Comics Roundup (yee haw)

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Last night, got and read:

Y: The Last Man #22: I thought Yorik was finally going to get it on... These Arizona militia women take things a bit too far, don't you think? "Look sweetie, this is how you club someone with a gun butt. You try it now... Be sure to get her right across the- yeah, that's right." Word for this issue of Y: "Whatevs."

Fables #25: Next issue is going to rock, homes! All the fables came down from the farm, everyone's going to face off with the wooden soldiers, a war's about to start! (Here's what I think: Pinocchio thinks Gepetto is a slave to the adversary but I say Gepetto is the adversary. Huh? Who's with me?!) Word for this issue of Fables: "Foreplay."

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Y is a lot of fun -- when I added it to my pull list after reading the first TPB, the comic shop guy said it's been cancelled but he doesn't know how many issues are left. No idea if that's the case -- I thought it had been really well-received. The story isn't really playing out the way I expected it to, but ... I'm not completely sure what I expected to begin with. Not more humor or less humor so much as a different kind, I think. For some reason, it keeps reminding me of American Flagg -- which isn't a bad thing, but I have no idea where that chord's coming from.

Fables is my favorite thing out there right now, tied with Lucifer -- but where Fables has the upper hand is that while they can both introduce a surprising plot turn or revelation, Fables is working with such well-known material and iconography that it's the only one of the two that can make me go, "Ohhh ... well yeah, that makes sense" after one of those turns/revelations.

One of the things I'd like a better handle on is the scope of the Fables world, in terms of just which children's stories/legends/etc are "real" and which aren't. The classic Grimm fairy tales are all in, that's clear -- but then we have Pinocchio, a single-author creation who isn't a part of oral folklore but just happens to be a) public domain and b) the subject of a classic Disney movie. Where does that leave the Wonderland, Neverland, and Oz crews, then? (If any of them have been mentioned, either I've forgotten or they were in the middle issues I missed.)

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think I've seen anything having to do with Alice, the Cheshire Cat, Pater Pan, Dorthy, Tin Man, et al. I notice that there are character from nursery rhymes: the cow, the dish, the spoon. I don't know too many Aesop's fables, but I'm sure they must be in there. It is interesting to note that Pinocchio is in there... Hm...

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't remember Hans Christian Andersen stuff being there, either, and that would make sense to include -- the Snow Queen, especially. I'm not sure if HCA is based on folk tales or not. If not, I think that makes Pinocchio and Gepetto the only characters taken from sources other than folk tales, which might be coincidence ... I can't figure out what in-story significance it could have, unless Carlos Collodi were to show up in flashback :)

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Where does that leave the Wonderland, Neverland, and Oz crews, then? (If any of them have been mentioned, either I've forgotten or they were in the middle issues I missed.)

I might be wrong, but haven't all of those been written/created in the 20th century? That would be a few hundred years after the Fable lands got taken over, so no new Fables (at least that can escape) perhaps.

A quick google shows that Pinocchio was written in 1881 though, so much for that theory. Or maybe not, I'm sure that in one of those issues they mention when the 'last gate' closed (possibly the Last Castle thing?).

(x-posts)

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

19th century for Wonderland and Neverland, and Wonderland at least predates Pinocchio if it's 1881 -- I don't remember a specific date for Peter Pan. That's true about Oz, though, but with Pinocchio in there ... I don't know. Maybe it is significant, then! Maybe this has something to do with Gepetto and the Adversary and the wooden soldiers and so on.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Whoops, Peter Pan is 20th century after all, around the same time as Oz. It's only Wonderland that's 19th, then.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 May 2004 13:02 (twenty-one years ago)

The whole thing about the Fables being sort of powered by human belief in them (or at least popularity) is sort of sketchy too. I think it only came up when Snow got shot in the head, but I thought, "Oh, so they're going to do THAT thing." It could explain why all the generic old-time folktale characters are absent, but I would almost prefer that it had never been mentioned at all.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 13 May 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I'm assuming that will either be explained more fully or ignored altogether, if you see what I mean -- I'm not sure I buy belief as a power source that wouldn't also shape them, which would get in the way of Bigby being fairly different from his fairy tale representation (granted, he doesn't contradict that version either).

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 May 2004 13:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Hm, in the scene where Snow goes to talk to the witches (or whatever) to draft their spells: there's a young blonde girl in blue who could well be Alice. She could also be Dorothy, for that matter, who I'm pretty sure is blonde in the book; but if she's either, she's more likely to be Alice. This would support the "chronological cutoff date for Fablehood" theory re: yr man Pinocchio.

My roundup this whatever-lately: Fables; Y the Last Man, which I'm still digging, but ... not as much as the first two arcs; the Escapist tpb, which is uneven but I just think it's cool that it exists; the Spider-Girl tpb, ditto; the Darkness/Hulk, because its existence made me go what-the-fuck; and the Swamp Thing issues I talked about on the 90s nostalgia thread.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 17 May 2004 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Just read Y #22, and "Whatevs"??? Return to form is what I sez! The 'Zona Militia-ettes are another form of the Amazons, so rigorously polemical as to can't see out of their own bums, but the bottom line is they provoke an emotional response from the reader (aka me) that's undeniably strong. And one of the funnier issues in a while.

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Thursday, 20 May 2004 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Is Y really getting cancelled? Bummer.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Thursday, 20 May 2004 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Y is getting cancelled? It was Vertigo's best-selling title for a time. That doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.

But we are talking about the comics business, after all...

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Thursday, 20 May 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Its not getting cancelled - it is Vertigo's biggest seller.
Vaughan's got a Sandman/Preacher 50-70 issue plan for it so they can milk it in trades etc forever...

― David Nolan (David N.), Thursday, 20 May 2004 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

And Y's in the process of getting some Hollywood love, too!

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 21 May 2004 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

... which means it'll come out twice a years for three years, then start back to regular with an embarrased look on it's face when it's too late to care.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Sunday, 23 May 2004 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

FABLES SPOILER

Props to the now-absent Vermont Girl!

FABLES SPOILER ENDS

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Hot.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

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