Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Bill Willingham

This volume was a great addition to the series.  While it doesn’t really fit in the middle of the volumes in any specific order, I highly recommend reading it just after The Good Prince. In these issues, we get to take a few peeks into the history of our favorite Fables like Fly, Snow White, King Cole and Bigby.

I enjoyed most of the art, which reached its peak (in my opinion) during Flycatcher’s tale.  It was just simply beautiful.  The issues are short, each ranging from a dozen or so pages to just one.  I think this is the volume’s greatest strength.  Instead of one big arc, we get to hop around and taste just a little of each beloved tale.  By the end of the last issue, readers get a sense of the tragedy that hit a lot of Fables before they were able to find sanctuary.  I highly recommend it to fans of the series.

Fables: War and Pieces (Volume Eleven)

Bill Willingham

This volume pretty much explains what’s inside with the title, though if you’ve read the other volumes that come before this, you’d already know war was at Fabletown’s doorstep.  What surprised me most about the issues at the end of this volume were the casualties of war.  I didn’t think we’d lose the characters we did–and I expected them to come back immediately, like in the case of Snow White.  Even Bigby seems to never die.  I suppose this sets up the questions regarding why certain characters come back from the dead and others don’t.  Previously it was stated that the more we (the Mundies) believe in them, the more solid their immortality is.  If this was the case though, Gretel would have come back immediately when her brother murdered her.  I’m worried about the truth behind this phenomenon.  I hope it’s explored in the next volume.

I see bad things happening in the future of this series–now that the Adversary is gone from the picture and everything seems to have ended in the best of ways, I can only predict tragedy, and lots of it.  I couldn’t put this volume down because I knew things would eventually hit the fan, and knowing it wasn’t in this volume only leaves the door open for the next to bring me to tears.  Man, sometimes it’s really hard to write these without giving away names and specific events.  Regardless, this volume marked the end of one villain and the possible start of another.  Here’s to hoping Boy Blue and Sinbad get it on! I mean…uhh, survive.

Also, I think this volume has the coolest of the covers.  Simple, but awesome.  What do you think?

Fables: The Good Prince (Volume Ten)

Bill Willingham

This volume was huge, but completely worth the pain of carrying it around.  At first, I thought the prince in the title referred to Prince Charming, and I was a bit hesitant to hop into the story.  I kind of enjoy disliking him.  However, I quickly realized from the cover that the prince in the issues has red hair–it’s Flycatcher.

From the beginning, I adored Fly and wanted to follow him during his quest.  I especially couldn’t contain my excitement to see Gretel, Lancelot, Trusty John and Weyland Smith.  This was the perfect epic tale filled with love, knights, honor, and great characters.  I am also pleased that Red Hiding Hood didn’t just forget her love and settle for someone else.  She left Fabletown behind and ended up with Fly, who completely deserves only wonderful things.

And speaking of Fly, the cover completely fooled me.  Stupid Willingham.  I was ready to have to accept Fly’s early death.  Thankfully the cover was mostly cruel and untrue.  There is an issue in the middle that takes a break from the drama going on in Haven.  Though I understand why it’s there, I think it could have been saved for another volume.  Also, I think I might have appreciated it more if it wasn’t done by a different artist.  I can’t help it!  I hate change!  The extras in this lengthy volume were covers for the issues, which I liked since the covers are usually awesome.  I think this may be my new favorite volume.  I give it a 5/5.

Fables: Sons of Empire (Volume Nine)

Bill Willingham

This volume felt kind of like a mix of everything we needed with, well, everything we needed.  It combined a lot of issues that detailed the lives of Fables who aren’t always in the spotlight while also continuing the plot.  I like the fact that this series is able to be about many different characters individually as well as the whole community.

Also, I am so very extra glad they cleared everything up about Santa.  I was wondering about that for a while.  Beyond that, I still think they need to find a new diary font.  It’s quite annoying for the font to be so curly and small.  And speaking of crazy things, Hansel is creeptastic.  He is by far the scariest character we’ve seen.  I really hope he just magically drops down the Witching Well, though I don’t think that’s going to prove an effective way of holding Fables.

The extras in this volume included several very short bits answering reader-submitted questions that weren’t central to the plot.  I thought they were super cute, especially the one detailing Blue’s favorite song.  I like that the extras are different in each volume.  Variety is the spice of life.  I’m eager to read the next volume!  Regardless, I give this one a 5/5.

The Night Bookmobile

Audrey Niffenegger

I saw this graphic novel won a few awards last year, so I decided to check out Audrey Niffenegger’s work.  I loved her novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, so I was pretty excited to read her graphic novel.  For those who have never heard of it, this graphic novel is about a woman who discovers a night bookmobile filled with only books she’s read.  After that night, her entire existence is centered around this “Library.”

The first thing I’ll say about this book is that it’s short.  It took me about ten minutes to read the whole thing.  The concept is really interesting, and according to the afterword, this is only part of something larger.  I wonder if Niffenegger has some kind of secret love for librarians since Henry of her other novel was also a librarian.  Well, I suppose if she does has a love for them, it’s hardly secret.  In any case, while I was a bit disappointed by the length of this novel, I look forward to seeing more from this line of thinking.

I find a certain comfort in thinking that somewhere, there is a librarian in charge of running a bookmobile filled with only the wonderful things I read.  I mean, they could just look at my goodreads account, but this idea is much cooler.  Also, I enjoyed the ending.  Now that I am going to library school, I’ve imagined Heaven to be something like that.  I give this short surprise a 3.5/5