#CBR4 Cannonball 3: Fables, Volume 2: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham

{ January 16, 2012 @ 3:43 pm } · { Cannonball! (Books) }
{ Tags: aesop's fables, animal farm, baghera the panther, bigby wolf, bill willingham, fables, goldilocks and the three bears, graphic novel, nursery rhyme, reynard the fox, rose red, shere khan, snow white, the jungle book, the old woman who lived in a shoe, three little pigs }

Fables, Vol. 2: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun one.

So, we learned in Vol. 1, Legends in Exile, that those Fables (fairy tale characters) who couldn’t pass as normal humans in New York City live on a farm in upstate New York.

Snow White and Rose Red travel upstate for Snow’s semi-annual visit, but they’re met with an unexpected rebellion: some of the Fables living on the farm felt that living in a prison for your own protection is a prison nonetheless.

Although some characters really only make cameos, it’s still fun to see so many fictional characters all jumbled together, rubbing elbows: Shere Khan and Baghera the Panther from The Jungle Book, the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and all of her spawn (who are armed to the teeth, by the way), and Reynard the Fox from Aesop’s Fables are all living together with characters from classic fairy tales like the Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Willingham’s handling of the animal uprising is a little predictable, but still fun. And at least he’s trying to inject some real-world themes into his work. We meet our first true villain of the series, and, incidentally, see our first true murder of the series as well. Because the tone of the novel is so fun, it was a little jarring to see such a serious and gruesomely portrayed incident. But it’s jarring in a good way; a stark reminder from Willingham that, while these stories are all in good fun, there’s a real world out there for which actions like these have dire consequences.

I thoroughly enjoyed this volume; it “read” like another solid episode of a TV show.

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