The Culture

This book collects the six issue mini-series, from Vertigo, that is a spin-off from Fables. It was written by Chris Roberson who is currently also writing iZombie for the same company. The art was by the great Shawn McManus whose work I don’t seem to see nearly enough these days.

Cinderella, the apparent fashion show hopping socialite, is actually an experienced spy for Fabletown. In this story she is sent off to try and discover and eliminate the source of the flow of magical artefacts into the Mundy world from the Homelands. On the way she hooks up with Aladdin who is on the same mission. Together they uncover a plot to sell artefacts for Mundy weapons so that various individuals can make concerted assaults on Homeland territories now that the Emperor has been defeated. Cindy finds the mission turns personal when confronted with a figure from her past.

This is a fun tale from the world of Fables. The dialogue between Cindy and Aladdin is good and there is enough twists on the expectations of the character of Cinderella to keep the book entertaining throughout. It reminded me a lot of the early days of the Fables series itself when it was much more dependant on its fairy tale origins than it is currently. I love the art by McManus but then I have loved his work from the time of the Dr Fate series from the mid to late 80s.