Fables: Animal Farm

This week unearthed some interesting possibilities in regards to working with comics. I interviewed with Kaplan (yes, the test prep company), and discovered that they actually have a brand new line of sat-vocabulary prep manga and comic books, which are really just straightforward comic books with sidebars explaining advanced vocabulary. Right now they only have a couple, but they've recently signed deals for a few licensed properties, including World of Warcraft and DC Comics' Justice League. They seemed extremely excited when i told them my own experiences dealing in comics. I haven't gotten it yet, but it just goes to show that there are a lot of unexpected paths for getting to the same goal.

In other news, I reread Fables: Animal Farm. In some ways I like this volume better than the first, as the overarching backstory finally begins to be hinted at, and there are a ton of inspired touches to a fairly straightforward guerilla coup story. The pigs as the revolutionary leaders was brillian, two direct literary references in one blow.

However, I do feel the story suffers in comparison to the first one as a result of a much more one-dimensional set of villains. Goldilocks is a psycho, and those helping her like Shere Khan never move past base villainy. Jack and Rose Red were much better fleshed out, to the point where Jack even carried his own series, something a simple nut like Goldilocks could never do. Hers was a case where I felt the idea (Goldilocks slept with Baby Bear and became an insane echoterrorist lashing out against the specism in Fable society) never transferred organcially to the page in a way that had emotional reasonance with me.

The transition from Medina to Willingham was seamless, and if I hadn't read it I would never have picked up on the shift in artists. Interestingly, neither of their work on other titles look anything like each other, which means one or both of them totally sublimated their favored style for the sake of continuity in appearance. Very hard to do, and an indicator of an artist with a fair degree of technical ability. Liefeld, for instance, could never take on another style like that, when he draws something you always know it (generally by the grossly mishapen anatomy and lack of hands, but thats a rant for another day).