Fables Vol. 18: Cubs In Toyland

Si je trouvais que la série commençait à traîner en longueur, ce volume m'a complètement réveillée.Volume très noir et glauque mais inoubliable, un de mes préférés de toute la série (avec March of the Wooden Soldiers).Ce royaume des jouets malheureux avec tous une histoire sordide est incroyable.

great graphic novel

The last couple installments of the Fables trade back books have been good but not as excellent as previous books in the series. This book however was truly excellent. I really enjoyed it a lot.Bigby’s and Snow’s children are growing up and being forced to assume responsibilities. Winter inherited her kingdom in the last book and this book focuses on Therese and Dare. Therese follows her creepy toy boat’s advice and ends up in Toyland. Toyland is a land inhabited by evil toys that needs a new Queen. As Therese struggles to survive and struggles with her sanity, her brother Dare sets off to try and find her.This was an excellent installment in this series. I loved the adventures in Toyland and how involved we are getting with Bigby’s and Snow’s kids. The prophecy about Bigby’s and Snow’s kids is slowly coming to light. We’ve meet the child that will become a king, in this story we read about the child that does an evil thing and the child that dies to stop her.The evil toy kingdom is one that’s been written about before. Mike Raicht’s The Stuff of Legend graphic novels do an excellent job exploring a similar theme. This is a dark story and it is very well done. I love how the story wraps up and what Therese decides to do to atone.There is also a side story about the Fables going to explore Mister Dark’s old castle and finding Nurse Sprat.The illustration was excellent and in keeping with previous installments. Fans of the series should be pleased with this addition, it’s one of the best Fables installments released in a while.Overall a very solid addition to the Fables series. I really enjoyed reading more about Snow and Bigby’s children and how they are slowly fulfilling the prophecy. This whole series is recommended to fans of fairy tales and urban fantasy who love graphic novels.

Despite the many trials the fables go through, and the dark and bloody events that have befallen some of them, many of the books in this wonderful, imaginative, clever series have been quite light and jolly. Fables 18 is anything but. The cubs, once an amorphous unit, a high-energy bundle of wolfy, childish glee and mischief, are starting to come out of their shell. In Fables 17 we learned more about Winter and Ambrose, here other cubs are highlighted. Therese is tricked into going on a magical adventure with terrible consequences, out of which she eventually fashions her redemption.I don't know whether it's because I have my own children that I found this book particularly troublesome, but the idea of 8 year olds being lost to their families and having to make unbearably hard, adult decisions upset me to the core. But don't let that put you off. I don't know if this book signals a turn towards darker, more real-life themes and conundrums (real-life in the sense of problems being grey and knotty rather than black and white and easy to solve), or if it's a one-off. Either way, Willingham's superb imagination, pacing and turn of phrase, coupled with excellent art, mean that Fables remains the stand-out comics series at the moment.

A real sense of dread in the first 2/3rds if this story, and a tragic theme of self-sacrifice in regards to several of the characters. Creepy, sad, and genuine sense of survival/need informs the motives of all parties: One cub must save his sister; a captive princess in a nightmare toyland; and sinister but "human" toys who are, at the end of the day, simply trying to redeem themselves for crimes they had no control over. After the Adversary's anticlimatic fall, and the one-dimensional evil of Mr Dark, it was nice to read a story with depth and pathos.