rascal_father
23-06-2005, 09:00 AM
http://www.newsarama.com/Vertigo/Fables/Fables37.jpg
It’s been nearly four years coming.
In August, Vertigo’s Fables #40 hits, and in it, the revelation of the Adversary’s identity will be made clear.
The story, revealing the leader of the forces that forced the Fables – characters, creatures, and people of myth – from the Homelands has been one of the many carrots series creator Bill Willingham has dangled in front of readers since the series began. It’s the oldest carrot by far, but for many fans, it’s only become sweeter with age.
Warning – spoilers ahead for the events of Fables #38
“My original design was to reveal the Adversary’s identity a little sooner, but some of the story arcs that kept occurring to me kept pushing that moment back a bit,” Willingham told Newsarama. “I was going to do it about three years in, and now, it’s coming in about three and a half or four years into it. Close enough, I guess.”
http://www.newsarama.com/Vertigo/Fables/Fablesp02.jpg
While the Adversary (or the Emperor if you’re still living in the Homelands) is a well known figure to the series’ fans, here’s a quick primer for the Fables-deficient: roughly 1,000 years ago, the Adversary invaded the lands occupied by the what we know to be European Fables with an overwhelming force. There was no hope of resistance. Those who weren’t killed or captured were allowed to flee to the world of the “mundanes” to find their own way. While the Fables have established and thrived in “Fabletown” in New York and the Farm (home to non-human Fables), the Adversary’s invasion of their lands and resultant transformation of thousands into refugees has always weighed heavily on the Fables.
Meanwhile, the identity of the Adversary (which Willingham has kept as a closely guarded secret) has weighed heavily on the series’ fans. But, Willingham said, the Adversary’s identity is just one small piece of the picture.
“The idea behind the big mysteries in Fables is that the series was never going to just be a ‘who is the Adversary?’ story. I’ve always loathed books and television shows where the entire thing is the big mystery, and to keep the series going, the one thing that you can determine right away is that you will never get the big mystery solved. The X-Files comes to mind – it was all questions and never a satisfying answer. I think the secret for doing an ongoing series is to create mystery, create questions, give answers occasionally, but by that time, have new mysteries and questions and other elements in play so there’s always a system of payoff and reward and new expectations. That’s the secret for any good ongoing series, really.”
In other words, yes, the Adversary’s identity will be made known in issue #40, but there’s going to be further mysteries from there.
Catching up again for folks who may have lapsed in reading the series, issue #40 will be part four of the “Homelands” arc which has seen Boy Blue, armed with the Jabbewock’s Bane (a sword capable of cleaving through anything) and other weapons, wade back into the Homelands, into the heart of the empire, and into the court of the Emperor himself.
Funny thing though, a couple of years back, if you’d have asked Willingham who would be the one to go back to the Homelands, his answer would have been Bigby (er, that is, the Big Bad Wolf – the former sheriff of Fabletown who can switch between human and wolf form).
“I always knew that there would be this arc where a major character heads back to the Homelands to go one on one with the bad guys,” Willingham said. “I sort of caught myself with my pants down in a sense, because I always thought it was going to be Bigby – or I thought that at first – but then, in The Last Castle story, we made a front-row spotlight star out of Boy Blue, where he was always intended to be a background character. Suddenly, he was able to carry his own story, and as we implied, he had vast years of military experience and training. So Boy Blue turned out to be a more interesting character than I thought, and he wasn’t content to remain in the background at all.”
The writer also had a clear idea of how the character invading the Homelands was supposed to look as well.
“Image-wise, I kind of wanted whoever this was that was going to be cutting and reaving his way through the Homelands to look like a cross between Zorro and Robin Hood. A lot of the reaction to how he looks so far is that he’s along the lines of Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride, which works for me, because he was basically a cross between Zorro and Robin Hood. That was one of the frustrations initially – I couldn’t figure why there would be any reason on earth for Bigby to dress up like that, because he’s not that kind of guy. He spends a lot of time running around as a wolf. He’s not going to dress in a way where he’d need to find a way to carry lots of stuff with him when he was a wolf.
“So gradually, Boy Blue took over Bigby’s role, so by the time we got to ‘Homelands,’ I knew it would be him running around. The added advantage pf that is that I was able to take Bigby off stage for a while, and the frustrations of the readers are almost palpable in regards to when he’s coming back. The old pattern of keeping them wanting and hoping for something comes back again.”
And there’s the one mystery Willingham is counting on to keep readers around post-#40, though he had to sell his editor, Shelly Bond, on the idea.
“Shelly was worried that the reveal of the Adversary would be seen as readers as a signal that they can leave now, but no – trust me – by the time the Adversary is revealed, the ‘when is Bigby coming back?’ is going to be so adamant among the fans that they’re going to want to stick around to find that out. And by the time they see what Bigby has been up to; there will be another thing for them to be wondering about down the road.”
So – we’ve got Boy Blue cutting his way through – very successfully, one could add – the Homelands, but what of the lands themselves? In the last three years’ span, whenever anyone recounted the attack of the Adversary, it was always filled with shock, horror, fire and blood. Naturally, Fables living in the Mundane world assume that’s what it’s like now – a charred wasteland, perhaps with the Adversary constantly cackling in the background.
Throughout the “Homelands” arc though, it’s been shown that’s clearly not the case. The empire run by the Adversary is quite…well, not exactly nice, but decent. And civilized.
CON'T POST #2
It’s been nearly four years coming.
In August, Vertigo’s Fables #40 hits, and in it, the revelation of the Adversary’s identity will be made clear.
The story, revealing the leader of the forces that forced the Fables – characters, creatures, and people of myth – from the Homelands has been one of the many carrots series creator Bill Willingham has dangled in front of readers since the series began. It’s the oldest carrot by far, but for many fans, it’s only become sweeter with age.
Warning – spoilers ahead for the events of Fables #38
“My original design was to reveal the Adversary’s identity a little sooner, but some of the story arcs that kept occurring to me kept pushing that moment back a bit,” Willingham told Newsarama. “I was going to do it about three years in, and now, it’s coming in about three and a half or four years into it. Close enough, I guess.”
http://www.newsarama.com/Vertigo/Fables/Fablesp02.jpg
While the Adversary (or the Emperor if you’re still living in the Homelands) is a well known figure to the series’ fans, here’s a quick primer for the Fables-deficient: roughly 1,000 years ago, the Adversary invaded the lands occupied by the what we know to be European Fables with an overwhelming force. There was no hope of resistance. Those who weren’t killed or captured were allowed to flee to the world of the “mundanes” to find their own way. While the Fables have established and thrived in “Fabletown” in New York and the Farm (home to non-human Fables), the Adversary’s invasion of their lands and resultant transformation of thousands into refugees has always weighed heavily on the Fables.
Meanwhile, the identity of the Adversary (which Willingham has kept as a closely guarded secret) has weighed heavily on the series’ fans. But, Willingham said, the Adversary’s identity is just one small piece of the picture.
“The idea behind the big mysteries in Fables is that the series was never going to just be a ‘who is the Adversary?’ story. I’ve always loathed books and television shows where the entire thing is the big mystery, and to keep the series going, the one thing that you can determine right away is that you will never get the big mystery solved. The X-Files comes to mind – it was all questions and never a satisfying answer. I think the secret for doing an ongoing series is to create mystery, create questions, give answers occasionally, but by that time, have new mysteries and questions and other elements in play so there’s always a system of payoff and reward and new expectations. That’s the secret for any good ongoing series, really.”
In other words, yes, the Adversary’s identity will be made known in issue #40, but there’s going to be further mysteries from there.
Catching up again for folks who may have lapsed in reading the series, issue #40 will be part four of the “Homelands” arc which has seen Boy Blue, armed with the Jabbewock’s Bane (a sword capable of cleaving through anything) and other weapons, wade back into the Homelands, into the heart of the empire, and into the court of the Emperor himself.
Funny thing though, a couple of years back, if you’d have asked Willingham who would be the one to go back to the Homelands, his answer would have been Bigby (er, that is, the Big Bad Wolf – the former sheriff of Fabletown who can switch between human and wolf form).
“I always knew that there would be this arc where a major character heads back to the Homelands to go one on one with the bad guys,” Willingham said. “I sort of caught myself with my pants down in a sense, because I always thought it was going to be Bigby – or I thought that at first – but then, in The Last Castle story, we made a front-row spotlight star out of Boy Blue, where he was always intended to be a background character. Suddenly, he was able to carry his own story, and as we implied, he had vast years of military experience and training. So Boy Blue turned out to be a more interesting character than I thought, and he wasn’t content to remain in the background at all.”
The writer also had a clear idea of how the character invading the Homelands was supposed to look as well.
“Image-wise, I kind of wanted whoever this was that was going to be cutting and reaving his way through the Homelands to look like a cross between Zorro and Robin Hood. A lot of the reaction to how he looks so far is that he’s along the lines of Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride, which works for me, because he was basically a cross between Zorro and Robin Hood. That was one of the frustrations initially – I couldn’t figure why there would be any reason on earth for Bigby to dress up like that, because he’s not that kind of guy. He spends a lot of time running around as a wolf. He’s not going to dress in a way where he’d need to find a way to carry lots of stuff with him when he was a wolf.
“So gradually, Boy Blue took over Bigby’s role, so by the time we got to ‘Homelands,’ I knew it would be him running around. The added advantage pf that is that I was able to take Bigby off stage for a while, and the frustrations of the readers are almost palpable in regards to when he’s coming back. The old pattern of keeping them wanting and hoping for something comes back again.”
And there’s the one mystery Willingham is counting on to keep readers around post-#40, though he had to sell his editor, Shelly Bond, on the idea.
“Shelly was worried that the reveal of the Adversary would be seen as readers as a signal that they can leave now, but no – trust me – by the time the Adversary is revealed, the ‘when is Bigby coming back?’ is going to be so adamant among the fans that they’re going to want to stick around to find that out. And by the time they see what Bigby has been up to; there will be another thing for them to be wondering about down the road.”
So – we’ve got Boy Blue cutting his way through – very successfully, one could add – the Homelands, but what of the lands themselves? In the last three years’ span, whenever anyone recounted the attack of the Adversary, it was always filled with shock, horror, fire and blood. Naturally, Fables living in the Mundane world assume that’s what it’s like now – a charred wasteland, perhaps with the Adversary constantly cackling in the background.
Throughout the “Homelands” arc though, it’s been shown that’s clearly not the case. The empire run by the Adversary is quite…well, not exactly nice, but decent. And civilized.
CON'T POST #2