Review: Peter & Max by Bill Willingham, Steve Leialoha
by Bill Willingham, illustrated by Steve Leialoha
Amazon.com Product DescriptionA new stand-alone FABLES NOVEL from award-winning and wildly acclaimed author, Bill Willingham.
This story stars Peter Piper and his incorrigible brother Max in a tale about jealousy, betrayal and revenge. Set in two distinct time periods, prepare to travel back to medieval times and learn the tragic back-story of the Piper family, a medieval-era family of traveling minstrels. Then, jump into the present to follow a tale of espionage as Peter Piper slowly hunts down his evil brother for a heinous crime, pitting Peter's talents as a master thief against Max's dark magical powers.
Based on the long-running and award-winning comic book series FABLES, PETER AND MAX is its own tale. Readers don't have to be familiar with the comics to fully enjoy and understand this book.
Quick background note: Fables is a comic book series printed by Vertigo that focuses on the modern lives of popular fairy tale characters, including Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Bluebeard, Old King Cole, and Little Boy Blue. These characters, collectively referred to as the Fables, fled from their magical kingdoms/homelands centuries ago to escape the persecution of an evil Emperor who has since taken over most of the traditional fantasy lands, and now seeks to continue his expansion into our world. But he's not especially important to the story of Peter & Max, as the villain's role is filled by egomaniac Max Piper.
I did enjoy Peter & Max, as I have enjoyed every installment of the Fables series that I've read. It's a fun story, with adventure, heartache, love, loss, blah blah blah...all the proper trappings of a fairy tale. It's accessible if you've never read anything else in the Fables series, and written in the simpler language typically used for young adult novels.
If you're a fan of the regular series, you'll probably find the "catch up" paragraphs designed to help new readers understand the Fables world a bit tedious and dull. I certainly did. They often seemed rushed into the script, as if the author suddenly realized he needed to explain something or the following chapter wouldn't make sense. The writing generally seemed rushed and not quite up-to-par with the snappy dialogue I expect with the graphic novels. Part of this, I think, is the book is simply bogged down with descriptive text, as if Bill Willingham realized he wouldn't have an artist bringing his world to life this time and thus overcompensated. It slows the narrative down, especially during fight scenes.
As I read this book the question that kept popping up in my head was "Why couldn't they just make this a 'normal' Fables graphic novel? What makes this story so unique that it had to be a novel?" I never really found a satisfactory answer. The best I came up with was that it might have been confusing for the artist to contrast Fable World's magical Hamlin town with our modern world equivalent, but that's such a lame reason that I know it can't possibly be correct.
The black and white ink drawings of Steve Leialoha are fantastic additions to the book. They help to connect the book to the graphic novels, since he draws in a similar style as Mark Buckingham, while reminding the reader of all the fairy tale picture books read as a child. I wish we still illustrated more of our adult books like this! It's a beautiful book.
To read more about Peter & Max, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.
Amazon.com Product DescriptionA new stand-alone FABLES NOVEL from award-winning and wildly acclaimed author, Bill Willingham.
This story stars Peter Piper and his incorrigible brother Max in a tale about jealousy, betrayal and revenge. Set in two distinct time periods, prepare to travel back to medieval times and learn the tragic back-story of the Piper family, a medieval-era family of traveling minstrels. Then, jump into the present to follow a tale of espionage as Peter Piper slowly hunts down his evil brother for a heinous crime, pitting Peter's talents as a master thief against Max's dark magical powers.
Based on the long-running and award-winning comic book series FABLES, PETER AND MAX is its own tale. Readers don't have to be familiar with the comics to fully enjoy and understand this book.
Quick background note: Fables is a comic book series printed by Vertigo that focuses on the modern lives of popular fairy tale characters, including Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Bluebeard, Old King Cole, and Little Boy Blue. These characters, collectively referred to as the Fables, fled from their magical kingdoms/homelands centuries ago to escape the persecution of an evil Emperor who has since taken over most of the traditional fantasy lands, and now seeks to continue his expansion into our world. But he's not especially important to the story of Peter & Max, as the villain's role is filled by egomaniac Max Piper.
I did enjoy Peter & Max, as I have enjoyed every installment of the Fables series that I've read. It's a fun story, with adventure, heartache, love, loss, blah blah blah...all the proper trappings of a fairy tale. It's accessible if you've never read anything else in the Fables series, and written in the simpler language typically used for young adult novels.
If you're a fan of the regular series, you'll probably find the "catch up" paragraphs designed to help new readers understand the Fables world a bit tedious and dull. I certainly did. They often seemed rushed into the script, as if the author suddenly realized he needed to explain something or the following chapter wouldn't make sense. The writing generally seemed rushed and not quite up-to-par with the snappy dialogue I expect with the graphic novels. Part of this, I think, is the book is simply bogged down with descriptive text, as if Bill Willingham realized he wouldn't have an artist bringing his world to life this time and thus overcompensated. It slows the narrative down, especially during fight scenes.
As I read this book the question that kept popping up in my head was "Why couldn't they just make this a 'normal' Fables graphic novel? What makes this story so unique that it had to be a novel?" I never really found a satisfactory answer. The best I came up with was that it might have been confusing for the artist to contrast Fable World's magical Hamlin town with our modern world equivalent, but that's such a lame reason that I know it can't possibly be correct.
The black and white ink drawings of Steve Leialoha are fantastic additions to the book. They help to connect the book to the graphic novels, since he draws in a similar style as Mark Buckingham, while reminding the reader of all the fairy tale picture books read as a child. I wish we still illustrated more of our adult books like this! It's a beautiful book.
To read more about Peter & Max, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.