Customer Reviews

Jack of Fables Vol. 4: Americana

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This collection had some of the elements of a great story but the pace just killed it. It's like the writers wanted to comment on some of the great American story backgrounds, knew what they were (Chicago-Gangland, NYC-The Big City, The South-Antebellum), but couldn't fill the scenery with interesting characters. In Gangland Jack and company become bootleggers... for 3 pages. Then they're in a 40s song-and-dance routine in The Big City (thankfully for only a single page). Likewise, a witch hunt in The Colonies and an Indian Raiding Party are only a single page each. Slow down! Tell us a real story with actual Fables from these places instead of just flipping through the great American backdrop. What's the rush? I burned through this volume is less than 30 minutes, about how long a normal comic book alone usually takes me, NOT a graphic novel collection. Oh, and I forgot, I LOVE zombies. Can't wait for World War Z to come out. In this book they're like Keystone Cops for some reason. Maybe it's a good reason waiting to be told, but I'm seriously having doubts: they talk to each other and make moronic statements as they fulfill their old jobs and hobbies, police force, teenage daters, etc. What classic zombie fable is that from, because it certainly isn't Romero.

Sly, greedy, self-centered, up-to-no-good Jack is back, and he's on a hunt for the treasure of Cibola. Accompanied by Raven (who had previously--erroneously--been Wicked John's companion), a glued-back-together Humpty Dumpty (with one key missing eggshell piece), and the Pathetic Fallacy, he's off to get the loot.

But Jackie-boy and his sometimes quite-reluctant crew are gonna have to deal with another quester crossing their path: One of the Page sisters who has a personal mission into Americana, and she's got a regrowing Paul Bunyan and the hilarious Babe the Blue Ox (still having snarfolicious fantasy adventures in his own head) for bodyguards.

If you like zombies, be prepared for a hilarious use of them (and a social commentary, no doubt, about the "good old days" of the American pre-sixties heydays). A new character--powerful and sinister--is met up with, too. There's a touch of roaring 20's speakeasy days fun as well. And boinking, cause it's Jack, after all.

When Jack's Americana adventure is concluded, there's a detour to a one-shot story: "Gary Does Denmark," where the Pathetic Fallacy tries to put on Hamlet with Fabley folk, and you know it's just not gonna go easy or work out normally.

Enjoy.

In the fourth installment we get to see Jack in the fabled America, a mix of different historical eras all over the land. There's a nice play with the Three Page Sisters, some more info about Literals & Fables, a good spread of Old American Legends and, of course, the hunt for gold. ARTWORK: B plus to A minus; STORY/PLOTTING: B; CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B plus; LITERAL/FABLE FOCUS: B to B plus; WHEN READ: December 2011; OVERALL GRADE: B to B plus.

Jack is no fables because the writer lacks the creativity that willingham gives us with fables. That being said this is an ok addition to the jack storyline. It adds another new series of characters that lack description on how they truely fit. With each addition the writers fall away from the Wiley jack that is creative in getting in and out of trouble and lean more towards jack is just some Badass that can do anything.

Reason for Reading: Next in the series.

The first four chapters, which covers the majority of the book, concern the title story arc, "Americana". Jack and Gary now have Humpty and Raven accompanying them on their travels and Humpty has just told them about "Americana" another land of Fables where all the American Fables live. There is a secret horde of gold there and Humpty has a map to the treasure and knows how to get there. Jack's greed readily accepts the journey and off they go to make there fortune. Little do they know that Hilary Page has been studying her maps and finally found the way to Americana herself. Bringing Paul Bunyan and Babe, residents of this land, along with her she secretly takes off from Golden Boughs but it doesn't take long for the two groups to meet up with each other. Using a little blackmail, they are stuck together as a group.

This was just a real fun issue with some new Fables to meet, most just briefly. Most of the story is to simply enjoy the bickering dynamics between the group of characters and we get to know Humpty and Raven a lot better. I like Raven, on the surface he isn't really much better than Jack, but he has his spirit bird who goads him into doing the right things and he does actually have a sense of decency that Jack lacks. There is a story arc that does move the overall plot along, though, that starts when the gang drop by a town inhabited by zombies. The guy in charge here has ulterior motives, causes problems and will be integral to the continuing story line.

The final chapter of the volume is a postscript story that goes back to the days of the Golden Bough before Jack arrived and Gary tried to organize a performance of Hamlet, with himself as the star. This is a fun interlude that stars previously shown but never featured Alice along with Wicked John and it also shows us a completely different side of Gary we've never seen before. All in all a humorous issue that is mainly for entertainment value but does have a small overall story arc that introduces a new bad guy to the series.

This volume consists of a four issue story (continuing the main thread in the comic) and a short one issue story. The main story is called "Americana" and it is about the Fables from America. Fables such as Paul Bunyan. The reason Jack wants to go there is to find a treasure and in the way he meets up with Hillary Page. She is going there secretly to try to find something. I won't spoil what she tries to find as it is an important part of the story.

The journey in Americana is quite fun and it almost seems rushed as Jack goes through a lot of adventures in a few pages (specially in the third issue, where they go to different American parts such as Western stories, idyllic stories, among others). The writing keeps being humorous and fun. I really like this story. One of the best so far.

The single issue at the end is not that good. The Americana storyline ends on a kind of cliffhanger and having a story where Jack doesn't feature doesn't help out. Usually I welcome the single issue stories that Willingham and Sturges bring our way, and on paper it sounds great to have an issue focus on Gary (the pathetic fallacy), however this issue wasn't as great as other Jack of Fables issues.

Overall a good volume, as good as the previous one, but not as good as the second one.

For Fables fans that can't get enough, Bill Willingham hits us right between the eyes with "Jack of Fables!" Jack Horner is a bold Fable that is an outcast from Fabletown. This volume details his adventures with Hillary, Humpty, and Fallacy as they search Americana for treasure.

In this story arc, I can't say we get to know Jack any better - his character is fairly well defined - reading him is such great pleasure as he's pure id. And he constantly tries to score with the girls - so he's basically a teenage male in an imaginary immortal body.

The art is lively and cool; Hillary is smokin' hot in this volume- and Jack finally... well, I'm not going to spoil it for you but it's so satisfying to see that he scored a trifecta.

Jack of Fables is so captivating because the writing is simultaneously smart and juvenile at the same time. Where else can you get interpretations of Shakespeare in the same book that Humpty Dumpty goes up the skirt of a "hot librarian" dressed in a gingham prairie dress? The joy and mischief of the writers and artists leaps out from the page - man, this Jack of Fables series is fun!

A lot of fun. Doesn't always make sense but it doesn't realy try to. It is definitely different from any other comics out there.

The story of the Revise family continues to unfold... it feels weird to think of concepts as real persons (the Pathetic Fallacy, for one) and I have been enjoying Jack's story as much as I have been enjoying the mainstream Fables series. And I also enjoy Jack's attitude and glib comments (especially towards the third Page sister) Overall, this was a lot of fun to read, and I am anxious to see what else Jack will do next! :)

My initial reaction to the news a couple of years back that Jack of FABLES fame was going to get his own spin off was almost complete indifference. Jack was far and away my least favorite FABLES character. The odds that I would enjoy the spin off nearly as much as the original series, which I still think is the best ongoing comic series in existence, was slim at best. So imagine my surprise when I found out that I not only didn't dislike JACK OF FABLES, but loved it!

And the series just gets better and better. Interestingly, while Jack is European in origin, the JACK OF FABLES series has worked more in the vein of American folklore. At least half of the characters were born in the New World, as opposed to the inhabitants of Fabletown, all of whom are immigrants from lands invaded by The Adversary. Not that the characters in the Jack series do not suffer from oppression. Indeed, they suffer from a far more insidious threat, the Revise family. As we learn over the course of time (made most inexplicit in the most recent issues (Revise himself explains his life's work in great detail in Issue 30, while AMERICANA collects issues 17-21, so I won't offer spoilers by going into any detail here), the greater family truly loves to muck about in robbing the world of the magic of the various fables. Revise merely . . . well, revises them; his brother Bookburner eliminates them. Interestingly, we still haven't quite learned what caused these folk to become such enemies of stories and fables, especially given that the partriarch of the entire clan is Jack's dedicated sidekick Gary, the Pathetic Fallacy.

AMERICANA sees Jack, Gary, Raven, and a superglued Humpty Dumpty off in search of treasure, a search that causes them to intersect with one of the Page sisters, Paul Bunyan, and Babe the Blue Ox, whose rich interior life is one of the delights of the series. In their escapades they encounter numerous zombies, a host of figures from American folklore, and Bookburner, the most sinister member of the family fathered by Gary that we have yet to discover. His goal is pretty much as his name suggests, to rid existence of stories (they upon burning they do revive, drained of color, as part of his own ghostly army).

The upshot is that while FABLES is still far and away my favorite series from the imagination of Bill Willingham, JACK OF FABLES has become a must-read series in its own right. I still don't like Jack in the least and the less time he spends in each story, the better. But this truly is an ensemble cast and it is the rest of the characters that makes each issue such a joy.