Fables Vol. 3: Storybook Love (Paperback)

~ (Author), Mark Buckingham (Illustrator), Lan Medina (Illustrator), Bryan Talbot (Illustrator), Linda Medley (Illustrator)
Key Phrases: Daniel Vozzo

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One of the stories in this new collection is appropriately titled "Into the Woods." Like Stephen Sondheim's musical, Willingham's series presents figures from childhood fairytales contending with the problems of adult life. Snow White, Briar Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty), Prince Charming, Little Boy Blue and Goldilocks all appear, as does a trickster named Jack. So does the Big Bad Wolf, who is inescapably reminiscent of Marvel's Wolverine. Even Gulliver's Lilliputians turn up, as do talking animals. This volume collects issues 11 through 18, and, as with many contemporary comics, it will be difficult for readers who haven't started with the first issue to get their bearings. The fairytale characters comprise a community of immortals known as "Fables," who now hide in plain sight from the mundane normal people (known as "mundys," they're much like J.K. Rowling's muggles) in a section of New York City called Fabletown. 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Vertigo (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140120256X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401202569
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,848 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #27 in

  Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Fantasy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Quartet of Tales, November 2, 2004

By	Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Unlike in the first two volumes of Fables, there is no single story arc in this one. Instead we get four tales of different lengths that help fill in the Fables world.

In "Bag o' Bones" Jack the Giant Killer has allied with the South in the Civil War. Once fortunes turn against the South, Jack winds up having adventures involving the Devil, Death, and a beautiful cursed Southern Belle.

In "a Two-Part Caper" a reporter contacts Bigby to let him know that he knows his secret. He has discovered the colony of immortals and is convinced that they are vampires. Bigby, with the help of Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, the Frog Prince, Prince Charming and Boy Blue, makes a late night raid to ensure their secret is kept.

In "Storybook Love", the longest story in the collection, Bigby and Snow become targets and are removed from Fabletown, Prince Charming squares off against Bluebeard, a villain returns, unforseen repercussions arise, and Charming decides to look into running for mayor.

Bigby tells The Frog Prince the story of "Barleycorn Bride" wherein John Barleycorn must help the rest of the refugee Lilliputians find brides their own size.

The tales in this volume are well-done. The first and last help fill in some of the history while the middle two move the modern story along very nicely. Another very entertaining read.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Storybook Horror and Hatred, April 3, 2006

By	Andrew "Radaar" (Chicago, IL, USA) - See all my reviews

In the third volume of Bill Willingham's great Fables, we are treated to multiple storyarcs. Two one-shots, a two part caper, and a four part revenge story make up the plotlines of Storybook Love, which is the best volume yet.
Starting with Bag of Bones, we see some things that Jack of the Tales has done to earn his trickster reputation. In an attempt to get rich, he intended to marry a southern belle and would win her over by joining the Confederates in the Civil War. Though, as we all know, the war didn't turn out the way he expected it to. After the war, he ran into a (possibly demonic) man whom he bamboozled in a card game. Using a magic sack won from the man, Jack went as far as to prevent death, with some rather, um, graphic results.
In the caper story, we are introduced to Briar Rose, popularly known as Sleeping Beauty, who is still victim to the curse whenever she gets a pricked finger. When a reporter claims that he has figured out the fables' secret (he believes them to be vampires), he warns Sheriff Bigby Wolf that he is going to publish and unless they don't want any input, he had better give him an interview. Wolf refuses, and plans a scheme to discredit the journalist. Using Boy Blue, Jack, Bluebeard, Prince Charming, and Briar Rose, they knock out the entire building, using Briar Rose's curse, and proceed with their plan. The plan is nothing one would ever see in a storybook; it involves blackmail and murder threats. Wolf is ruthless to the man, and it ends with a rogue fable taking care of things his own way.
Storybook Love is somewhat of a followup to Animal Farm. Goldilocks, an insane militant is still on the run from Snow White and Bigby Wolf, and it turns out that none other than Bluebeard is hiding her (for a price of course, which at the time is quite lewd). Still angry with Wolf for the way Wolf treated him in the caper, Bluebeard gives Goldilocks the means to take out Snow and Wolf. Bluebeard magically hypnotizes the pair and sends them off on a camping trip from which he thinks they will never return. After they wake up, they soon are running for their lives from Goldilocks, which is still hard for Snow White, because she is still using a cane from the incident in Animal Farm. While in the woods, Snow and Bigby are able to get to know each other better. The story ends with two great twists; one of which involves Snow White beginning to shed her image of an ice queen.
Finally, in Barleycorn Bridge, Wolf tells Flycatcher the story of Smalltown, a community at the Farm. It was founded by the Liliputian army (Liliputians are the tiny people from Gulliver's Travels) after they escaped from the Adversary's armies in the Homelands. Since the army was made up of only men, they immediately realized that they had a problem; without women their size, they couldn't procreate or find love. A liliputian and his bird go on an adventure back to the Homelands to solve the problem.
Fables continues its wonderful subversive nature. The stories are both humorous and horrific. Goldilocks is an insane girl who likes interspecies flings, and who, towards the end, ends up looking pretty grisly. Prince Charming is a jerk who can sway women due to his impressive looks, but becomes a bigger burden than he's worth. And Pinnochio, well his role in the story is better left unspoiled. Willingham does an excellent job of telling stories with such famous characters, but doing them with his own unique twists.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of tales, as the series hits its stride, January 21, 2006

By	Amadan "amadanb" (NY) - See all my reviews

I liked the first two volumes of "Fables," but felt some of the characterization was a bit uneven as Willingham developed his characters and the world of Fabletown. In this volume, there is one sequence that advances the main story arc and further develops the characters of Snow White, Bigby Wolf, and Prince Charming, and three other stories which stand on their own. I felt the characters were all much more real in this volume, and the setting more solid.

The main story (which advances the series' overall plot) features the return of Goldilocks, whose appearance always seems to guarantee a bloodbath, and develops the relationship between Snow White and Bigby Wolf. Bigby becomes a much more interesting character in this story, starting to become more than just a "Wolverine" knockoff. Prince Charming also takes a minor but significant role in this story, and surprisingly, also becomes much more interesting, as we see that he can be more than just a manipulative cad.

One of the secondary stories is about a muckraking journalist who discovers the Fables' secret and threatens to expose them. It introduces Briar Rose, aka "Sleeping Beauty," and also stars Bigby Wolf, Prince Charming, and Bluebeard.

The other two secondary stories are more traditional fairy tales that have nothing to do with the main story arc, but flesh out the characters and world of the Fables. One is set during the Civil War and stars Jack of the Tales as his usual scoundrel self. The other tells of how the Lilliputians came to our world and joined the other Fables on The Farm.