I was late getting into the
Fables series, but I'm catching up now. This is the third book in the series and by far the best one so far. We get a historical Jack of the Fables (he's the guy that climbed the beanstalk, killed the giant, jumped over the candlestick and all the other Jack stuff in children's literature) tale, wherein he wins a magic bag that can consume anything -- and what happens after it consumes the Grim Reaper, and a story about a reporterwho tries to out the Fables -- although he doesn't have it exactly right, he thinks they're vampires. We get a followup to the tale of Thumbelina and what happens when there are more barleycorn brides. And we get a long tale of Bluebeard and Goldilocks's attempt to murder Snow White and Bigby Wolf. All this and flying monkeys too! You better believe this book gets the Green Genius Seal of Approval.
The general level of artistic talent in comic books is nowhere near as high as it was back in the golden and silver ages. Too many modern artists obviously learned how to draw by looking at comic books rather than at real life. But John Cassaday is so good he would have have had no problem getting a job back in the day. There are very few artists of his generation that I can say that of. And here's something I can say about him that I can say of no other artist of his generation -- I chose my books by the writer, but I will read anything John Cassaday draws. Even though Warren Ellis's chain-smoking, world-weary paranoia wears on me after a while, it's just so gorgeous to look at.
This is a compilation of a series that I enjoyed several years ago, but for the life of me I can't figure out why now.
I was late getting into the Fables series, but I'm catching up now. This is the third book in the series and by far the best one so far. We get a historical Jack of the Fables (he's the guy that climbed the beanstalk, killed the giant, jumped over the candlestick and all the other Jack stuff in children's literature) tale, wherein he wins a magic bag that can consume anything -- and what happens after it consumes the Grim Reaper, and a story about a reporterwho tries to out the Fables -- although he doesn't have it exactly right, he thinks they're vampires. We get a followup to the tale of Thumbelina and what happens when there are more barleycorn brides. And we get a long tale of Bluebeard and Goldilocks's attempt to murder Snow White and Bigby Wolf. All this and flying monkeys too! You better believe this book gets the Green Genius Seal of Approval.
The general level of artistic talent in comic books is nowhere near as high as it was back in the golden and silver ages. Too many modern artists obviously learned how to draw by looking at comic books rather than at real life. But John Cassaday is so good he would have have had no problem getting a job back in the day. There are very few artists of his generation that I can say that of. And here's something I can say about him that I can say of no other artist of his generation -- I chose my books by the writer, but I will read anything John Cassaday draws. Even though Warren Ellis's chain-smoking, world-weary paranoia wears on me after a while, it's just so gorgeous to look at.
This is a compilation of a series that I enjoyed several years ago, but for the life of me I can't figure out why now.
No comments:
Post a Comment