A new Softcover collecting the acclaimed FABLES #11-18, including the 4-part "Storybook Love." Bluebeard hatches a plot to rid himself of Bigby and Snow by enchanting them, and the homicidal Goldilocks attempts to kill the pair. Meanwhile, Prince Charming decides to run for Fabletown Mayor.
Also included are the 2-part "A Sharp Operator", where the existence of Fabletown is discovered by a mundane journalist, and the single-issue tales "Bag o' Bones", showing Jack Horner's time in the American Civil War, and "Barleycorn Brides," where Bigby tells Flycatcher of an old Smalltown tradition. Don't miss this amazing third collection, topped off with a stunning new wraparound cover by James Jean.
About the Author
Bill Willingham has been writing, and sometimes drawing, comics for more than 20 years. During that time, he's had work published by nearly every comics publisher in the business, and he's created many critically acclaimed comic book series, including Elementals, Coventry, Proposition Players, and of course the seminal Vertigo series Fables, as well as its spin-off series Fairest, Jack of Fables and The Literals. His work has been nominated for many awards, including the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz comic industry awards and the International Horror Guild award. He lives somewhere near a good poker room.
About the Artist
Born in 1966 in the English seaside town of Clevedon, Mark Buckingham has worked in comics professionally for the past twenty years. In addition to illustrating all of Neil Gaiman's run on the post-Alan Moore Miracleman in the early 1990s, Buckingham contributed inks to The Sandman and its related miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living and Death: The Time of Your Life as well as working on various other titles for Vertigo and Marvel through the end of the decade. In 2002 he took over as the penciller for Bill Willingham's Fables, which has gone on to become one of the most popular and critically acclaimed Vertigo titles of the new millennium. When not in Clevedon, Buckingham can be found with his wife Irma in the Asturias region of northern Spain.
Industry Reviews
"The third collection of Fables, the Sandman spin-off about fairy-tale characters exiled in New York, contains four stories. The longest, "Storybook Love," is the most satisfying, but the others have their fairy-tale-like (i.e., grisly) charms. Revealing that the Jack of beanstalk fame and the Jack of the eponymous tall tales are identical, "Bag o' Bones" spins a Civil War yarn in which Jack detains the Grim Reaper, so that no one can die. In "a two-part caper" (all that's given in the way of a title), the Fables community puts Briar Rose, aka the Sleeping Beauty, back on slumberous hold to prevent exposure by a scandal-rag journalist. In "Barleycorn Bride," Bigby Wolf relays some of the Fables' early history in America to explain why 18-year-old Lilliputian boys try to steal magic barleycorns from a jar at the Fables' Manhattan headquarters. The long story concerns a plot to seize Fables leadership by Bluebeard and Goldilocks; it includes some Fables mainstays' apparent demises and begs for future development. Deucedly cleverly written, yeomanly drawn." - Ray Olson, Booklist
"The stories are of two sorts. Two stand-alone tales take place in past centuries and have a genuine fairytale feel and period charm. The others, set in the present, are gritty, with dysfunctional relationships, blackmail and murder attempts. Take the "mature audiences" advisory seriously: this is a book in which an adult Goldilocks can be seen naked or covered with blood. Despite its darker elements, Fables features wit and comedy; Willingham can even make scenes simultaneously farcical and horrific. The art ranges from the illustrative to cartoony, and its variety mirrors the stories' many moods." - Publishers Weekly
