Fables: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham
52 Books In 52 Weeks: #20 of 52
This past week, I needed a quick read. My private time had been scrimped through work and personal situations, and yet I wanted to keep the challenge going. But in all likelihood, I couldn’t commit to a true-to-form novel, so I decided to fall back on the folks at Vertigo and follow-up on their Fables series with volume two of their trade paperbacks, entitled Animal Farm.
Still very much in “getting to know you” format, this chapter introduces us to the slightly-mentioned “Farm,” an area of upstate New York where are kept most of the non-human Fables (everything from pixies to talking pigs), out of the necessity of keeping their existence secret from mundane human eyes.
Of course, not all is calm and placid on the Farm, as we become familiar with the inner political factions within the Fables community, of those who would be ready to head back to their homelands and fight instead of accepting their exiled fate. And this revolution stirs under the subversive command of one of the Three Little Pigs, while its armed wing is maintained by the incendiary Goldilocks.
While the genre-slashing mercilessly proceeds on (Shere Kahn dies, for instance) the universe of these exiled fairy tales unfurls a little more, revealing a not unfamiliar relationship between the human-looking Fables and the rest. The art is still very consequential with the usual moody Vertigo style: realistic, dreary, and perfectly acceptable. While some aspects of the storytelling are a little boilerplate (like how Goldilocks’ comical proletarian bombast cannot be taken seriously, yet we’re expected to consider her as a contentious and dangerous individual), writer Bill Willingham’s ace lies in his taught narrative, not to mention his knack for wonderful obscure references. His style has a compelling inherent sardonicism to it which allows him to pick apart these childhood icons with such (too much?) ease.
An interesting lead-in to bigger things.
Book: Fables: Animal Farm
Publisher: DC Vertigo
Next: Unlikely
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