Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Comic Info

Tell me a story

Snow White has traveled to Arabia to enlist the help of the Fables there in the battle against the Adversary.  When she is captured by a sultan who threatens to kill her, Snow finds herself telling tales in a desperate attempt to save her life.  As she reveals story after story, the Sultan learns of the Fables and their attempts to flee the onslaught of the Adversary.

Written by Bill Willingham, Fables:  1001 Nights of Snowfall is a spin-off graphic novel from Willingham’s popular Fables series.  The stand-alone graphic novel features art by Esao Andrews, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Mark Buckingham, James Jean, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Derek Kirk Kim, Tara McPherson, Jill Thompson, Charles Vess, and Vark Wheatley.  It was released by DC’s Vertigo imprint in hardback in 2006 with a paperback version following in 2008.  The graphic novel won Eisner Awards for Best Anthology and Best Short Story (“A Frog’s Eye View”).

Fables is a great series and Fables:  1001 Nights of Snowfall is a perfect outlet for Willingham.  With so many various Fables and no way to cover them all, Fables:  1001 Nights of Snowfall is a perfect way for Willingham to shotgun a number of short stories that enrich his universe without taking up issue after issue of the regular series.

“A Frog’s Eye View”

The story is in Fables tradition and follows the idea of the famous One Thousand and One Nights as the format for its story but inserting Snow White as the storyteller.  The stories range from dark to humorous (generally more on the humorous side) and generally are true fables with a moral tied to them.  The stories borrow from the Fables series and fill in the blanks in some characters like Flycatcher, Beast, Reynard, Totenkinder, and Bigby.  It makes the characters more rounded and works to tie in their true fairy tales.

The other nice thing about 1001 Nights of Snowfall is that since it is an anthology collection, a number of artists were tapped to do the stories which stretch from multiple pages to just a couple.  It is fun to see the different artistic takes and I really enjoy some of the artists non-traditional looks on the characters.

If you’ve read Fables and skipped this collection, make sure you go back and read it.  It feels like the type of thing that Willingham was originally setting out to do with Fables by providing fun, classic stories, and a modern twist on everything.  The art and style of the story are great and it is a solid and quick read.  I would love Willingham to revisit this format now that Fables is finished.  There were many nights we never heard about in the 1001 nights, and I’d like to hear more.  Sure, not every story works, but if you don’t like one story, just move on to the next…night after night.