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Ironic Contradictions

I'm a long time reader - since way back when I was seven. That makes it over three quarters of my life that I will be a reader for. But it is worth it. When I'm not reading or wasting my time online on here or Goodreads I'll be off playing video games, studying teaching and messing around with friends and pop culture. Or reading some more.
Fables, Vol. 2: Animal Farm - Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha
Fables has to be one of the most inventive ideas to have been created in terms of comics and graphic novels in recent years. Thanks to the recommendations of university friends reading the series on my trip to the States I picked up the second book (who begins at the beginning these days?) and thoroughly enjoyed the concept. So of course I have to go through and read the rest now that I enjoyed this first foray into the graphic novels. The real problem for me, coming in when plenty has already been written, is trying to catch up when there's so much else to read...

The premise of the Fables series is simple and from what I understand each novel is something of a stand alone, based on the overall premise and with some connection to previous stories. This overall premise is that in our modern day world Fables exist. These are characters from books, legends and stories that have gained some kind of cultural mythology from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book to the story of Snow White. These Fables have been driven from their story worlds and now live in a special area in real life called Fabletown.

This particular volume takes its cues from the story by Orwell: [b:Animal Farm|7613|Animal Farm|George Orwell|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327872845s/7613.jpg|2207778]. Snow White has to head up to the Farm where the less human looking Fables are kept, basically the talking animals, some giants and a dragon. Things go in an Orwell type of direction and everything ends up interestingly. Interestingly enough for me to want to read more of the graphic novels...

There are adult ideas behind these books. But then fairytales have always featured a hidden sense of adult themes and morals. What the writers and artists in this series do is to expose those adult ideas and write them into the contemporary side of their story. As a result the story becomes a mix of fantasy fairytale set in the real world and grappling with real adult issues.

I fully recommend this book at least and I intend to become a fan and to read into the future. The idea of fairytales intersecting with real life is something that's interested me for a while now and seeing a graphic novel deal with that is doubly intriguing.