By Amanda
Anyone who’s known me for any considerable length of time learns that I am crazy about fairy tales. I love centuries-old collections of folk tales, I love retellings, I love fairy tales set in modern day. So it shouldn’t be a shock that one of my gateways into the world of comics was Fables. I share this information with you partly to share my bias for Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s amazing creation, but also to share that I’m amazed how after 141 issues and the spinoff comic Fairest, I’m still in awe of the combined creativity and excellent storytelling of this pair, and wish other comics would take note.
In the wake of comic events spanning the Marvel and DC universes, I am getting tired of the “biggest game changers.” Specifically when I think of this problem, I think of Batman or X-Men. Maybe the underlying cause of my issue with major events is that I get bored of the classic superhero story pretty quickly, but I love Gail Simone’s Babs and the all-female team of X-Men. I love stories that make me care about the person behind the mask. What irks me most about Marvel and DC comics is that little asterisk and “See Comic So-and-So to Catch Up.” There’s a reason that I’m not buying Comic So-and-So. Mostly cause of limited funds.
In the wake of comic events spanning the Marvel and DC universes, I am getting tired of the “biggest game changers.” Specifically when I think of this problem, I think of Batman or X-Men. Maybe the underlying cause of my issue with major events is that I get bored of the classic superhero story pretty quickly, but I love Gail Simone’s Babs and the all-female team of X-Men. I love stories that make me care about the person behind the mask. What irks me most about Marvel and DC comics is that little asterisk and “See Comic So-and-So to Catch Up.” There’s a reason that I’m not buying Comic So-and-So. Mostly cause of limited funds.
This problem however is solved by having a dynamic more like the one between Fables and Fairest than the current one in crossovers. The two titles share a synergy unlike any that I am really seeing in other universes. Fairest, which debuted in 2012, does not continue any storylines from its source, but rather enriches the overall world of Fabletown. Their overlap works well and you do not have to buy both comics to understand what’s going on. For example, after any major event in the Marvel universe, I don’t know what the hell Jubilee, Storm, and the others are up to, and I have to search a lot in context clues to get answers.
With Willingham and Buckingham’s stories, I do not have to buy both issues each month to see the whole picture. Instead, the comics use subtle blending of both storylines to allow “insiders” special insights to their favorite characters and foreshadowing. As Fairest #26 closed, it featured Ms. Spratt and her highly suspicious ring, not essential to the storyline whatsoever. The next issue referred to previous events of the voting of Fabletown’s Mayor at the end of the issue rather than making it a cornerstone of facts that you had to know. In fact, the issue recaps what happens enough to let newcomers learn what happened.
One of the major issues in comics nowadays is this barrier to newbies. We’ve guarded our geekiness so closely that latecomers or young people can be intimidated by trolls or simply by the vastness of the worlds that already exist. So much information and previous storylines exist in comics that no one—NO ONE—knows everything, and sometimes Marvel and DC make it harder for people to enjoy their comics by making events an all-or-nothing deal. I don’t want to have to buy 50 issues just to understand the one that I care about, which is why this month, Fables and Fairest made reading so enjoyable. [Yes, I know that technically Vertigo is DC. However, the comics in the Vertigo line still have a higher storytelling quality than the New 52, so deal.] |