Fairest: In All The Land
Written by Bill Willingham, illustrated by A Wonderland of Artists
Vertigo Comics
At first glance this original graphic novel from the Fables spinoff series Fairest looks like a collection of very short stories, a more extreme version of the original graphic novel Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (I have seen descriptions that describe it that way). But in fact it is a single mystery story which casts super-spy Cinderella in the role of reluctant detective as she has seven days to solve the series of murders of the most glamorous women in Fabletown. It is very much set in Fairest and Fables continuity, assuming not only that the reader is familiar with the entire Fables cast, but also that they have been following both series up to the point in 2013 when this book was published (originally in hardcover, a paperback edition is scheduled for Fall, 2014).
The story begins with narrator The Magic Mirror describing the situation he finds himself in: the vast magical chamber that was once the Fabletown Business Office is lost somewhere in the endless worlds. His companions are the disembodied heads of the Wooden Soldiers (106 of them) and Frankenstein, plus twelve tiny Barleycorn Women. The Mirror's glass is shattered in an apparent accident. When he recovers a few days later he is astonished to see a set of tire tracks, which no one else can explain: somehow a car arrived and departed without being seen. When the Mirror focuses on the car, he finds the sports car which the fairy called Hadeon the Destroyer was transformed into.
The car arrives in Fabletown, and shortly thereafter Cinderella is summoned to witness two bloody murders: the witch Morgan Le Fay and the oracle Mrs. Ford, Before she died Mrs. Ford wrote a list of notable Fables women, each one "the fairest in the land." Cindy resolves to visit all of the people on the list, treating them as her preliminary list of suspects. Long story short: she finds each woman murdered just before she gets there, always with a second murder on the scene. Her list of suspects quickly transforms into a list of potential victims. This is a fair play mystery, so the reader is provided with the same clues Cinderella has.
It takes a long and twisted path to the conclusion, as Cindy gradually learns to sharpen her detective skills. Of course she solves it in the end, but not without a considerable cost. Some notable Fables characters remain dead at the conclusion. Or at least as dead as Fables can be: the really famous ones are almost impossible to kill permanently.
A final note on the structure of the book. It is told in the form of two illustrated prose chapters that bracket thirty comic book stories. The list of illustrators has twenty-four names, truly "a Wonderland of artists." This means that the artist changes every few pages, which I found disorienting at first, but I quickly got used to it. The story manages to be a consistent tale and an artist's showcase at the same time.
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