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| Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Willingham; Matthew Sturges; Tony Akins; Andrew Pepoy
Publisher: Titan Books Ltd
Category: Book
Buy Used: $10.44
Used (3) from $10.44
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 4565188
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 10 x 6.5 x 0.5
ISBN: 184576451X
EAN: 9781845764517
ASIN: 184576451X
Publication Date: April 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Run, Jack, Run April 12, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Bill Willingham's "Fables" series has already taken some of the world's best-loved characters in a new and thoroughly modern direction. Now, Jack of the Tales -- a.k.a. Jack the Giant-Killer, Jack Horner, Jack Frost, John Trick and Jack B. Nimble -- has broken with the fold (OK, he was banished) and is out on his own. It doesn't take him long at all before he's tossed unwillingly into the Golden Boughs Retirement Community, where the dread Scissorman keeps story characters captive until they fade from the collective subconscious and lose their power.
On the bright side, the revolutionary and homicidal maniac Goldilocks is there, not at all dead as previously believed, and without Baby Bear to sate her, she's willing to get kinky with Jack. (There's nothing explicit, but this isn't a book for youngsters.) But Jack wants to escape the inescapable, and with the help of Humpty Dumpty, a handful of fairies, a large flock of birds and an elderly Sambo, he just might do it.
Anyone who enjoys the "Fables" series will love this. And since everyone should enjoy "Fables," you might as well pick up your copy now.
by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor
A Tour de Force March 7, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The "Fables" series never ceases to amaze me. The brilliance of Bill Willingham and Co. consistently maintains a level of high quality. The title has the word "(Nearly)" in it. It should be removed. The title should say, "Jack of Fables: The Great Escape".
For those of you not familiar with the Fables universe, here is the premise. The people and creations of folklore (Goldilocks, Prince Charming, Snow White, etc.)really exist. They have been forced into our world after being run out of theirs by the mysterious Adversary. Settling in our boring, mundane world they secretly establish Fabletown. The enclave in Manhattan is for those that are able to appear human. The none-human Fables (Thumbelina, Mr. Toad, the Three Little Pigs, etc.) live on "The Farm" in upstate New York.
Of course the story isn't quite what really happened....
These characters are virtually immortal as long as the "mundanes" tell their tales. In fact the more popular they are, the more difficult they are to kill. One of these is Jack Horner. He's also the guy that grew a magic beanstalk. :-) His character is that of a con man and trickster. By nature he is a jerk.
This brings us to this new series where Jack is the star. He's been exiled from Fabletown because one of his schemes went too far. After being busted, he is hitchhiking when he is kidnapped by a beautiful woman and her non-human henchmen. He is transported to a very comfortable, remote prison camp. In this prison are other fables like Alice, Mother Goose and the mysterious Sam. They are all there so that they may be 'forgotten'.
Well nobody locks Jack up! Thus begins his great escape....
I'd love to tell you more but I would spoil the story. Fans of the series will see this as a worthy addition to the Fables universe. If you're new to Fables, you will be cuirious about some of the back stories of characters like Goldilocks and get hooked yourself.
I'd never thought all that much of the Jack character before, but he fills out nicely in his own series. The inventiveness and the creativity of this series is wonderful. Mr. Willingham is a fine student of folklore and mythology as well as clever. Several times he sent me to the Internet to find out more about his characters. Especially the mysterious Sam...... I know we will see more of him.
This was money well spent.
Jack is Back March 14, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
After the comparatively benign and very romantic Wolves, this spin-off from Fables features the incorrigible Jack plus that decidedly nasty character 'Goldilocks', plus what qualifies as an 'evil conspiracy'--against the folks we have come to like and Fabletown as a whole-- giving this set of tales a decidedly nasty character. I love nasty conspiracies. Won't tell you how this one ends, but for one thing: it ain't over until it's over.
I mean, I knew Goldy wasn't killed by Snow White, despite the axe buried deeply in her skull, blood sloshing all over the place, plus the truck that collected her on the windshield and the plunge into the river. Goldilocks is hard to kill, because...
Well, I'm sure Bill Willingham has read Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes and had Dahl's delinquent B&E girl in mind when he characterized Fables's Goldilocks. Because she is just about what you'd expect from the more grown-up young lady described by Roald Dahl as "Goldilocks, that little toad, That nosey thieving little louse, [who] Comes sneaking in your empty house...". But, of course, a 'Fable' survives partially on its popularity with the common folk, and Goldilocks is, after all, very popular.
Goldi was the one who shot Snow White in the head, but fortunately the latter also is very popular, and therefore survived for long enough to have Bigby Wolf's odd little cubs. Here we have one of the great antitheses of these stories. On one side the selfish, murderous Goldie, who led a bloody rebellion at 'The Farm', and turned out to be the worst of self-serving cynical ideological agitators in the stories. On the other a less-than angelic tough-chick Snow White, the right hand and executive mayor of 'Fabletown', who ran the show for centuries, before this thing with the cubs happened.
A similar contrast exists between Jack and Bigby Wolf. Jack is the charming cad, whose only interest is himself. Period. He isn't quite as nasty as the late Bluebeard, but take away the wife-killing fetish of the latter, the two are damn close. Whatever Jack does is for Jack's benefit. Egomania as a driving motive for action, ethics and everything else is fascinating. It isn't 'evil' per se--or maybe it is more evil than the 'evil' that's recognizable as such. I'm still pondering that one.
Contrast him to Bigby Wolf, a man who spent most of his life as a giant wolf--and still spends the occasional stretches of quality-time in that condition. At one time he was a creature of simple appetites, which went to killing whatever came his way. His father was the emotionally-distant 'North Wind', whom Bigby once describes as 'truly evil'. Bigby's animal nature was transformed and he was redeemed into becoming a human being through the intervention of Snow White, whose scent he could never forget since the first time he caught a whiff of her. Ever since then his life has been, in one way or the other, about her. Redemption by love and all that--ultimately for both of them, because Snow has her issues, too; all of which are called 'Prince Charming' or connected to that particular cad.
No such redemption for Jack, who is a true psychopath and therefore unredeemable. Same goes for Goldilocks, and so the story of Jack of Fables and the conspiracy plays out. As usual, cool stuff; this one on the nasty side.
Simply brilliant; from a master of the form! March 26, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
If there was still the least doubt that Bill Willingham was a masterful writer in the pantheon of comic book genius along with Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Linda Medley, and Neil Gaiman, this book surely dispels it. Wit, erudition (absolutely spot-on research on often obscure characters --- loved seeing Little Black Sambo again!), and fast-paced engaging storytelling abound.
Toward the middle of the collection, when we find out how Dorothy really has felt about Toto all these years, well, this writer was still trying to compose himself and stop rolling on the floor in spasm of laughter a good forty-five minutes later. Absolutely delicious.
As with the other FABLES stories, these are not for the young. Rather, Willingham brings these wickedly flawed characters back to the shady and earthy sexiness and violence from which they originally sprang, before they were tidied up for Victorian and 20th century nurseries. Ironically, this is one of Willingham's themes throughout the FABLES tales (which are all also wonderful and highly recommended).
Jack of Fables April 9, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Jack of Fables gets his own spin-off series! I have to admit, at first, I was sort of like, why? But, now I understand. It's because Jack kicks butt! In case you don't know, Jack also goes by Jack of the Beanstalk, Jack B. Horner, Jack of the Tales, and apparently Jack Frost in colder climates.
When we last saw Jack in the Fables comics, he had become a huge player in the Hollywood scene, with fame, money and lots of girls, only to have it all taken away from him by the sheriff of Fabletown, The Beast (from Beauty and the Beast, of course). Left to fend for himself, we meet up with Jack as he walks along a highway with the million dollars Beast let him keep. Suddenly he is picked up with a strange woman and two bagmen (men who are, well, bags, it's weird I know) and taken to a place called The Golden Boughs Retirement community. There he finds Goldilocks (missing from the Fables comics for awhile as well) and other various and sundry fable characters many of whom are very obscure. Someone did their research! Among them are Mother Goose, the Pathetic Fallacy, and a quick little guy called Sam. There are also cameos by Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, Toto, and many others.
There Jack meets a rather nefarious guy called Mr. Revise who runs The Golden Boughs. Mr. Revise's mission is, apparently, imprison fairy tales until the world at large forgets about them, making them less magical. Mr. Revise's sinister intent is to do away with them and rid the world of magic forever
As I said before, I was surprised when they decided to spin-off Jack. Now that I can see where the story is going, I totally understand. This series looks to be completely separate from the Fables universe (no Adversary, none of the regulars from that comic) and has a great story going. The parallels to our own world and the issues we face with censorship are expertly addressed in the story arc with Mr. Revise and the Golden Boughs. I can't wait to see where Bill Willingham and crew go with this in the next part of the series.
And, as always, the art was simply amazing, especially James Jean's beautiful covers. And, I would advise catching up on the Fables comics, not because this can't stand alone because I think it really can, but because they are just so fantastic they need to be read too!
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