Fables

While I enjoy comic books, I find I don't have the cash to collect them. I mean to organize myself and read library collections, but I'm lazy. Anyway, the one series I do collect is Fables, a comic about fables from every time and land being chased from their homes and into modern-day New York City, where they live in a particular city block and try to stay hidden from ordinary mortals. Some manage that better than most; the ones that can't manage - the three little pigs, for example - are sent to The Farm. Snow White, Rose Red, and the Big Bad Wolf - Bigby - are prominent characters.

Cory Doctorow's review of the latest collection at Boing Boing sounds very interesting:

In Crossover, the Literals (literal embodiments of philosophical and literary ideals, such as the Pathetic Fallacy and a trio of beautiful, ass-kicking embodiments of librarianship) suck the Fables into a new kind of fight -- a fight against the Writer, himself a Literal, bent on rewriting reality and making a better one, in order to rein in the characters and situations who've run away from him.

As with previous volumes, it's whacking great fun, as well as being an education in the ways of storytelling and a philosophical rumination on the nature of belief, reality, and the power of stories. Willingham's humor and scenarios grow more meta with each installment, but somehow, it never degenerates into a mere exercise -- Fables is always, first and foremost, a wonderful story.

Time to make some early birthday and Christmas list additions. I'm so behind on the series.