Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

I love fairy tales and the TV series Once Upon a Time taught me that I love fairy tales reimagined, so I was really looking forward to Fables. In fact, I was looking forward to it so much, I was so sure that I was going to love it, that I've been “saving” it for when I needed a sure thing to captivate my interest.

Sadly, I couldn't have been more wrong. I don't mind the mature themes—after all, so many of the original tales were rather grim—but ... it was just so boring. You know how a game developer will sometimes take a tried-and-true thing, slap a licensed “skin” on it, and sell it as something new? That's how this felt: like Fabletown was just the set decoration for a run-of-the-mill mystery.

There was nothing about this volume that made it stand out. Standard, all-caps, randomly bolded text. Uninteresting artwork. Just ... blah.Really disappointing start. Except for the individual issue covers. The cover art is different and rather lovely.