Jack of Fables vol. 1: Hand me my pants!

Just the other day, I was at my local Borders, loitering, and there was this one guy thumbing through the second volume of Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman. Now that is a good comic book, so I told him, "Hey, that's a pretty good comic book." You know what the guy did?

He put it away and then he walked away from me, mumbling some people! The nerve of some people! If all comic book fans are like this, then brother, that's a ship I don't wanna sail!

But enough about me. you didn't come here for a rant on the nerve of comic book fans. You came here for a review of

Jack of Fables vol. 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape

by Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges and Tony Akins

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In this Fables spin-off, Jack of Fables (AKA Jack B. Nimble, AKA Jack the Giant-Killer. . .) gets his own book! Last we left him, his movie company was uprooted and he was a fugitive. Here, he gets captured by "Mr. Revise and his head librarians," and gets imprisoned in the "Golden boughs Retirement Village," so as to neuter his magic and render Jack, among others, mundane.

Of course, Jack doesn't take too well to this, so he hatches an escape plan! Will it work?

WHAT I LIKED: I loved all the cameos that other fairy tales play in here! It's like Willingham and Sturges wanted to include a lot more Fables in Fables, but it could only carry so much, so they put a lot of cameos in here.

Now that's what I call fanservice.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: If Matt Sturges can carry through a complete and coherent plot/arc in five issues, why can't he do the same in House of Mystery? Why does he have to make the House be a complete veil of vagueness over some more vagueness!

It is honestly frustrating how that title is going nowhere, and that's why I've dropped it. And uh, with today's trade paperback, I have nothing against it.

EXTRAS?: Some of Tony Akins's character designs are at the end of the thing. Not much else.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The best thing you can take away from the trade is Jack's character. It is certainly one of a kind, and the stuff of fairy tales. What a read!