Do trade paperbacks count when doing a 52 books in 52 weeks challenge? Well too late to wonder now, for my latest read has been Fables: Legends in Exile, the collected paperback of the first five issues of the Vertigo comic series.

When it was recommended to me, I was a little apprehensive about the premise: a murder mystery occurs within a secret community of fairy tale characters, living secretly in New York. “Been there, done that,” was the exact terminology that popped into mind. Picking up the book to check through the artwork wasn’t anything mindblowing either. It was good, don’t get me wrong: very clean, very polished, coloured in dim, sullen tones; very Vertigo. But I was surprised at how engrossing the characters were, at how their modern transposition had made them into fun personalities to discover and not simple mockeries of their storytime selves. Mostly, I was surprised at how satisfying a whodunit it turned out to be.

The writing follows the tried Vertigo formula, so there’s nothing really groundbreaking, but there is more than enough quirk and charm to warrant more from the series, which you can feel hits its stride not too long after this.

Book: Fables: Legends in Exile

Author: Bill Willingham

Publisher: DC Comics

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