Despite how far behind I am, I probably would not have read this yet, except I realized about three issues in that I had it backwards with the Jack of Fables I just finished, regarding publication order. So I went ahead and fixed that, as you’ve seen, but then: already three issues in, may as well read the rest. And so here we are, at the end of the twelfth volume in the Fables series, The Dark Ages.

Which, okay, that title doesn’t make much sense when you consider that they just won the war against the Adversary (whose name I should probably stop inching around, to be honest) and Fabletown is no longer in imminent danger, right? Sure, the Empire is still out there, mostly holding all the old lands through numbers and inertia, but it’s a headless snake now, and any heads that develop will at least be smaller and less dangerous. Right?

Let’s just say that any fears I may have expressed about the story’s ability to soldier on in the absence of its initiating premise have been laid to rest, and in rather dramatic and literal fashion at that.

It turns out that if your cyclical reading schedule for graphic novels comes into conflict with your desire to reread the great fantasy series of your lifetime, you can end up going a year and a half between one book and the next. Which explains why I had almost no idea what was going on in the fifth Jack of Fables book. I mean yes, he’s still the self-absorbed, money-, sex- and fame-obsessed character who climbed a beanstalk that one time. I haven’t forgotten everything. But as to his specific circumstances? Let’s just say it’s a good thing I have a long-running review blog.

Good news for me is that this was an incremental book. That is, the first half of the story was a conflict between Jack and Bigby Wolf in 1883, a follow-up I suppose to some previous historical Jack tales about his time in the Civil War[1]. So it was easy to follow, and then I only had to deal with three issues advancing the main plot, which was just enough time to a) get me caught up and ready for the next book, y’know, months from now when I read it, and b) make me fully aware that there’s some high-level familial machinations going on here that I probably need to be paying much closer attention to, to understand them.

There’s this guy Revise who I’ve mentioned before, who wants to make everyone forget all the Fables, because… I wonder if I’ve ever known why? And there’s this guy Bookburner who hates Revise, but seems to destroy Fables, and I guess that’s worse than draining them and the world of magic through forgetfulness, but all in all, I don’t understand why these people are opposed to each other. Except that there’s a lot of family drama, all of which involves other characters with literary tropes as names and powers, and frankly the literary-trope-as-plot works so much better in The Unwritten, which to be fair I had not yet read any of last time I read one of these. So that’s unfortunate.

It’s not like the book’s bad. I really like Jack[2] and I like the hot librarian sisters and the bizarrely Proustian miniature blue ox and quite a few other things that are going on, but the plot? Either I’m lost, or I don’t get it, or it’s kind of dumb.

[1] I sure don’t remember which book anymore, so no link for you.
[2] Well, no, but I really like to read about Jack.

I am surprised and not a little annoyed to report that I completely failed to write a review. (Well, technically two, but one of them is on purpose[1].) I can’t even figure out how it happened. I know I read the third book in the Unwritten series, and I know I thought I had reviewed it, but when I went looking down the recent list, it’s definitely not there. So, um, oops? I’ll do my best, some week-and-change later.

My best ain’t gonna be a lot, unfortunately. I cannot even put together what the title, Dead Man’s Knock, is meant to indicate. (I mean, maybe I still wouldn’t have known if I were fresh?) I do know that this one was a little lighter on the deep literary thoughts and a little heavier on kicking Tommy Taylor’s story, not to mention the war being waged against him by the weird cognoscenti cabal that views him as such an unexplained threat, into high gear. Which is okay. I like the concepts swirling around, but without some excitement and menace, Carey’s latest opus would probably feel self-involved.

Also, there was an entire issue laid out as Choose Your Own Adventure, and you cannot tell me that’s not really awesome. You could try, but you would not succeed.

[1] Don’t worry, I’ll get there.

So, this is cool. I’ve figured out what’s actually going on in Jack of Fables, way after the fact. (Probably way after anyone else who has read these books, for that matter.) Remember when he got captured by a bad guy named Revise who has been gathering up Fables and keeping them in a camp while making people forget that they ever had any stories, in the hopes of turning the whole world Mundane?

It turns out that Jack’s ongoing quest to garner increased fame, power, and wealth is actually beside the point, despite what he would constantly have you believe in his position as occasional narrator. Now that the war is over, this Revise guy is probably the most important thing happening in the entire Fables universe, and Jack just happens to be caught up in the swirl. I cannot decide if he would be offended by that or think it just and right that he’d be at the center of the action. (He would never admit he isn’t the center of the action, either way.)

Anyway, though, Americana: besides the other things that are obviously happening along the way as per above, Jack is now looking for a way into the American Fable country where he can find Cibola, the lost city of gold, and get, you know, rich. I’m glad that Revise’s three hot librarians[1] keep managing to keep tabs on Jack, though, because they are stuffy and hilarious, and I think he would be insufferable if left to his own devices.

[1] No, seriously. It’s not just comic art rendering everyone hot. There’s a t-shirt and everything! Also, in case you care, the three hot librarians are sisters.[2]
[2] Okay, I admit that knowledge to be gratuitous.

To start with, yes, I will be reading more of The Unwritten. It is about literature on every level: in plot, in theme, in voice, and I’m sure more ways that I haven’t thought of yet, and by gum, I don’t have this degree in English Literature for nothing. It’s really smart, really convoluted, and I expect to know more things at the end than I knew at the beginning, about the psychology of readers and reading as much as about the creation and function of stories.

As for Inside Man, aside from being obviously good enough to win me over, I can say a few things I suppose. In addition to following Tommy Taylor into prison (for a crime he didn’t commit!, no less) and into Nazi Germany, it explores the psychological impact of stories. On children and adults. On the stories themselves. On (at, okay, a more metaphysical level) the very earth upon which they occur. And then, after reading five issues’ worth of storyline that seems like it was made specifically to accommodate my personal interests, it’s capped off with a cautionary allegory set in Carey’s parody of the Hundred Acre Woods. So it may be fair to say that the closer your (non-horror, non-cult-classic) tastes match mine, the more you will like this series.

But man, there sure is a lot of foreign language in it, enough that I end up not trying to translate it. (This complaint is probably properly directed at me, not the book.)