had happened to Lumi, given that Jack of Fables ended without telling us what had happened to her. Well, wonder no more - her fate is revealed in here as well as that of Sleeping Beauty, another character many of us have been wondering about. The artwork is stunning - STUNNING - and the writing is just bloody brilliant with how the story is presented, the details, the dialogue, and so on. I'm not kidding. If I could give this book ten stars, you better believe I would! If the next book is half as good as this one (and it is supposed to be about Rapunzel) show more then I will be happy. show less

Summary: Ali Baba, the Prince of Thieves, is looting a war-ravaged city of the fallen Empire when he runs across a magic bottle. In it is not the genie that he'd hoped for, but instead a bottle imp who cannot grant wishes, but does have a special skill at knowing things. He leads Ali Baba to a goblin camp, wherein lies a powerful weapon: a sleeping princess who can only be awakened by a kiss. But once Ali Baba sneaks into the encampment, he finds not one but two sleeping women: Briar Rose, and the Snow Queen. He wakes the princess, but almost as soon as they escape from the goblins, they find themselves in the clutches of the also-freshly-awakened Snow Queen... the same Snow Queen responsible for centuries' worth of terrible deeds at show more the right hand of the Emperor himself.

This volume also includes a one-off noir detective piece in which Beast is out in the Mundy world, tracking a femme fatale who's a bit more fatale than the typical variety.

Review: The various spin-offs of the main Fables story arc have had varying degrees of success (at least, if we measure success in terms of how much I liked them), with Peter and Max among the best, and the recent Werewolves of the Heartland not really working for me at all. But I think one of the best things about the Fables universe in general is that it offers such seemingly endless possibilities for storytelling; that the universe is fertile and rich enough to provide material for the spin-offs in the first place. I'm not entirely sure how this volume overlaps with the main series - we've of course met Briar Rose and the Snow Queen before, but it's been long enough since I read the main arc that I don't entirely remember how they wound up in the goblin camp. (Or whether or not we even know how they got there, to tell the truth.) But the good news is, this story stands on its own quite well, and manages to present both a solid re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty origin story, as well as an interesting "modern-day" story in which the Fables from different stories overlap and interact. Plus, there's just as much action and humor and true love (or maybe just true love's kiss, which is a whole different matter) as you could wish, plus a Firefly joke or two thrown in for good measure.

I also absolutely loved the artwork in this volume. There's some creative panelling and great use of color, and the action sequences and battle scenes in particular are very creatively drawn. But most of all, I absolutely love the issue covers. I would hang a framed print of the picture with Sleeping Beauty and the spinning wheel in my house without a second's hesitation. Just beautiful. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: This volume is perfectly understandable without being up-to-date on the main Fables series, although fans of one are obviously going to enjoy the other, and fans of fairy tales in any form should certainly be reading these books. show less

Changed my original 5-star rating to 2 stars. Why?

For a spin-off series that's supposed to focus on the female stars of Fables, this first volume did not do a very good job. The story opens on Ali Baba and his discovery of a bottle imp and not one but two sleeping beauties (one being the actual Briar Rose). You'd expect the women to take over at this point, but they never really do. It's clear that the story is really about Ali Baba and his interactions with the women. (And the stupid bottle imp, who has several sexist comments.) While we get some cool backstory about Briar Rose's curse, Briar doesn't get a big part in the main story - we mainly get Ali Baba unfoundedly accusing her of being a bitch. She does get to kick a little ass show more towards the end, but that's it. The Snow Queen's story is even worse. It turns out that Gepetto had slipped her some loyalty juice, effectively forcing her to work for the empire. I'm glad that ultimately she's a better person than that, but it also means that in all her scenes in the main Fables comics, she was a pawn (ahem, a puppet) with no character of her own.

I've recently re-read the entire original Fables collection and, although I always will love this universe, I'm finding its take on women problematic upon second glance. This is just one example of those problems. show less

Is it terrible that I'm more into the Princss spin-offs than the actual Fables series? First Cinderella was awesome (and they need to write more asap), but Fairest is even better because Willingham is back to writing the scripts. Briar Rose's story has touched the main storyarc a few times (she used her sleeping curse to take out a the main city of the Empire), but we are finally getting her magic-ridden tale in its entirety as well as anopther look at Lumi (the Snow Queen). In many ways Lumi is the new character to wastch because she definitely isn't who she was during the Empire's rule, and she has affected many of the other storyarcs (most prominently Jack's and their son's). Hopefully they keep this story going for a while, with show more either or both of the "fairest" ladies as the protagonist! show less

This is a series that features the beautiful women of Fabletown. In this first issue we see how Ali Baba, Prince of Thieves is torn between Sleeping Beauty and The Snow Queen. With a short story at the end that explains a lot about The Beast and his Beauty, noir style. I have to say that Briar Rose is not one of my favorite characters and I think Ali Baba made the right choice when he decided that he prefers Lumi, the Snow Queen.

I think these are going to be a fun addition to the Fables storyline, after all, it pretty obvious that there is more to every Fable than what we see on the surface and I am looking forward to learning more about the women of Fables.

Another day, another Fables subseries. In a nutshell, we have the Winter Queen (back again for the first time in a while) and Sleeping Beauty, both woken by 'true loves' kiss' gone all complicated, as things are wont to do.



All narrated by a fat little blue genie, who can't grant wishes so much as spew pop culture and real world references.



I know right?

In any case, it's an interesting backstory to learn a bit more about Sleeping Beauty in this world (she's actually closer to her Fable than some) and see a bit of a redemption arc for the Winter Queen. I wonder how that will go on the longer run. Well worth the read though.

On top of that, there's also a bit more information about Beauty and the Beasts' child. So that's what Totemkinder show more meant. Le twist!

Spoilers and pictures:



More meta information!



Beast Noir? An interesting change in style.



Well that got quickly Cthulhian. For a fairy queen nonetheless. It's an interesting mix. show less

Description: New York Times bestselling, award-winning creator Bill Willingham presents a new series starring the beautiful, deadly ladies from his hit series FABLES. Balancing horror, humor and adventure in the FABLES tradition, FAIREST explores the secret histories of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, Snow White, Rose Red and others.

The first 6-issue tale follows the misadventures of Briar Rose immediately after the events of FABLES #107(collected in FABLES VOL. 16: SUPER TEAM), in which she was stolen away by the goblin army. Following this first collection, Willingham will serve as a consultant on all story arcs and introduce new writers from other mediums to the FABLES mythos.

Fan-favorite artist show more Phil Jimenez (WONDER WOMAN, THE INVISIBLES) returns to Vertigo to pencil the opening storyline. Award-winning cover artist Adam Hughes (WONDER WOMAN, BATGIRL) provides covers, starting with a wraparound cover on issue #1 that spotlights the lovely ladies who will star in the series.

Thoughts: Oh goody! Another Fables spin-off that's really lovely! I really enjoyed the first Cinderella spin-off but found the follow up Fables Are Forever a bit underwhelming so I wasn't sure how this one would turn out. Those Cindy stories are now going to be folded into this larger series that will feature many of the female Fables I love so much.

The first volume of Fairest wasn't a disappointment. I was a bit surprised that so much of the storyline was focused on a lesser known non-Fabletown resident female character, but she is a very interesting one. The intersection of that character's story with that of Briar Rose and how that led to the show down of the story arch was nice and satisfying.

I'm not sure how I feel about the last issue collected in this volume, issue 7 which is a stand-alone story arch. I won't give the story away in case anyone else follows the series, so I'll just say that it kind of turns a whole storyline on it's head completely and I'm not sure why it was done or how I feel about it. It was an intriguing read but I almost want them to come back in Fables and say "Ha! Just kidding, sucka!"

My biggest complaint, as always with comics, is that when a story is really intriguing, I want more. More exploration. More depth. More more more. This is, of course, why I can't really get into comics/graphic novels more than I am. I want novel length/worthy stuff that just happens to have pretty pictures and that just doesn't exist all that much. If only all comics writers were more like Will Eisner.

Rating: 3.8

Liked: 4
Plot: 4
Characterization: 4
Writing: 3

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