Disguised among the normal citizens of modern-day New York, these magical characters created their own secret society-within an exclusive luxury apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side-called Fabletown. When a savage creature known only as the Adversary conquered the fabled lands of legends and fairy tales, all of the infamous inhabitants of folklore were forced into exile.

No longer just children's tales, Willingham has created a new world for these beloved fables.one that exists within our own.

But it's Willingham's script that carries the tale.In the same vein as best-selling 'fractured-fairy-tales' such as Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is Bill Willingham's runaway hit graphic novel series FABLES. The art, mostly by Medina and Leialoha, is well drawn and serviceable, if somewhat unremarkable, with occasional flares of decorative invention. Willingham's dialogue is humorous, his characterizations are sharp and his plot encompasses a tremendous amount of information with no strain at all. The mystery seems mostly an excuse to delineate Willingham's world, as the caper is easily resolved in true fairy tale fashion during a massive ballroom celebration. Willingham uses the Wolf's investigation to introduce readers to Fabletown's dissolute, hard-luck inhabitants, and he is at his best here, relishing one-liners and spinning funky background information of a world where fairy tale characters spend their time fretting about money and thinking up get-rich schemes. When Snow White's sister, Rose Red, disappears from a blood-soaked apartment, the Wolf, reformed and now the kingdom's house detective, is assigned to the case.

And so, on the city streets we find Beauty and the Beast in trouble with the law and Prince Charming reduced to a broke cad auctioning off his royal title, while his ex-wife, Snow White, rules over the de facto kingdom the fables created. Years ago, fables and fairy tales like Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella 'were a thousand separate kingdoms spread over a hundred magic worlds,' until they were invaded and driven into hiding and, eventually, into modern-day Gotham. This elaborate fantasy series begins as a whodunit, but quickly unfurls into a much larger story about Fabletown, a place where fairy tale legends live alongside regular New Yorkers.

Fables vol 1 legends in exile