Fables #96 – Review

by Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: The flashback tale continues, detailing how the two sisters were separated and what exactly happened to Snow White thereafter.

What’d Good: It’s always relatively good fun whenever Willingham gets to tell a good old fashioned fairytale.  His narrative voice is well-suited to the required old timey tone and so, the narration and dialogue is solid all around.  You get your witches, kings, royal intrigue, magical creatures, and all the necessities of the genre.  The curtain also gets peeled back a little on the magical nature of Rose and Snow’s mother, which was definitely both a slight surprise and a cause for interest.

As always, you also get that little wink of generic self-awareness.  Seeing hordes of princes-turned-into-animals pondering whether Rose Red is their saviour or not is a prime example of this.  Indeed, seeing various archetypal fairytales passing Rose by was a nice touch towards the end of the issue.

On art, I really do feel that Buckingham’s able to stretch his legs a little bit more whenever he traverses the older worlds of the Empire.  The fantasy elements suit him well and his depictions of magic and fantastical creatures are always pleasing, so heading into a fantasy realm obviously makes for a good time.