Comparing anyone to Gaiman and Moore is a tad unfair, don't you think? I mean they're more than a little exceptional.

Oh, I know. Which is why I'm going to re-read Fables and try and not make those comparisons. But it will be hard, considering the set-up of Fables is similar to things both Gaiman and Moore have done.

Eh, it's just working with Fairytales, really. Which is all anyone does when you think about it. Personally, I'm all about Bigby Wolf, though. Him and Rose Red.

Eh, it's just working with Fairytales, really.

Yeah, that's how I saw it.

Personally, I'm all about Bigby Wolf, though. Him and Rose Red.

I'm definitely with you on Bigby, but I haven't got much of a sense of Rose. We've seen much more of Snow.

I like Rose too, and was very sad when Weyland bought it -- because of her. Bigby rocks the house, though, and I don't just think that's leftover Logan-lust talking.

I don't like the stories that are narrated. No damned reason a comic should fall down there, but that's pretty much the ones that are resoundingly flat for me. Everything happening in the here and now pleases me.

Everything happening in the here and now pleases me.

I'm with you. I wasn't as big a fan of the "back then" stories (with the exception of The Last Castle, the flashback to the day the Fables left the Homeland).

Even The Last Castle didn't do it for me. The Thumbelina story, the WWII one -- big old YAWN.

Comparing anyone to Gaiman and Moore is a tad unfair, don't you think? I mean they're more than a little exceptional.

I don't know... anyone writing Vertigo comic books specifically dealing with how figures out of myths and fairytales interact with the modern world would be pretty naive if he didn't expect to be held up for comparison. Though perhaps my own impression that Willingham has the ego that Gaiman and Moore have actually earned and yet thankfully don't possess makes me less than sympathetic.

Though perhaps my own impression that Willingham has the ego that Gaiman and Moore have actually earned and yet thankfully don't possess makes me less than sympathetic.

There is this.

I think it might be an issue of approach, when comparing the two. Neil started out Sandman as a tale of fairly unique characters who inhabit their own fantasy realm and then had them interact with and come to embody certain mythological/fairytale figures as part of the series' progression. Fables is kind of going about it the opposite direction, taking an established fairytale mythos (several of them, actually) and trying to place them all within a brand-new conceptual space. It's bound to create some disconnect when it comes to the way things develop.

I was in Half-Price Books, and they have a 2005 Batman wall calendar of art from Hush. I may need to own it.