I've read the first 4-5 volumes of Bill Willingham's Fables. That's only about 1/4 of the way through the series. Seeing as how I have no clue how that series ended, I wasn't sure what I'd be getting into with this continuation, especially since this isn't even written by Willingham. The "Fables" were magical beings from another realm that had to flee the powerful forces of someone known only as "The Adversary". Once the Fables came to our world, they became the basis for our Fairy Tales. The Fa I've read the first 4-5 volumes of Bill Willingham's Fables. That's only about 1/4 of the way through the series. Seeing as how I have no clue how that series ended, I wasn't sure what I'd be getting into with this continuation, especially since this isn't even written by Willingham. The "Fables" were magical beings from another realm that had to flee the powerful forces of someone known only as "The Adversary". Once the Fables came to our world, they became the basis for our Fairy Tales. The Fables were extremely long lived. They weren't immortal because they could be killed, but many injuries that would have taken humans a long time to recover from took very little time to heal for a Fable. Humans, known as "mundies" or "mundanes" to the Fables, each know some Fairy Tales based on the individual Fables. The more humans that know about a specific Fable the longer lived and quicker recovering that Fable is. I'm having to guess here, but I imagine that near the end of Bill Willingham's Fables series, they defeated the Adversary which caused an Everafter event. This event caused some humans to develop magical powers turning them into Fables. Other beings from different folklore around the world have come to life as well. Chaos has spread over the world. The Fables had always kept themselves secret until now, but since the Everafter event, the whole world knows about them. Some of the Fables have chosen to help protect mankind against the Fables that have much more nefarious plans.The Shadow Players is a secret agency, think MI6 and James Bond with magical powers, that is main force trying to protect the humans. The book starts off with Little Bo Peep, Hansel, and Peter Piper trying to make their way to young girl that destroyed almost everything in St. Louis, Missouri. While these 3 are out in the field on assignment, Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf, 2 of the major players in the original Fables series, bring their son Conner Wolf to the head of the Shadow Players, Feathertop, so that Conner can become their newest agent. The reader, along with Conner, gets introduced to all of the people behind the scenes at the Shadow Players agency. Conner gets sent on his first mission and makes some rookie mistakes. Native American folklore comes into the story, and we get better acquainted with all of the lead characters. I'm not going to go into any more detail than that because it would much of the book.The first 5 issues in the book tell one big story while the final issue stands on its own. I'm not often a fan of single issues stories because they seem to be just filler material. I really enjoyed this one though. A magician tells a beautiful about how he saw a magic show at a birthday party as a child which led him to pursue a career as a stage magician. Once the Everafter event happened, he gained real magical powers. He then goes on to tell her how Feathertop approached him to come work a mission for the Shadow Players.Dave Justus & Lilah Sturges are the writers for the series. This duo has captured the essence of the original series and its adult-oriented humor. I laughed out loud a few times while reading this book. The spoken dialogue between characters is the best part of the book. The plot itself is good, but Justus and Sturges really hit the nail on the head when it comes to character interactions. While this is a continuation of Fables, it also serves as a brand new starting point. A lot of time is spent introducing characters to the readers which slows things down a bit, but that can be expected with volume 1 of almost every comic series ever created. Overall, the book writing was quite enjoyable and has me looking forward to more of the series. The writing score is 4 stars. Travis Moore pencils issues #1-5, and Steve Rolston handles #6. Moore has the better artwork. Everything Moore draws is highly detailed. All of the characters look great so there isn't one character that really stands out as being better than any of the others. The style of art used really matches the dark, adult tone of the series. Rolston's art has a more cartoonish feel to it and seems like it would be more at home in a children's book. The characters look good, but the style just doesn't fit the mature tone of the rest of the book. Rolston's art being so out of place detracts a little from the art score, but not much because it's only in one issue and the rest of the book looks fantastic. 4.5 star for the art.Anybody that has read the original Fables series or any of its spin-offs will enjoy this one. I wouldn't really suggest starting here if you're new to the Fables world, but it's certainly possible since the writers give you some background info to get you up to speed. Still, you'd be missing out on some great stuff in the series if this is your starting point. This one gets an overall rating of 4.25 stars. ***** I got a digital copy of this from the site Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
more
