A Soppy Fable

Not long after the announcement of a Walking Dead videogame, the same company announced it was going to produce a game based on the long-running Vertigo series Fables. This will likely bear no resemblance to the other Fable of similar name.

Unlike Walking Dead, I was wracking my brain trying to figure out which game would best represent the Fables universe. While the former has a consistent theme throughout, Fables changes its genres with each book. As Bill Willingham said, the first book was a murder mystery, the second a conspiracy thriller, the third a caper story, and so on. While the most obvious choice would be to go the RPG route considering its fantasy setting, it still seemed too limiting considering its source.

So then I thought, “why reduce myself to one genre? Why not include all of them?” Below is a chronological summary of how a Fables V-game could go:

Visual Novel

>>It was another routine day in my sherif’s office as protector of law & order in the little village of Fabletown. I was once the feared figure known as the Big Bad Wolf before the threat known only as The Adversary came and invaded our homelands, forcing the majority of us to travel to other worlds before settling here.

>>Suddenly a figure came huffing and puffing in my front door.

>>It was Jack.

>>Jack was the titular character of known classics such as Jack & the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant Killer, and Jack be Nimble. All the Jacks in every Fable story comes from this man. At least, that’s what he claimed...

>>I didn’t trust him. He was something of a con man, and already alarm bells were ringing in my sensitive ears.

>>“Bigby... you gotta help me!”

>>“Calm down. Jack. What’s the scam now?”

>>“No scam! My girlfriend, Rose Red’s just been murdered!”

>>Rose Red was Snow White’s lesser-known sister. She and Snow had a falling out that went far beyond sibling rivalry. She’d started going out with unsavatory Jack in an attempt to increase her ire against her sister. Apparently, she’d gone further in her attempts than she ever though.

>>I didn’t have to look far for my next move. I already had an idea.

>>“Jack, I’m arresting you for the attempted murder of Rose Red.”

>>His guilty reaction was just as expected.

>>“What?? Don’t you even want to inspect the crime scene first? Look for a few clues with your heightened senses and everything?”

>>“Don’t need to. I don’t like you, and you just gave me the perfect excuse to lock you up.”

YOU SOLVED THE CASE!

BAD END

Spy Game

Snow White: Okay don’t panic. You’re trapped on an Animal Farm where there’s been a breakdown in authority and a swine-based dictatorship’s sprouted up when nobody was looking. And the only way out is across that scary forest full of cute animals with claws and fangs ready to rip me apart at any moment’s notice. Fortunately, there’s a surprising amount of weaponry available. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to use a gun. (looks around) Maybe they won’t notice me moving around this cardboard box.
Shere Khan: I can still smell you, you know.
Snow White: Crap.

Fighting Game

Prince Charming Vs. BlueBeard

Round 3. Fight!

Prince Charming: You tried to have my ex-wife killed for insulting you at your party. I take offence to that. I challenge you to a duel!
BlueBeard: Please. You couldn’t beat me at the training exercise. What makes you think you can beat me now?
Prince Charming: Oh, I don’t know... maybe the fact that I was holding back? Back then, I couldn’t cheat, but here, anything goes! (Launches into a flurry of lethal combos, ending with a riposte and strong finish)

Prince Charming Wins!

Fatality

Side-scrolling Platformer

Prisoner: Thank you Boy Blue! But our Emperor is in another castle!
Boy Blue: No problem. With this magic cape, I shouldn’t have much trouble finding him eventually.
(20 warp pipes, 50 Star roads and 4 magic whistles later...)
Boy Blue: This is ridiculous! How many castles and worlds does this guy have under his thumb? Screw this, I’m changing genres.
Pinnochio: Don’t I even get to play as Luigi?
Boy Blue: No, you’re dead.
Pinnochio: Oh yeah.

Action-Adventure

Boy Blue: Feared Emperor, destroyer and conqueror of our lands, I have arrived under disguise of my invisible cape to challenge you in single combat, forgoing all your guardians, sub-bosses, 8 robot masters and dragons to a fight to the death...
(swings his sword)
Boy Blue: ...and defeat you in a single sword swing. Talk about your anticlimaxes.
Snow Queen: Not so fast. You’ve got me to deal with. (Traps Boy Blue in a shell of ice) Now to bring you to the REAL power behind the throne. Your quest is over. We present you with a new quest. Press button B to select a world.

Lawyer Game

Prince Charming: Let’s start the negotiations over preventing a war against The Empire versus FableTown.
Hansel: HOLD IT! Before we get started, I want to discuss prisoners. You have some of our soldiers as hostages in this peaceful-looking town of yours.
Prince Charming: NOT SO FAST! If you want your alleged soldiers back, we want a fair exchange. We want the location of all our families who were lost when we escaped the Adversary.
Hansel: OBJECTION! It would take us years to find everybody you’re asking for.
Prince Charming: Well then, you should get started. TAKE THAT!
Hansel: (tiny voice) What?
Prince Charming: No, I think an overblown overreaction would be more appropriate. Something like WHAAAAAAAAAAT?????? with plenty of screaming and pounding while wind dramatically blows against your funny hat.
Hansel: I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.

Shooter

Gob: Enemy alert! There’s a flying ship laying waste to our portals! They’ve also been destroying all our towers where the “B” button is pushed. Other than not being able to run faster or attack, we won’t be able to select a world anymore!
General: So shoot down the little thing.
Gob: We’ve been trying! We’ve thrown everything against it - dragon raiders, gryphons, harpies, albatrosses, Medusa heads, bats, huge insects, flying turtles, broomsticks, pigeons and red balloons. As soon as any of them get within firing range, they’re immediately assaulted by more bullets than a Touhou boss.
General: That’s ridiculous! We should be the one with unfair ammunition! Are they trying to win the war on purpose?

SimCity

Bufkin: Okay, for BufkinTown, there should be at least 10 statues of me on every corner, encased in solid platinum, with an organ grinder cranking out the melody to Ding Dong the Witch is Dead. Then on the next block -
Magic Mirror: You’re just a winged monkey. What makes you think you deserve all that? You didn’t help at all during the war effort; just fling poo around and unlock the liquor cabinet.
Bufkin: Hey, a guy can dream can’t he?

Rites & Wongs

A few days ago, I was given a little project to help my mother out. She wanted me to double-check the emails that bounced back and see whether the links were still working or not.

I’m normally comfortable around computers, but this task was a little trickier than most. For one thing, she preferred that I not mess around with her settings, since she was comfortable with them. This was rather problematic, since I like to have my pop-ups in different folders at the bottom of the screen; and she had several Word documents that were grouped together into one drop-down folder.

Furthermore, she wanted me to use Microsoft Office Outlook. It’s not a program I’m familiar or comfortable with, because everytime she uses it, any long links she sends from there are cut in half. If they stretch across the page, the first part is a normal link, and the rest in plain text. I usually wind up clicking the first half and then copying and pasting the second half onto the nonexistent link. Also, every e-mail has a winmail.dat attachment that doesn’t open anything. Computer technicians have been baffled with this harmless bug.


































What made this job harder was that she’d replaced her regular carpal tunnel syndrome wrist protector with a beanbag one which I found extremely uncomfortable.

Anyway, I managed to find the relevant people in question, and grouped them together as per her specifications. I found that the major reason why some people weren’t getting their messages was because the sent e-mails were one letter off. After dividing them into two divisions of full names and typo names, I decided to send a quick message to one of the misspelled people first to make up for lost time. So I clicked on the little envelope thingie at the top of the page, and it disappeared.

Feeling apprehensive, I took another look, and felt worried, since I noticed that the file name for the attachment was a different name than the example posted. I debated with myself on whether I did the right thing or not, and hemmed and hawed over telling Mom about the possible mistake. When I explained the situation, my mother went into a frenzied rant on how I sent the wrong information. It turns out that the document I attached contained confidential e-mails on all her clients.











She complained how she had to do everything herself, since I had a tendency to go too fast in anything I do without taking the time to consider the consequences. She was sick and tired of having to do everything, and resigned herself to completing the job since she couldn’t trust me with her files. She went straight away into sending an e-mail to the previous applicant on ignoring the previous e-mail attachment and looking at the right one.












However, things took a turn for the perplexing when she searched her “sent” history and found no trace of any e-mails with attachments being sent. She even registered to her e-mail account, and found that nothing in that memory had been sent either. After combing through her history, it turned out that the e-mail with the confidential information had never been sent.

After calming her down and regaining her trust, I was able to continue finishing the job she requested. Eventually, I found the missing document that made my mother lose her temper. Turns out the envelope icon I thought would send the documents didn't do that. That icon just opened up the e-mail address page, which was blank, making me think it had been sent. The real “send” icon was in text, which was how I missed it. THIS time, I replaced the attachment with the right one. I wasn’t going to go through that whole lecture again!

I told you earlier that I wasn't familiar with the program she wanted me to use. Good thing too, otherwise I would've succeeded in sending the file over in the first place. Turns out that even as an accident, I manage to screw up screwing up properly.

Past Blog Updates

There were multiple previous posts that I wanted to do some updates on, due to some acquisition of new information and scans, but was reluctant to update them individually with nobody around to notice them. So I decided to be upfront with everything new, and post everything noteable in one go here.

First up, remember the great Fables controversy? Well, I took another look at the earlier volumes before the noticeable Goblin cover, and found out the copying started even before then.




















Oh you want proof? Well, I'll give you proof. Our first target apart from our face-off, is right outside our office. Here, Prince Charming does the remarkable feat of going outside the building without ever actually moving his legs. One might suspect a treadmill is involved so he wouldn't have to sully his perfect suit.


































I'm sad to say that even Snow White isn't free from suspicion in this guilt. Her position while waking up and talking to me is consistent throughout. While I wouldn't normally complain about the placement of her perfect hair, it becomes rather laughable throughout.













No this isn't envy that her bed hair never requires brushing and looks better than mine. It's basic common sense.

Not enough for you? Well, I managed to double-check the 11th book again, since the library copy was out, and found some more examples to add to the pile of evidence. Remember Pinnoccio’s ugly mug? (Who could forget it?) Well, here’s some more glaring similarities.












Faced with the threat of upcoming death of one of his friends, he suddenly developed a defense mechanism and conveniently forgot his stone-faced gaze and reverted back to a familiar Marlon Brando-type sneer. (Not that he actually succeeded...)


















When it comes to tyrannical president-for-life dictators, they rely on repetitive images to bolster their image. In the case of the Emperor whose iron rule declares that nobody gazes on his figure for too long lest they cower in fear of his appearance, this becomes something of a hindrance. He has a few words to say about the competence of the artist working on his likeness:




















I could post some more obvious examples of his fearsome visage, but I think I've made my point.
















Changing topics, one of my longest posts was about the relevance of the Foobjournal continuing its barbs on the reprints of For Better or for Worse. I wrote a throwaway line about how the family strip in seach of an ending reminded me of a Peanuts strip. I found the relevant comic in a book titled Snoopy's Guide to Writing. (Considering the number of his multiple rejection slips, he’s the last muse we should be going to for influence)

















While we’re talking about the Foobiverse, there was a recent discussion about whether characters had done mundane things that were beyond redemption. One example that jumped out at me was where Deanna was more interested in shopping for suitcases worth of clothes, several years after being a health volunteer for poverty-stricken Africans.

































It was very reminiscent of another Cerebus similarity where Jaka couldn’t conceive of travelling with the same clothes for more than two days, despite living on a mountaintop for months without complaint in Jaka’s Story. (This was also around the time Dave Sim started to lose it with his women = soul-sucking voids worldview)












In my defense, I only focused on the first two decades of For Better or For Worse. Whenever I read anything that was written in the last ten years, my mind starts to wander. In fact, my Sunday comics collecting started to become less obsessive around the time Calvin & Hobbes left the paper for good, and there was a lack of worthy strips to replace it.

In the latest One Piece chapter, after 2 ½ years of sidequests, the Straw Hat crew has finally made it to Fishman Island. I mentioned that the main characters have a tendency to inevitably destroy whatever new territory they come upon. Out of the many characters that’ve been introduced in this underwater village, a mermaid seer decides to take a peek into the future of the Straw Hat captain, and makes this prophecy:

Oh Luffy, We simply can’t take you anywhere without you tearing up the landscape can we?

On another note, I have a theory on who’ll be the newest member to join the Straw Hat crew. It’ll be Jimbei, former Warlord of the sea. In addition to having a connection with Luffy’s brother, who Jimbei was good friends with, it’ll also keep Luffy’s involvement in the Navy/WhiteBeard War from being a waste of time.

There was some fear that having such an overpowered player join the crew would be seen as cheating, but since everybody’s gone to the trouble to take two years to power themselves up to face the upcoming threats, Jimbei wouldn’t seem out of place with the others now. Not to mention that his experience in the water could rescue any Devil Fruiters from sinking and help Nami’s navigation charts. Besides, as evident from the recent chapters, having a female mermaid join the crew would be hazardous to Sanji’s health.

Fables Copyright

With the release of the 100th issue of Fables, I decided it was time to reread the first 75 issues again to refresh my memory of some slight subplots that might've been forgotten or overlooked the first time around. Especially since my predictions for how that issue would turn out was far off the mark. For those of you still unaquainted with the latest Vertigo title, I'll give you the low-down. It's about a group of the most popular characters of fairy tales from your childhood; Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, the Big Bad Wolf, Little Boy Blue, the Frog Prince, etc. who're living in the "Real" world in order to escape from an all-conquoring nation taking over their lands who's only known as the Adversary. It starts off slow, but doesn't really begin to pick up steam until the 6th book.























However, while rereading that 6th book, I began to notice several panels seemed familiar. It started with the 36th cover issue. A seemingly innoculous patriotic recruitment cover from the Adversary. Pay attention to that center red goblin, because you're going to see him often.


































This sort of thing could be considered a form of subliminal advertising. I know that every time I saw this Goblin's mug again, I could practically hear him bellowing out a "JOIN" whenever he appeared.























In addition to that particular Goblin who'd been reused several times throughout the series, I also noticed several poses that seemed unusually unorthodox. Look at how Bigby Wolf's posed in the first panel there - that's a very unusual stance to take, and it got my attention, since it "sounded" familiar, but I couldn't quite place it until I went through the other books to find anything that looked similar. So, not only is Bigby's bending position suitable for carrying a sword, it's also useful for carrying farming buckets, planting dynamite and shoveling snow.


































This leads me to suggest that the original pose was a lunging one, and was only reused for this instance multiple times. With a stock position, the artist can reuse these styles over and over again without anyone being the wiser. There's only a finite number of ways the human body can contort itself, and artists can tire themselves out if they have to think up new ways to portray their works.











From there, it was a simpler matter to find reused faces, even if they were flipped or not. Frau Totenkinder, the Black Forest Witch of Gingerbread House fame is equally notorious for having limited facial expressions.










































However, she pales in comparison to Pinocchio's unusual stiff upper lip. Say "Hi", Pinocchio.




















The only things that change are his eyes and hair, but his face remains the same. Much like the Goblin whose tongue was of varying lengths with every appearance.

Another single-issue example is where Beauty is standing with a sour expression next to Beast who's jutting his shoulder out.


































While there are occasional panels of Beauty & Beast moving around, they eventually revert back to their stock position while Prince Charming is the only one moving around the place. Eventually, Prince Charming gets tired of the two of them standing still and opts to push them apart, even while the Beast's still in a stiff position.

Even the feared Emperor of the Adversary isn't immune to this symptom.

















I didn't include samples of seeing him from behind or front facial profiles, since those were easy enough to find for anyone paying attention. Here you can see how the Emperor only has his arm position changed. Otherwise, he's reduced to tight close-ups to avoid temptation from copying his whole body all over again.

However, the worst offender has to be Geppetto. The shadows are constantly casting an omnious look over half of his face so often that it looks like he's purposely putting himself in these overhead lighting places to look meanancing whenever possible.


































It's not just limited to the main characters either. Secondary characters who make rare appearances can be shoddily reinserted into unnatural positions whenever possible. Compare the Djinn's swooping pose to his organizing several tanks in the second panel below:



















On a lesser case, there's the helpful giant in Cloudland.
















There are subtle differences in the giant's clothes and arm, but the same colour scheme and profile makes it look very similar.

Considering that most Vertigo titles are mercifully canceled around the #50-60 isue mark, with Sandman being a rare exception, ending around issue #75, and Hellblazer going 250+ issues strong, Fables is the most recent contendor to join a small number of adult fantasy comics that're enjoyed by multiple readers. So it's hardly surprising that other artists would be rotated out to give the main artist Mark Buckingham a rest. The day he collapses from exhaustion is the day Fables unique style ends. Sure, another artist could pick up the slack as so many others have done, but the overall tone won't feel the same. There was general disappointment when the cover artist, James Jean left after the 81st issue to pursue other interests, leaving the daunting task of summarizing the interior issue to João Ruas, who's done a pretty good job so far.

Mark Buckingham is hardly the only artist to reuse panels. Manga artists have used this photocopy shortcut too in order to keep up with their insane deadlines.


























Even legendary creator Naoki Urasawa isn't immune to this symptom. He's not above reusing a face with intense close-ups in order to avoid redrawing the same guy over and over again.
































At first glance, these panels below look almost identical, but there are subtle differences in the man's angle of glasses, overhead wrinkles and number of eyebrow strokes.














Now for the biggie - can you recognize which faces have been used in this cropped spread here?












































If something isn't done sooner rather than later, we'll all be condemned to limited facial expressions in the future, just like everybody else. Any parting words on the repeated images, Pinocchio?






















EDIT - Bigby Wolf takes over where Muddlecock left off and finds some more glaring examples both before and after these issues present.