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13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 A Quartet of TalesNov 02, 2004
By Joshua Koppel
Unlike in the first two volumes of Fables, there is no single story arc in this one. Instead we get four tales of different lengths that help fill in the Fables world.
In "Bag o' Bones" Jack the Giant Killer has allied with the South in the Civil War. Once fortunes turn against the South, Jack winds up having adventures involving the Devil, Death, and a beautiful cursed Southern Belle.
In "a Two-Part Caper" a reporter contacts Bigby to let him know that he knows his secret. He has discovered the colony of immortals and is convinced that they are vampires. Bigby, with the help of Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, the Frog Prince, Prince Charming and Boy Blue, makes a late night raid to ensure their secret is kept.
In "Storybook Love", the longest story in the collection, Bigby and Snow become targets and are removed from Fabletown, Prince Charming squares off against Bluebeard, a villain returns, unforseen repercussions arise, and Charming decides to look into running for mayor.
Bigby tells The Frog Prince the story of "Barleycorn Bride" wherein John Barleycorn must help the rest of the refugee Lilliputians find brides their own size.
The tales in this volume are well-done. The first and last help fill in some of the history while the middle two move the modern story along very nicely. Another very entertaining read.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Storybook Horror and HatredApr 03, 2006
By Andrew
"Radaar"
In the third volume of Bill Willingham's great Fables, we are treated to multiple storyarcs. Two one-shots, a two part caper, and a four part revenge story make up the plotlines of Storybook Love, which is the best volume yet.
Starting with Bag of Bones, we see some things that Jack of the Tales has done to earn his trickster reputation. In an attempt to get rich, he intended to marry a southern belle and would win her over by joining the Confederates in the Civil War. Though, as we all know, the war didn't turn out the way he expected it to. After the war, he ran into a (possibly demonic) man whom he bamboozled in a card game. Using a magic sack won from the man, Jack went as far as to prevent death, with some rather, um, graphic results.
In the caper story, we are introduced to Briar Rose, popularly known as Sleeping Beauty, who is still victim to the curse whenever she gets a pricked finger. When a reporter claims that he has figured out the fables' secret (he believes them to be vampires), he warns Sheriff Bigby Wolf that he is going to publish and unless they don't want any input, he had better give him an interview. Wolf refuses, and plans a scheme to discredit the journalist. Using Boy Blue, Jack, Bluebeard, Prince Charming, and Briar Rose, they knock out the entire building, using Briar Rose's curse, and proceed with their plan. The plan is nothing one would ever see in a storybook; it involves blackmail and murder threats. Wolf is ruthless to the man, and it ends with a rogue fable taking care of things his own way.
Storybook Love is somewhat of a followup to Animal Farm. Goldilocks, an insane militant is still on the run from Snow White and Bigby Wolf, and it turns out that none other than Bluebeard is hiding her (for a price of course, which at the time is quite lewd). Still angry with Wolf for the way Wolf treated him in the caper, Bluebeard gives Goldilocks the means to take out Snow and Wolf. Bluebeard magically hypnotizes the pair and sends them off on a camping trip from which he thinks they will never return. After they wake up, they soon are running for their lives from Goldilocks, which is still hard for Snow White, because she is still using a cane from the incident in Animal Farm. While in the woods, Snow and Bigby are able to get to know each other better. The story ends with two great twists; one of which involves Snow White beginning to shed her image of an ice queen.
Finally, in Barleycorn Bridge, Wolf tells Flycatcher the story of Smalltown, a community at the Farm. It was founded by the Liliputian army (Liliputians are the tiny people from Gulliver's Travels) after they escaped from the Adversary's armies in the Homelands. Since the army was made up of only men, they immediately realized that they had a problem; without women their size, they couldn't procreate or find love. A liliputian and his bird go on an adventure back to the Homelands to solve the problem.
Fables continues its wonderful subversive nature. The stories are both humorous and horrific. Goldilocks is an insane girl who likes interspecies flings, and who, towards the end, ends up looking pretty grisly. Prince Charming is a jerk who can sway women due to his impressive looks, but becomes a bigger burden than he's worth. And Pinnochio, well his role in the story is better left unspoiled. Willingham does an excellent job of telling stories with such famous characters, but doing them with his own unique twists.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A collection of tales, as the series hits its strideJan 21, 2006
By David
"I read science fiction and fantasy, but I also like literary fiction, the classics, the occasional mystery/thriller, and non-fiction."
I liked the first two volumes of "Fables," but felt some of the characterization was a bit uneven as Willingham developed his characters and the world of Fabletown. In this volume, there is one sequence that advances the main story arc and further develops the characters of Snow White, Bigby Wolf, and Prince Charming, and three other stories which stand on their own. I felt the characters were all much more real in this volume, and the setting more solid.
The main story (which advances the series' overall plot) features the return of Goldilocks, whose appearance always seems to guarantee a bloodbath, and develops the relationship between Snow White and Bigby Wolf. Bigby becomes a much more interesting character in this story, starting to become more than just a "Wolverine" knockoff. Prince Charming also takes a minor but significant role in this story, and surprisingly, also becomes much more interesting, as we see that he can be more than just a manipulative cad.
One of the secondary stories is about a muckraking journalist who discovers the Fables' secret and threatens to expose them. It introduces Briar Rose, aka "Sleeping Beauty," and also stars Bigby Wolf, Prince Charming, and Bluebeard.
The other two secondary stories are more traditional fairy tales that have nothing to do with the main story arc, but flesh out the characters and world of the Fables. One is set during the Civil War and stars Jack of the Tales as his usual scoundrel self. The other tells of how the Lilliputians came to our world and joined the other Fables on The Farm.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Worth Every Penny (and probably a few more)May 13, 2004
By G. M. Elwell
"geek extraordinaire"
Sometimes, authors don't know what they have. I'm sure the creators of classic fables like Little Red Riding Hood and Snow white never thought the villain of one and the protagonist of the other would ever find love, but author Bill Willingham finds a way to make it work in this intelligent and beautifully illustrated story arc.The fables, exiled from their home world, live in Manhattan and exist as a fractured community, faced with the mundane (they call normal human Mundys) and the fantastical (Beauty's Beast turning beastial in appearance whenever she's mad at him), all under the watchful and creative eye of Willingham. Reading this (or the other two excellent collections), one gets the feeling Willingham has done a lot of research into the original fables and not the Disneyized versions we have come to know. Literary buffs, academics, those who like a good laugh and anyone who wanted to know what happened after they lived happily ever after should pick this up. Beware, however, that this is not for children. Let them grow up with Disney and they'll be very entertained when they're old enough to read this.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Just my cuppaOct 29, 2005
By Shaggy
This series is one of the better things in the comic world since the Sandman series ended and Batman storylines seem to be regressing to the "wam" "pow" era... More please Mr Willingham
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