Release Date: Hardcover: October 18, 2006
Trade Paperback: March 5, 2008
Cost: $16.99
Since 2002, Bill Willingham has been entertaining audiences with his comic book series Fables, a smart look at what happens after happily ever after. Willingham has appropriated hundreds of public domain fairy tale characters, such as Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf, and woven all of their stories into a single gripping epic that has become the heir apparent to Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus, The Sandman.
Fables focuses on the lives of fairy tale creatures forced out of their own magical kingdoms by the evil Adversary and living a secretive life in the “mundane” world of New York City. But what happened to all of these characters before issue #1? How did many of our favourite fairy tale heroes and villains get to where they are today?
Willingham attempts to satiate our curiosity in the graphic novel anthology 1001 Nights of Snowfall, a companion piece to the core stories of the Fables universe.
The main storyline of the graphic novel revolves around Snow White being sent to negotiate an alliance with the Arabian Fables against the Adversary. However, when she meets the Sultan she must tell a different story every night to prevent him from beheading her.
This nicely sets up the use of an anthology structure. Each story has a different artist, is a different length, and describes a different character’s history before issue #1. This structure allows Willingham and his team of artists to offer the reader a wide variety of tales. Some tales are horrific and disturbing, some are light and jovial, but all reveal a little more insight into the lives of fairy tales creature before the Adversary pushed them from their lands.
As with many anthologies, some stories work better than others. The powerhouse sections of the graphic novel are the tales involving Bigby, Snow White, and Frau Totenkinder as each tale helps to flesh out the important back-stories for these main characters. Other tales are not as successful; some, like the Mersey Dotes piece, seem like filler and others, like the King Cole section, go on for far too long.
In looking at the Sultan sections, I must confess that I never have been a big fan of comic books that are set up in novel format with a large section of text beside a picture. This has always seemed to me to play against the established conventions of comic books by providing the reader with too few visual cues. I have also felt that it is somewhat pretentious, as if comic book writers are trying to overcome their own inadequacies by demonstrating to the world that they can write outside of little word balloons.
Those minor quibbles aside 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a solid read and welcome edition to the other Fables trade paperbacks already on my shelf. It retails for about $16.99 and it took me about 2 hours to read. Anyone who is already a Fables fan will get $8.50 per hour of entertainment value out of it, but for anyone who isn’t a already a fan my advice would be to read the series first and then pick up this anthology.
Since 2002, Bill Willingham has been entertaining audiences with his comic book series Fables, a smart look at what happens after happily ever after. Willingham has appropriated hundreds of public domain fairy tale characters, such as Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf, and woven all of their stories into a single gripping epic that has become the heir apparent to Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus, The Sandman.
Fables focuses on the lives of fairy tale creatures forced out of their own magical kingdoms by the evil Adversary and living a secretive life in the “mundane” world of New York City. But what happened to all of these characters before issue #1? How did many of our favourite fairy tale heroes and villains get to where they are today?
Willingham attempts to satiate our curiosity in the graphic novel anthology 1001 Nights of Snowfall, a companion piece to the core stories of the Fables universe.
The main storyline of the graphic novel revolves around Snow White being sent to negotiate an alliance with the Arabian Fables against the Adversary. However, when she meets the Sultan she must tell a different story every night to prevent him from beheading her.
This nicely sets up the use of an anthology structure. Each story has a different artist, is a different length, and describes a different character’s history before issue #1. This structure allows Willingham and his team of artists to offer the reader a wide variety of tales. Some tales are horrific and disturbing, some are light and jovial, but all reveal a little more insight into the lives of fairy tales creature before the Adversary pushed them from their lands.
As with many anthologies, some stories work better than others. The powerhouse sections of the graphic novel are the tales involving Bigby, Snow White, and Frau Totenkinder as each tale helps to flesh out the important back-stories for these main characters. Other tales are not as successful; some, like the Mersey Dotes piece, seem like filler and others, like the King Cole section, go on for far too long.
In looking at the Sultan sections, I must confess that I never have been a big fan of comic books that are set up in novel format with a large section of text beside a picture. This has always seemed to me to play against the established conventions of comic books by providing the reader with too few visual cues. I have also felt that it is somewhat pretentious, as if comic book writers are trying to overcome their own inadequacies by demonstrating to the world that they can write outside of little word balloons.
Those minor quibbles aside 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a solid read and welcome edition to the other Fables trade paperbacks already on my shelf. It retails for about $16.99 and it took me about 2 hours to read. Anyone who is already a Fables fan will get $8.50 per hour of entertainment value out of it, but for anyone who isn’t a already a fan my advice would be to read the series first and then pick up this anthology.
