Fables is a Vertigo comic that started just as i stopped reading comics regularly, which according to wikipedia was 2002! It’s based in a world in which the characters from children’s stories were chased out of Fable (their home world) and into our own, New York to be exact, with the animals and monsters having to live in uptown New York in an area known as the farm.

This is well travelled territory, with movies such as Shrek, and other comics such as Alan Moore’s Smax, but the quality of the writing/ art and  the quite adult themes differentiate it form the others. The writer Bill Willingham is a new name to me, but seems to be well established in the comic world,  and it is drawn by Mark Buckingham (of Hellblazer and Shade the changing man fame). It has to date won 13 Eisner awards (the comic version of an oscar), so has received lots of praise in its own world.

I happened upon the first 6 volumes in a second hand store in Rathmines, and took a risk and bought them! It’s an enjoyable read with scenes like when Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty discussing their ex husband (the well known cad) prince charming, and the only thing they can agree on is that he’s good in bed. The story focuses on Snow White who runs the fable community and Wolf (as in the big bad one) who is the town’s detective, but has all the regular characters you would expect. It’s nice and daft and doesn’t take itself too serious, and the Buckingham gets better with every volume. Its available on loan from the Morgan Quinn memorial library, just put a not in the comment box below!