Naturally, as we grew old, the tales lost their inherent magic touch on us - and we simply slipped into the mundane realities that we are so familiar with. But, what if... what is life did indeed go on for our fairy tales? How would it possibly go?
Well, for starters, Bill Willingham has given us a glimpse of such life in the now critically acclaimed 'Fables' - and its so easy to get into the story, seeing as how a lot of the characters in Fable town (yes, that's what they call a part of New York where they live - and yes... I did type out New York) live. Old King Cole is the mayor (no monarchs in the U.S. of A.) and his chief administrator is Snow (White), and that's just for starters. The person keeping the peace happens to be Bigby - and I'll just keep Bigby's little secret - of how he is better known as for a while.
Naturally, what good is a story without a villain? Right? Well, this villain is veiled in shrouded mystery - even the Fables do not know his (or her?) identity - all they know is that they've been caught in a grip of tyrannical conquest, and have escaped to the mundane world... though not all of them were able to make it out - so others are feared captured... possibly even dead.
Being Fables, though, some of them are somehow immortal - for so long as their stories are being told, they will not die. Hence a successful attempt at Snow's life proves the point. Sure she's wounded unto death's door - just for a while, but is soon in the process (albeit slow and painful) of recovery - pretty soon she's back to looking like the fairest of them all.
But even Snow has some secrets - ones she never wants to share, and are only hinted as some stories she tells others (like what exactly befell of the seven dwarves fates), and here - as in many occasions, is where many readers will realize that this fable is not being told for children's sake. Nope - there's the usual intrigue, back stabbing, arguments, spies, promiscuity amongst long time partners - or not, and other stuff best kept to the adults.
After all, if anything is to be gleaned from Willingham's fables, its that our favorite characters are - just like most humans, imperfect. Forced to live out of their realm, and faced with a common threat, they forget past affronts, and have banded together to try survive while experiencing the non-magical realm of the mundanes (keeping themselves secretly hidden in plain sight) and just making a life for themselves.
If you're wondering where to start said adventure, well... the logical point would be at the start of Bill's tale, naturally. Be warned, however, that these tales now number in the hundreds - and I have such great envy for anyone starting to read Fables and their continuing adventures for the very first time.
You might have some difficulties finding past issues of the comicbooks - I did say they were in comicbook format, right? No? Well they are... anyway, if you can't find the comics, then get the trades - in fact, these trades have of recent times, been reprinted into deluxe hardcover versions... and I just got my third volume fairly recently. So I know that anyone who wishes to jump in and read up on the Fables, can easily do just that. After all, I'm a classic example of the latter - deciding to collect the Deluxe trades, rather than the per issue versions. I may not be up to date with what's happening... but that's all right. These stories are still as timeless as the way they started.
I cannot recommend this enough - but be warned, it may still be hard to explain what happens next to a young child, eager to know what happens after "...and they lived happily ever after.", after all, it seems our Fables are still trying to achieve that elusive goal... but then, aren't we all?
Fables is a series of graphic novels published by DC under its Vertigo line. If you wish to see more covers and snippets of plot lines per graphic novel, here's a site you can reference: Fables Graphic Novels
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