I've now read both Fables TPBs, and ...

...

I'm kinda 'meh' on them. Great idea, I love the idea. But something about the execution leaves me feeling like more could have been done with the concept and that Willingham wasn't making enough of an effort. And while I'm going to feel really bad for admitting this, I kept thinking "Huh. Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore would have done this better".

I am going to re-read them in a few weeks to see if I change my mind, because it's entirely possible I was just cranky when I read them.

And the characters feel incredibly flat, and the concept never rises above "I had this cool idea"

What she said. Yep, yep, yep.

I feel the characters are not only vibrant but very consistently characterized, and Willingham has done a great job of world-building over the course of his run, expanding the history of the fleeing from the Homeland and the mystery of the Adversary. In addition, I think he really has explored the ramifications of his concept, how Fabletown really would function among the Mundies, and he's gotten in a lot of nice political satire. March of the Wooden Soldiers showed he wasn't afraid to pull any punches when it came to offing characters. That was one brutal battle, and I loved how our heroes made reasonable mistakes and weren't able to entirely overcome them.

I don't think I can convince you otherwise, and I don't really know how to argue. I just think you're both wrong.

I like Fables, quite a lot, but I'm not prepared to worship at his altar, since there were issues that fell resoundingly flat to me. More often than not, I do enjoy it, and will be pimping it to a co-worker in about ten minutes.

P-C, have you read any of the Sandman collections? I'm curious to know what you think of it vs. Fables in terms of writing and world-building.

Jilli, I haven't set aside the time to do Sandman yet. I want to do it when I can read all ten volumes in succession.

Jilli, I haven't set aside the time to do Sandman yet. I want to do it when I can read all ten volumes in succession.

Okay. Because it felt to me that Willingham was trying to fill the gap left by Sandman, and not *quite* carrying it off. I still found Fables to be an entertaining read, but an oddly flat-seeming one. And considering that you and my pseudo-big-brother have raved and raved about it, I was even more disappointed by my reaction.

I haven't liked any of the Fables, either. Great idea, but as a writer, Willingham is a good artist. Actually, I thought the same of his Sandman apocrypha. I think the man just can't write imaginative-yet-realistic dialogue to save his life, and his stories can generally be predicted from the first panel. Since most of the comics I've read are by Gaiman, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, or Bendis, it may be that I have impossibly high standards.

Actually, I thought the same of his Sandman apocrypha

Huh? What did he write that was Sandman -related?

It was called something like "Everything that you always wanted to know about The Dreaming but were afraid to ask."