Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape

If you've read much of this blog you know that I am a huge fan of Bill Willingham's Fables comic. I'm also a bit of a completist when it comes to my book and graphic novel collections. Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges spun Fables character Jack Horner (aka Jack the Giant Killer, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc...) off into his own book at the beginning of the Fables collection #6 (Homelands) after the character had stolen money from the Fables, and set himself up as a movie mogul, making 2 blockblusters about himself (naturally). Sherrif Beast tracked Jack down, and after informing him that his actions had not only betrayed his own kind, but could have blown the Fables cover to the Mundane world gave him an ultimatum: take the briefcase full of money that Beast was offering, and hit the road or refuse and be arrested, and face execution for his actions. Jack took the first option and this moved him out of the parent book and into his own spin off.

The cover of the collection has a picture of a running Jack complete with briefcase and a protest of the Fables demanding he leave Fabletown, Jack is wearing a t-shirt bearing the legend: Ensemble Books are for Losers. It's typical of the wit readers have come to expect from the books.

Jack probably had to be moved out of Fables. He claims he's too large a character to be held by a book of ensemble characters, but the character is obnoxious, narcissistic, selfish, self destructive and abrasive. He tends to distract from the main story by being himself.

The (Nearly) Great Escape contains the 1st 5 issues of Jack of Fables. The opening finds him with briefcase in hand trying to hitch a lift by the side of the road. He's picked up by a van in the control of Priscilla Page, after a struggle Jack is taken to The Golden Boughs Retirement Community. For the uninitiated some explanation is required here. A group of characters known as The Literals (Fables readers who do not read Jack's book met them in the Great Fables Crossover) use their powers to control stories. As a result they have taken a number of storybook characters prisoner at their retirement community of Golden Boughs.

Although none too happy at being confined against his will once Jack's fallen into bed with Goldilocks (yes, she survived her encounter with Snow and Bigby way back in Fables collection #3 Storybook Love, and no she has not changed) he thinks it may not be so bad, but being Jack is drawn into an escape attempt masterminded by Goldilocks.

The Literals managed to prevent or recapture most of the escaping inmates, although Jack remained at large at the end of the book.

There were some wonderful new characters introduced in Jack of Fables: the old Colchester cannon; Humpty Dumpty, Paul Bunyan and his daydreaming blue ox Babe and the Literals, especially their patriarch Gary the Pathetic Fallacy, who will become important later on.

Tony Akins art is a particular highlight. If anything it is cleaner and brighter than Mark Buckingham's work on Fables, as with Fable, though, the pencilling suits the book perfectly.