Customer Reviews

Jack of Fables Vol. 5: Turning Pages

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

 

 

There is less humor than usual in the first storyline of this volume. Jack is in the wild west, and he's as wild as anything else out there. He's still messing with the ladies, but he's also robbing and killing and leading an outlaw gang. Bigby is dispatched to stop him--aided, transportationaly, by Incitatus, aka "Tate", the famed horse of Caligula and Roman Senate fame--from doing damage to mundies and drawing attention to himself. The spots of humor come in regular doses of Babe the Blue Ox having his delightful flights of fantasy. Always good for a giggle.

After the Western escapade--which includes an amusing behind-the-scenes use of the Lone Ranger--a new narrator takes over, Eliza Wall, to tell the story of the Page sisters, some backstory, some current. They've all had dealings with our Jack--ahem. We see how their relationships are damaged by Revise's partiality, but also the stresses of just being different people with different weaknesses, some stronger than others. There is a lot more pain in store, especially with Bookburner marching toward Golden Boughs, causing strife to Jack and his crew, the Pages, and bringing revolutionary thoughts to the fabley inmates. I will add there is a marvelous new Literal who shows up in the nick of time. Hee.

War's coming to Golden Boughs, and the NY contingent may not be out of this mess. We shall see in Vol 6.

The least interesting of the Jack of Fables trades so far...this volume we follow Jack through the old west as he rides around robbing and killing helpless passers by. A small bit of humor in the old west tale, but not up to the usual.

The story following the old west tale is one about the Page sisters. We get a little bit more history on all three of them and their escapades with Jack. Humor is to be expected when dealing with the sisters and Jack, however, it's not up to par IMO. Vol 6 looks to be more pleasing...

Reason for Reading: Next in the series.

This has got to be my least favourite of the Jack volumes. This one contains two completely unrelated story arcs. The first one called 1883 goes back into Jack's past and the 2nd one is back to the present day continuing the overarching theme with the new villain and focuses on each of the Page sisters in turn.

1883, takes us back into Jacks past. This is obviously a western and Jack is using the Candle name here while he is the leader of a gang. Back in Fabletown Ichabod Crane sends Bigsby Wolf out to bring Jack in for violating all sorts of Fables rules, the biggest being killing Mundies. The story follows the gang's dastardly deeds and Bigsby's hunting him down. It ends in a showdown and anyone can guess who the winner is. This story seemed out of place in the whole scheme of things as there was no segue into it or obvious purpose to it except perhaps to show why Jack and Bigby hate each other so much now.

Turning Pages is back to the Jack of Fables story at hand. We learn more of the Page's as we see them from their childhood years and growing up. Three chapters, each focusing on a different Page sister show us the instability going on at Golden Boughs, and the advancing evil of The Bookburner as he gets closer to his goal with his army. This man is a threat to all Fables everywhere. The family dynamics of the Page sisters if further explored and a new reveal is exposed. Enjoyable but I'm left with the feeling "that's all?". Let's get on with Volume 6.

Jack of Fables, the tongue-in-cheek spinoff of the award-winning, long-running, utterly-fantabulous Fables series, has always felt like writer Bill Willingham's playground for new ideas. While Fables has a well-formed plot with organized tributaries and a detailed universe, Jack comes across more as a bonkers, issue-by-issue madcap sort of tale.

Most of the time, this is brilliant - Willingham is clever and funny and the unlovable rogue protagonist is well-suited for a more adventurous narrative formatting. Occasionally (as in the previous two collections), the story becomes so experimental that the fun begins to disappear.

Fortunately, in Volume 5, Jack returns to his strength (short stories from Jack's past), combines with the strength of Fables (long-running, invariably dramatic plot conflicts) and mixes it up with Willingham's ability to frame narratives in unique ways (in this case, via the three Page sisters).

The long-running dramatic plot conflict - the brewing war between the Bookburner and Mr. Revise - suffers as it doesn't actually make a lot of sense. What with the complicated genealogy and the mind-boggling 'Literals', it isn't the most approachable of plots. By making the Pages the protagonists of this collection, Willingham helps make it more accessible - but aside from liking the sisters, there's not much else I can recommend about this aspect.

The short story - Jack's Wild West adventures with Bigby Wolf - is much more my speed, with a neat, clever narrative, interesting twists and some good laughs.

Overall, an improvement on the previous volumes, but there's still a while to go before it reaches the heady heights of its first two collections (or Fables, for that matter)

This is the fifth installment of the JACK OF FABLES character by author Bill Willingham, who is probably best known for his previous FABLES series. The story starts out with Jack's history in the late 19th century focusing on his time leading robber bandits and then showing Bigby coming into town to take Jack out of the Mundy's perception range. From there it's back to a big setup between Fables and Literals (you have to read the series to get that in detail but Fables are as they sound and somewhat immortal and Literals are, well, the vote is still out on them but they're somewhat immortal too). The Jasper Kid was the best sub character. CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B minus to B; STORY/PLOTTING: B minus; EMOTIONAL IMPACT: B minus; ARTWORK: B plus to A minus; WHEN READ: today; OVERALL GRADE: B.

This volume consists of two three isssue stories. Surprisingly, after leaving us with a big cliffhanger on the end of the Americana storyline and then telling us a single issue story that didn't have any relevance to the cliffhanger situation, we start the book with another irrelevant story. Not the best timing to have this story. However, the story, about Jack's misadventures in the wild West in 1883 is quite good. In the story, Fabletown becomes worried that Jack's exploits are too public and incredible, creating a possible problem for the Fables that want magic to be secret. Fabletown hence sends Bigby (the big bad wolf) to track Jack down. Bigby is one of my favorite characters from Fables, so it was a fun little story. The story did not seem like a Jack of Fables because it didn't have as much humor (although it did have a joke in an extra page at the end of each issue). It felt more like a Fables story than a Jack of Fables story.

The second story finally addresses the cliffhanger at hand at the end of the Americana story. However, it does so in a kind of roundabout way, moving the story slowly and building it up for the next volume. Despite the slowness, I enjoyed it, because we finally get to know more about the Page sisters. Characters that are supposed to be important, but of which we know very little. In this story, "Turning Pages", we get to see a bit of the past of the characters, changing Priscilla quite a bit in my mind, showing the nice side of Robin and showing why Hillary wanted to meet her father so much. Overall it was well done, however I wish we had these issues before the 1883 story. I guess it happened this way to sync up the Fables Crossover later on.

A good volume, but so far the worst of the five. It seems like the sixth one will be a fun one though. I am looking forward to it.

The story of the Literals is a bit fantastic even for a story about Fables, but then I guess the Fables had to come from somewhere. This is a solid installment in the Jack of Fables series, but I curse the cliffhanger that made up the end of the book and am most eager for Volume 6.

I have a number of subscriptions at my local comic book store, but the two that I always most look forward to are FABLES and JACK OF FABLES. And I always make sure to buy the collected versions when they come out. This "volume" is interesting in that the story that begins in the second half is continued in what will be Volume Six. The first half contains a standalone story with Bigby doing a guest spot in a story about Jack in the Wild West. With Bigby playing a somewhat lessened role in FABLES these days, I'm always delighted with any issues that focus on him. He is probably my favorite Fable from either of the two series. The second half begins the invasion of the Golden Boughs by Bookburner and his army. The volume title, "Turning Pages," refers to each of three issues focusing on a different Page sister.

As usual the stories are filled with many marvelous and wonderful moments. My favorite -- and one of the funniest moments in any of the Fable books -- comes when Jack, Gary (who has passed out), Raven, and two of the Page sisters are surrounded by a group of Knife-Johns (a group of fable characters we've never heard of, thanks to Bookburner). Their situation is hopeless and dire and their destruction certain. But luckily Dex, the deus ex machina, shows up and dispenses with the bad guys in effective if utterly improbable fashion.

My only complaint with these issues is that Gary, the Pathetic Fallacy, barefly features in them. Just as Bigby is my favorite character in the Fable stories as a whole, Gary is my favorite in the Jack stories. Luckily, we do get one Babe the Blue Ox fantasy per issue. After Gary, Babe is my second favorite character.

One little sidenote. Many of these issues were released in late summer. One, the issue focusing on Priscilla Page, was published shortly after Sarah Palin was nominated as John McCain's running mate. In the comic book store where I picked up my copy several people commented on the vague resemblence between Priscilla, who was on the cover of the issue, and Palin. Well, if Sarah Palin were prettier and more intelligent. I did say the resemblance was "vague."