Jack of Fables #1–5 by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges and Tony Akins

Vertigo has always been one for capitalising on a success, so it is no big surprise that Fables, their current bestseller, gets its own spin-off in the character of Jack of all Fables, exiled after the mess with the megasuccessful film trilogy. Here, Jack is leaving Hollywood after being driven out by the Manhattan Fables for endangering them, when he is captured by the Golden Boughs Retirement Community. This is a nice idea – it reveals where the other Fables who are not in the main book have all ended up – and it has an excellent premise: the Head Librarian Revise is out to neuter the power of stories and magic. His success can be seen in the way the old fairy tales, full of violence and tragedy, have been mollified and made tame. Therefore, Jack is the big prize – not only is he a huge source of stories (being all the Jacks in the fairytales) but also his films have reinvigorated interest in myth and fantasy.

The story then becomes a prison break, admittedly from an interesting prison with intriguing characters, but rather straightforward. There are a few other problems, one of the largest being Jack himself: he is (deservedly) cocky but this makes for an annoying and unsympathetic character, especially in his irritatingly smug first-person narration. We also spend most of our time with Jack, meaning we don’t get to know all the other characters particularly well.

This collection is enjoyable (spoilers – Jack escapes, obviously) but it doesn’t grab the way Fables does. It is entertaining but ever so slightly irksome: you don’t want to read anymore about Jack because he’s a bit of annoying wanker.

Akins art is a little flat and uneven – his Goldilocks’ body shape changes oddly in the nude scenes, the faces are inconsistent (even though he does have a way with facial expressions) and there’s a very Vertigo feel to the artwork. But he tells the story cleanly and clearly, and everyone is recognisable as an individual character rather than duplicates.

I wish the series success – Fables has been one of the most charming and consistently entertaining ongoing series in mainstream comics for some time now, and Willingham deserves some kudos – but I think I’ll be sticking with the main book only for the foreseeable future; I don’t think I’m missing out on anything.