Of Swiss Airports and Dissapointments

Well I've just gotten back from wonderfully snowy Switzerland/France (it really is too close to call which country I was in the most). I had a good few days skiing before I got sick and spent the last few days wrapped up in a bed wishing to go home. However now I am home and I want to get an "end of the year thoughts" post out of the way. There might be 10 days left in the year but since the last few will be taken up by appropriately epic "Best Shows of 2008". I'm aiming to make this a yearly thing until I get bored of it, it is also what I will be running through in the below passage.

So here is the run through of how my best of list will go this year. Instead of 1 post for all 10 shows and 10 favourite this year I will have 15 individual posts starting on Boxing Day. The "12 Days of Christmas" will be where I am posting my top 10 shows of 2008 (with 2 extra shows thrown in). Followed by my top 10 episodes of 2008, then top alternative media shows (i.e. interent/cartoons) and finally my top 5 dissapointments of 2008. You might notice that cartoons have gone into "alternative media" and that is mostly due to the fact that I had so many shows to fit into a top 10 list which I struggled to do and there are still shows I wanted to mention. So they get to go into their own little section which is less crowded. Top 5 dissapointments will be 5 shows which could have been so much better this and just weren't (if you read this blog often you'll know that Heroes and Doctor Who are shoeins for this list).

As a short aside Swiss Airports are really, really boring. However that have more to do with the fact that being from Britain we're spoilt with some of the best airports in the world (even if they are busy as hell). At least in Heathrow/Gatwick I can look in the shops for new books/music/games/DVDs, in Switzerland I was stuck looking in a chocolate shop and feeling ill because I'm still stricken with some sort of evil disease which wants to make sure I wither away due to an inablity to eat but still makes me unbelievably hungry. Rock on you tiny invisible bacteria, rock on.

Now I've covered the Airports and some of the Dissapointment section of the title, I'm going to delve even more into the dissapointments. This year I finally found my little niche in the music world (yes I know it took a while but up until about 13 I didn't give a shit about music). Now I also found "Death Cab for Cutie" who are joint top for my favourite band of all time (along with Weezer who I've already talked about). Of course Death Cab released a new album this year which I bought, and sort of loved (it's not as good as Plans, but still a really good album). Then I had an oppourtunity to see them live, which I passed on. I was kicking myself afterwards and then I looked at the people who were playing backup, a little band called "Frightened Rabbit" whom I vowed to track down them down and give them a listen. I am now contemplating suicide for missing the concert*. Frightened Rabbit are a really awesome little indie rock band from Scotland and I think I've found a new all time favourite album. Why oh why did I pass up that concert!!!

Strop over I'm going to go into something which certainly doesn't dissapoint, Fables. OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!! Issue 79 is quite possibly one of the most unsettling and at the same time awesome things I have ever read. Issue 75 may have left have the characters all happy that they had beaten the Adversary, but now stuff has gone to shit more so than I could have ever imagined, at the moment Fables is a must read, I mean that more than I have meant anything ever. Drop whatever you are reading and read ever single issue of Fables until you have caught up, it is that unbelievably awesome. What is not unbelievably awesome is this cover. It is the cover for Issue 82 which is scheduled out till late March, whilst perhaps an awesome birthday present, what it spells out for my favourite character in the series is quite possibly one of the most depressing things that I can imagine (although the art is truely great, I really can see why people want to become artists, if I could paint like that.)

*not seriously, I'm just trying to be hyperbole

Of Fables

Alright I would like to start of by saying I have no problem with any sort of medium that tells a story. Books, television, film, music, theatre etc. However there was one medium I also had a problem with, which was comic books. I followed certain comic book characters (Spider-Man and X-Men mostly) and knew a lot about their story arcs. However I never felt like reading them. I had always preferred long novels than to read little snippets of dialogue with lots of pictures. That along with the fact that these comics had been running for years and had hundreds of issues to read, comics having a geeky stigma around them and the things I had seen they seemed difficult to read.

However this all changed last year. Last year I was suffering 'Lost' withdrawal. I had watched seasons 1-3 in quick succession (only a few months between seasons), however now I had to wait 9 months till season 4 was on Sky One. So I needed something to do and came across an influence the writers of Lost had credited, Watchmen. A comic book by Alan Moore, is on of the biggest influences on how Lost is written. So I bought it looking for something to read, not caring as long as it was similar to Lost. And I did read it. Then I realised I thoroughly enjoyed it. And then I read it again. Then I started recommending it to people. Currently my copy is in the position of a close friend due to the movie trailer which was released a few weeks ago so he can have a knowledge of the story before it releases.

Realising that Watchmen really was amazing (and there will be a blog post about it when the movie comes out) I tried to find more comics to read. Not Spider-Man's and X-Men. Other comics. Not necessarily the ones about superheroes but the less well known ones and critically acclaimed ones. This has led me to find such series as Sandman (Neil Gaiman, friend of Terry Pratchett, bought this one after I read Good Omens a very funny book by them both) and Y: The Last Man (Brian K. Vaughan, a writer on Lost). Both of these are great reads and really interesting. I've also read such comics as The Dark Knight Returns and the Fountain, again I loved both. However there is one series I love the most out of all of these, and that is Fables, the subject of this blog.

Fables for those of you don't know is a comic book version of all your favourite fairy tales after their stories have finished. It's also not just fairy tales but books like Narnia, Oz and Alice in Wonderland. The thing is it takes really interesting spins on the classic characters, a fairly adult twist. Prince Charming is a playboy who was married to Snow White, Cinderella and Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) and now fucks any girl who looks at him. The Big Bad Wolf (Bigby Wolf for short) is the sheriff of their community. Jack of Fables is the same Jack from nearly every tale featuring a Jack, Jack Frost, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Jack Horner and so on and so on.

The reason all these Fables are together in one community? Because they have been taken from their individual Fable words by the Adversary (and the reveal of who that is is extremely cool.) This means that many of the Fables now live in a community in New York called Fabletown (catchy huh?). Here they live a life away from the Mundy's and the Adversary's troops, with their Mayor; King Cole, Deputy Mayor; Snow White and many other Fables from an extremely long list that continues to grow. Many of the Fables remain in the 'Homelands' ruled by the Adversary with strict authoritarian ruling. Which means that Fables in the Homelands and those in Fabletown have come to a head at various points (memorably in the March of the Wooden Soldiers and Boy Blues one man mission into the Homeland).

Currently I am only at issue 59 which means I'm 17 issues behind where many of the other readers are at. However so far the series has been packed with amazing moments. From the March of the Wooden Soldiers, the reveal of the Adversary and Blue's accompanying rampage across the Homelands and the many,many unexpected romances that have cropped up along the way. There are so many great characters in this series and thankfully many of them have a back story already in place and are given far more depth than in the stories in this series.

Fables is a great series that I would recommend to almost anyone looking for something cool and interesting to read. It's not particularly taxing to read but it is damn fun. Only 16 issues till major changes in the status quo (still don't know whats going to happen but I do know that the Homelands and Fabletown are going to war.) I'll be posting some more impressions when I get to issue 75 so that should be up fairly soon.

EDIT

Alright I've finished the first 75 issues. All I can say is that I love this series. I would defiantly rank it up there with some of favourite books of all time. The tale that is told is just so interesting. The Fable universe is rich and at the end of this first part of the story I've been treated to so many amazing moments. I've recounted a few above but I would also like to add scenes like Genie arc as well as the issue 75 which was just incredible and just changes so many things.

I'm going to give a score to Fables now. The story is so rich and is constantly surprising. The characters are all amazing (personally favourite is Boy Blue) and the artwork is stunning. Fables definitely deserves a 10/10

Also RIP PC