Far from merely going for cheap laughs about princesses and wizards having sex, the story has pulled in readers with an action-packed narrative and genuine insights about human nature. For fans who were loyal to the series from the beginning, the last issue of Fables ushers in the era of nostalgia that follows the last page of a favorite book.
When you were developing Fables , which elements of the story came first? I think it was the setting, because I like the idea of secret societies. Vampires were done to death, and I was considering mythological characters for a while and decided they were still a little well-used.
So I kind of backed into it. After your pitch was accepted, were you left alone to write it, or were there unanticipated changes the publisher requested?
When I made the pitch, there were several story arcs planned, one of which was the murder mystery of Rose Red — which turned out not to be a murder-mystery — and the only thing Karen Berger, the head of Vertigo, asked was that I put that story line first. Her concern, I think, was that she wanted to make sure people knew this was not fairy tales out in the woods with people prancing around with unicorns and butterfly wings, because Vertigo was not a prancing-around-in-the-woods-with-unicorns kind of imprint.
She wanted gritty and urban, and the murder-mystery in New York seemed to be the most gritty and urban of the three or four story arcs at the time. Other than that, they said to go ahead and start writing them. Were there any specific themes you wanted to highlight? Not really. I wanted the characters to be new and interesting. I wanted it to seem like lots and lots of stuff had happened to the characters since the last time we saw them back in their original stories.
Did seeing those shows give you a sense of pride? I suppose so. In the waning years of his career ,my love for Isaac Asimov was colored by the fact that he went around taking credit for every story about robots written by anyone — and specifically because they either adhered to his Three Laws of Robotics or specifically ignored them.
Despite many characters being based on classic damsels in distress, these princesses are all of the kick-ass variety, even getting their own spin-off series Fairest , which had 33 issues of its own as well as the miniseries Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love. Fairest 1 Cover Art by Adam Huges. And yet, when you talk with Willingham, the author brushes off any specific intent or credit for that feminist aspect of Fables.
In fact, if anything he seems a little bashful about the subject, insisting that his role as storyteller is simply to tell compelling tales without the limitations of gender-bias. To ramp it up to a magical stage is just a way of heightening that. Behind the scenes, the core of Fables has stood on the long-lasting partnership between author, illustrator s and editor, and every member of the team has been decorated accordingly.
Cover artist James Jean, who worked on the series from the beginning until Fables 81, went on an unbelievable streak of Eisner wins, taking home Best Cover Artist for every year between Both Willingham and Buckingham have won Eisners as well, and the series was also nominated for Hugo Awards four years in a row, from It was a series that blossomed into maturity after a few years of those principal members growing together, as Buckingham observes:. I guess my strengths still tend to be the intimate interplay between characters and family moments between say, Snow White and Rose, but my style has evolved as a result of the partnership.
Fables 71 Cover Art by James Jean. And make no mistake, the characters of Fables have survived or occasionally perished in some true calamities. The initial storyline of the protagonists vs. Willingham admits that this was as far as he ever initially conceived for the story, but when they began drawing close to that point, there were still so many untold stories that he decided to press on.
As I explained to the fans then, Fables ends all the time. Most of that anxiousness landed on Mark, really. As a result, the two actually decided to physically sequester themselves from the world while planning and plotting the content of Fables That, and to enjoy the pleasure of working together one last time.
It helped us get in touch with the purity of the storytelling. I think that was extremely helpful for us. All of my favorite working relationships have tended to involve moments like that. So that is the bedrock of who we are as a species, so of course they're going to be important. Being able to be a storyteller by profession is a joy, and I think, a pretty big responsibility.
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