Fairest: In All the Land

Comic Info

Mirror, Mirror

Someone is murdering Fables in twos, and the list of potential victims has been found.  Now, it is up to Cinderella to find the murderer and protect the targets of the rampage.  It is a race against time because the killer might be using a cursed sword that has special properties to save some of the victims but only in seven days!  Observing this all are a small group of Fables trapped in the business office of Fabletown that’s connection has been lost to the Mundy world…and the Magic Mirror sees all.

Written by Bill Willingham, Fairest:  In All the Land is a stand-alone graphic novel.  It is a spin-off of the Fairest series (which in turn spun-off Fables).  The segmented graphic novel features art from Chrissie Zullo, Karl Kerschl, Renoe De Liz, Fiona Meng, Mark Buckingham, Phil Noto, Meghan Hetrick, Russ Braun, Tony Akins, Gene Ha, Tulo Lotay, Marley Zarcone, Chris Sprouse, Nimit Malavia, Dean Ormston, Kurt Huggins, Adam Hughes, Al Davison, Shawn McManus, and Inaki Miranda.

I loved Fables and I liked Jack of Fables and Fairest.  While Jack of Fables had a completely different tone than Fables, Fairest generally had the same feeling as the original Fables series (with a focus on the female Fables in theory).

Return to Fables

This title is similar to the previous stand-alone Fables title Fables:  1001 Nights of Snowfall.  It featured different artists telling different stories.  Opposed to that title, Fairest:  In All the Land features a continuing story illustrated by multiple artists.  It is fun to see all the different takes on the characters and I always prefer the more extreme takes by the artists in presentations like this.  We see standard art volume to volume of Fables, so bigger and more dramatic takes on the art are more interesting.

The story itself falls in the middle of the Fables “saga” and has ties to the other series.  It isn’t a very reader friendly series in that sense and you need to have a background on multiple storylines occurring within Fables and Jack of Fables.  It also almost feels like it could be a Cinderella story since her character has had a few limited series as well.

Fairest:  In All the Land is another good Fables tales.  It doesn’t really stand out among the other Fables stories and it seems like it could have been absorbed into one of the series instead of being a stand-alone.  If you like Fables, you should check out Fairest:  In All the Land…but it is just more of the same.

Related Links:

Fairest 1:  Wide Awake

Fairest 2:  The Hidden Kingdom

Fairest 3:  The Return of the Maharaja

Fairest 4:  Of Men and Mice

Fairest 5:  The Clamour for Glamour