Will ‘Fables’ #75 Be ‘Happily Ever After?’ Bill Wi...
Will ‘Fables’ #75 Be ‘Happily Ever After?’ Bill Willingham Drops Hints In Our Exclusive Interview
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SexiVixxEN 75 days ago
It’s kind of a cliche in comics. Replace a character, kill a character off, tinker with the tried-and-true formula, and call it change. Soon after, the character comes back, or is alive again — and the status quo is quo once more. “Stan Lee established this idea — don’t give change, give the illusion of change,” said Bill Willingham.
Willingham is the creator/writer of “Fables,” which after the issue that comes out this week (issue #75) is going to prove the cliche wrong. “75 is one of those milestone issues,” he said. “It will re-write what the Fables have been so far. It’s the one that changes everything, and the changes are permanent.”
For the past few years, the characters of Fables — reinvented, clever takes on Pinnochio, the Big Bad Wolf, Little Boy Blue and more — have been living among us, in a secret part of New York City they call Fabletown. Turns out Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all share the same ex — the same Prince Charming married all of them.
The Fables living in the mundane (as in our) world are refugees — they left the Homelands to escape the wrath of a man they call the Adversary (the woodcarver Geppetto, who had conquered all the magical worlds with his wooden soldiers), but they weren’t able to escape him entirely, and so they’ve had to go to war. The shooting and spell-work started a few issues back, but the final battles are in 75, and after who won the war is determined, nothing can go back to the way it was, and a certain witch takes center stage (they call her Frau Totenkinder, but she’s basically every witch who never had a name).
“There is always one character around whom the others orbit,” Willingham said, “and she takes the center gravitational mass. She’s been laying the groundwork, moving the Fables around like chess pieces, and the war is a culmination of all that. In some ways, after 75, it becomes Frau’s series, guest starring everyone else.”
But it will be Cindy who actually gets her own series, a six-issue miniseries called “Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love,” starting next year, now that she can put her spycraft to use outside of the war effort. “She makes James Bond look like an amateur,” Willingham said. “It will be every wonderful super spy thing you can imagine her doing. You will discover how a human spy who only has one lifetime to develop his skills does not come up to snuff with her, and you’ll also learn what happened to her fairy godmother all those years ago.”
Jack Horner, who already has his own spinoff, “Jack of Fables,” will come back for a three-issue crossover miniseries, also next year, called “The Literals.” “I tend to have a rule: don’t contradict the characters as we know them,” Willingham said. “You can examine them more, take a different point of view, but you don’t re-create the facts. Jack, however, is his own thing, and as a force of chaos, he takes over any story he’s in. There can be multiple Jacks, so you’re going to find out something about Jack and his basic nature in this one.”
Because of the nature of all the stories being told, you don’t need to have read every issue to be able to jump into the comic — you already know the cast. “Why not revisit them and see what they’ve been up to since the last time you looked in on them?” Willingham asked. “It’s definitely not kids’ stuff. We’re making it as close to the evil blackhearted tone of the original stories. We’re bringing it back.”
’Fables #75 Cover ’Fables’ #75, Page 1 ’Fables’ #75, Page 2
Do you read “Fables”? What do you think of it? Would you want to see it adapted into a film or TV series?
Willingham is the creator/writer of “Fables,” which after the issue that comes out this week (issue #75) is going to prove the cliche wrong. “75 is one of those milestone issues,” he said. “It will re-write what the Fables have been so far. It’s the one that changes everything, and the changes are permanent.”
For the past few years, the characters of Fables — reinvented, clever takes on Pinnochio, the Big Bad Wolf, Little Boy Blue and more — have been living among us, in a secret part of New York City they call Fabletown. Turns out Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all share the same ex — the same Prince Charming married all of them.
The Fables living in the mundane (as in our) world are refugees — they left the Homelands to escape the wrath of a man they call the Adversary (the woodcarver Geppetto, who had conquered all the magical worlds with his wooden soldiers), but they weren’t able to escape him entirely, and so they’ve had to go to war. The shooting and spell-work started a few issues back, but the final battles are in 75, and after who won the war is determined, nothing can go back to the way it was, and a certain witch takes center stage (they call her Frau Totenkinder, but she’s basically every witch who never had a name).
“There is always one character around whom the others orbit,” Willingham said, “and she takes the center gravitational mass. She’s been laying the groundwork, moving the Fables around like chess pieces, and the war is a culmination of all that. In some ways, after 75, it becomes Frau’s series, guest starring everyone else.”
But it will be Cindy who actually gets her own series, a six-issue miniseries called “Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love,” starting next year, now that she can put her spycraft to use outside of the war effort. “She makes James Bond look like an amateur,” Willingham said. “It will be every wonderful super spy thing you can imagine her doing. You will discover how a human spy who only has one lifetime to develop his skills does not come up to snuff with her, and you’ll also learn what happened to her fairy godmother all those years ago.”
Jack Horner, who already has his own spinoff, “Jack of Fables,” will come back for a three-issue crossover miniseries, also next year, called “The Literals.” “I tend to have a rule: don’t contradict the characters as we know them,” Willingham said. “You can examine them more, take a different point of view, but you don’t re-create the facts. Jack, however, is his own thing, and as a force of chaos, he takes over any story he’s in. There can be multiple Jacks, so you’re going to find out something about Jack and his basic nature in this one.”
Because of the nature of all the stories being told, you don’t need to have read every issue to be able to jump into the comic — you already know the cast. “Why not revisit them and see what they’ve been up to since the last time you looked in on them?” Willingham asked. “It’s definitely not kids’ stuff. We’re making it as close to the evil blackhearted tone of the original stories. We’re bringing it back.”
’Fables #75 Cover ’Fables’ #75, Page 1 ’Fables’ #75, Page 2
Do you read “Fables”? What do you think of it? Would you want to see it adapted into a film or TV series?
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