Tag Archives: Dan Green

Fables: Rose Red (2011)

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Quote:
He’s never fought a duel. I’m an expert at it. He’s agreed to a game he barely knows, where I own the game board, the pieces, the dice – everything.

 

This is volume 15 of the ongoing Vertigo series and collects issues 94 – 100. As usual it was superbly written by Bill Willingham and beautifully pencilled (for the most of the book) by Mark Buckingham. The inking was done by a combination of Steve Leialoha, Andrew Pepoy and Dan Green. There was also a chapter with art by Spanish artist Inaki Miranda which was in a very nice manga-lite style.

This volume finally sees Rose Red emerge from the depressive torpor that she had been suffering from since the death of Boy Blue. This is achieved by a mysterious entity who changes form from the pig’s head, who had been trying to talk her round, to her mother and talks to Rose about her childhood and what really happened when Snow White had to leave the family. The book also sees the culmination of the story started in the previous volume with Frau Totenkinder completing her research and returning to do battle with Mister Dark, the mysterious figure who has ousted the Fables from their New York home.

Though it is unfair to judge individual volumes due to the length of some of the story arcs, this volume was far superior to the previous one as it gave us a complete mini-story with the back story of Snow White and Rose Red and the end of the story of Frau Totenkinder’s plan to deal with Mister Dark. I was glad to see Rose revived in this book. Willingham writes a lot of strong female characters in this series and Rose was one of my favourites. So it was sad to see her virtually written out of the book and mistreated by Jack Horner only, I suspect, because it was easier on the writers to have her out of the way for the crossover story. This volume contains the hundredth issue of Fables which had the climax of the Mister Dark/Frau Totenkinder story but as it was a bumper 100 page celebratory issue it also contained some special material such as a prose story from Mark Buckingham that was illustrated by Bill Willingham and a beautifully illustrated story of the the Three Mice from current cover artist Joao Ruas. And I have to say that as much as I love James Jean’s work on the covers, Ruas has created my favourite with this heart achingly beautiful image of Rose:

Jack of Fables: The End (2011)

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Quote:
What kinds of heroes would we be if we retired having never slain an actual dragon?

 

And so we come to the final collection of the Jack of Fables comics. This is volume 9 and it collects issues 46 – 50. It was again written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges. The art was mainly by Tony Akins and Andrew Pepoy but also with contributions by Dan Green, Russ Braun and Bill Reinhold.

Set an unspecified number of years in the future, this book sees Jack Frost about to retire after years of adventuring and heroic deeds. But just as he is about to call it a day he is hired to slay a fearsome dragon and agrees as it is something he has never done before. However, he finds that he is not the only one to have an interest in this particular dragon.

First of all the best thing about this book is the return of those hot librarians the Page sisters – Priscilla, Robin and Hillary – who are on their own quest to reassemble the Great Library and restore their Literal powers. It is good to see those characters again – possibly for the last time(?). However the book spends too much time reuniting us with characters from Jack’s past for no great reason other than to be cannon fodder in the climax of the book. A disappointing end to what was a good series with no sign of the wicked humour upon which it made its name.

Bill and Matt have more or less stated that they had run of ideas and there was very little room for pushing the boundaries of the character once it had been revealed that he had slept with his sisters. But to take 15 issues to wrap it up in such a way as they have seems like extreme overindulgence to me. I would have much rather his story had come to an end in the crossover storyline. Sadly, this book will not be missed by me – and I never thought I would have said that when it was at its height.