How to use this Page

Fairest Vol. 2: Hidden Kingdom Lauren Beukes, Bill Willingham, Inaki Miranda

This is a bit of a jump-back in time from where the main series is. With the “present day” happening in 2002, so the action is pretty firmly at the beginning of the series, with lots of flashback to Rapunzel’s back story.

So, like most fairy tales, Rapunzel has a dark edge that we tend not to retell. In the original, the witch discovers the prince because Rapunzel is pregnant. She casts Rapunzel into the desert where she gives birth to twins. The prince gets tangled in brambles trying to climb the tower, is blinded by the thorns and is also cast into the desert. They all wander around for like 20 years before they find each other, Rapunzel’s tears of joy cure his eyesight and only then do they all live happily-ever-after.

In the Fables world, Frau Tottenkinder is the witch that imprisoned Rapunzel. She casts her out, Rapunzel gives birth, and she’s told her children die during childbirth. She’s always known that they survived and has spent centuries searching for them. At one point, she tries to drown herself but washes up on the shores of a Japanese fable kingdom (named the Hidden Kingdom).

In the present day, she gets a message via attacking crane origami that there is news of her children. She meets up with friends and enemies from her old adopted homeland, and Tokyo’s version of Fabletown where the present is tied with the fall of the Hidden Kingdom to the adversary's forces.

I loved this one. I loved the look at Japanese mythology and fables, how they played in their homeland and how they survive in the modern Mundy world. I liked the old school “present day” with Jack running his schemes, Snow and Bigby in the business office and Frau Tottenkinder doing her thing on the 13th floor of the original building. It was a nice return to the beginning. But more than that, I loved Rapunzel’s story and her strength. We don’t see a lot of her, as she’s not allowed to leave Fabletown because of her hair and she’s been kinda shoved to the side in this series.

There’s also a tantalizing clue about the truth about her daughters, that I don’t believe we’ve seen the answer to yet. (I’m trying to rack my brain, as this happens so far in the past to see if we’ve seen them and not known it, or if they have yet to come up.)

This is my favorite volume in the Fairest spin-off series.

Book Provided by... my wallet

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

TRIBES the Dog Years is a SF graphic novel about a world where no one lives past the age of 21, that originally came out a few years ago. Written by Mike Geszel and Peter Spinetta, it featured gobsmacking art by Spanish artist Inaki Miranda, as seen on the book’s FB page. Paul Pope called it “Mad Max by way of Disney. Inaki draws with a widescreen vision that jumps off the page.”

Since Miranda has gotten better known since then do to all his work for Vertigo— including Coffin Hill—a new hardcover edition of the book is being released this May, Tribe: The Dog Years Deluxe Edition, for those who might have missed it the first time. The new edition will includes more concept designs, 20+ pages of original pencils, a newly designed cover and backing – all the unusual but effective horizontal format of the original. The edition includes an intro by screenwriter Alex Tse (Watchmen.)

In the near future, a nano-virus accidentally shortens the human lifespan to 21 years. Two hundred years later, tribes of kids survive amidst the junkyard ruins of the techno-industrial age. One day everything changes for Sundog of the Sky Shadows tribe.  Is there new hope for longer life?  Can the virus be cured with the help of a mysterious “Ancient” from a city under the sea?

Miranda is really one of the most underrated artists around — his world building is second to none, and Tribes is a fine example of that. The book is in Previews now.