Monday 26 March 2018

Fables: Legends in Exile by: Bill Willingham

Genre: Comic Book, Fantasy
Published: December 31, 2000 by: Vertigo
Pages: 128
Rating: 4/5 stars



The characters from all your favourite fairy tales and fables have been exiled to a magical building right in the heart of New York City! Snow White is the mayor of Fabletown, a massive skyscraper that houses all of the magical creatures from fairy tales. When her sister, Rose Red goes missing and is presumed dead, it is up to Snow White and Fabletown's police sheriff, The Big Bad Wolf, to uncover if the killer is Rose Red's husband Bluebeard, or her past lover, the troubled Jack (from the bean stock).

I was not expecting to be as big of fan of this comic book as I was! I've had kinda a love-hate with comic books before, but this one had a thrilling plot, some amazing characters, and of course I couldn't help but find it so cool that they were all from beloved fairy tales!

All of the characters were so badass. You would not expect Snow White to be this hard hitting, feminist mayor, but Willingham gave her such a great storyline! Not to mention that Cinderella is also a fencer who kicks some ass, and who divorced Prince Charming. This book brought harder themes onto characters who were once considered to be damsels in distress, and I thought that was awesome.

The plot was really cool too. I was weary that this comic would just be a cheesy representation of fairy tale characters, but the fact that there was a literal murder mystery in it was amazing! This book is definitely not for children, but it was nice for the adults to get an age appropriate fairy tale retelling that was more complex. While I'm still not sold that the comic book format is for me, this was definitely the best I've read.

Have you read Fables: Legends in Exile? What did you think?

Emily @ Paperback Princess

6 comments:

  1. There are some awesome comics/graphic novels out there Em ;)

    Maybe it's a mind-set thing with you and comics though - like, maybe you're approaching it as a book (and so bringing certain expectations) rather than a medium in its own right that just happens to be taking book form?

    Just a theory! Feel free to tell me to shut up! Lol.

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    1. No, I get that! I do keep comparing them to books which doesn’t help but I think that’s why I dislike them? I just can’t feel connected with the story then there’s little text and just pictures.

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  2. Wow, I didn't realize it would have such amazing characters! Snow White, in particular, sounds really kickass. I'm not a fan of comics myself, but I must admit this one sounds hella promising!

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    1. It really was! I wasn’t expecting some of the princesses to be as well written as they were.

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  3. Glad you are giving comics/graphic novels a chance.
    4/5 stars is not bad in my neck of the woods and I do love fairy tale retellings.
    Thanks for bringing it to my atention!

    Dinh@Arlene's Book Club

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    1. I'm glad I'm exposing myself to new genres but at the same time I do not think the genre as a whole is my cup of tea. But if you love fairy tales, I think you'd love this!!

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