Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s ‘Fables’ Returns To DC Comics
by Olly MacNamee
It seems you really can never say never as DC Comics announces the return of Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s Fables series following on where the original series left of with Fables #151.
Once upon a time, fans met the characters of Fabletown, the hidden city populated by legendary heroes and villains of fairy tales and folklore. Now, in celebration of its upcoming 20th anniversary, the bestselling series Fables is picking up where it left off—and expanding into the DC Universe.
Ahead of this will come Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf in Gotham which will witness “Fables’s infamous sleuth Bigby Wolf go head-to-head with the world’s greatest detective, Batman, in this six-issue spinoff miniseries from DC Black Label.” It will be written by Willingham with pencils by Brian Level, inks by Jay Leisten, and colours by Lee Loughridge and out this September from DC Black Label.
But, As a fan who loved the original series, why now? And, what else is there to tell in the saga of Fabletown? Bill Willingham explains:
“I’ve wanted to do this since the very first year of Fables. Why? Because Batman is a detective, and Bigby is a detective, and I love a well-crafted story crossing over characters from two different fictional worlds. It’s automatically a fish-out-of-water story for at least one of the main characters, and that sort of story always works. Plus, I knew from the very beginning of Fables that my fictional universe would allow for many ways to get Bigby Wolf into the DCU and Gotham City. Even though those cosmic story structures wouldn’t be introduced in the Fables books for a year or more, they were baked in from the very beginning.”
After the six-issue series, in May 2022, Fables #151 will be published, continuing the story and coming just in time for the 20th anniversary of Fables #1.
Fables #151 is the first installment of “The Black Forest,” a 12-issue arc that picks up where the story left off in Fables #150, and is also a perfect jumping-on point for new readers.
The series also brings the original band back together again too, with with pencils by Mark Buckingham, inks by Steve Leialoha, colours by Lee Loughridge, and letters by Todd Klein.
And just when I thought I was out, an all-time favourite comes back to pile onto my ever-increasing pull list. I couldn’t be more happy, even if my wallet would disagree with me. Will you be picking it up?
