2009 Hugo Graphic Novels Nominees

The 2009 Hugo Award nominees were announced last week. Just so you don’t have to scroll down, I give you the first-ever Hugo nominees for “Best Graphic Story”:

• The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle: written by Jim Butcher, art by Ardian Syaf (Del Rey / Dabel Brothers)
• Girl Genius, v. 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones: written by Kaja and Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• Fables, v. 11: War and Pieces: written by Bill Willingham, pencilled by Mark Buckingham, art by Steve Leialoha and Andrew Pepoy, color by Lee Loughridge, letters by Todd Klein (DC / Vertigo Comics)
• Schlock Mercenary: The Body Politic: story and art by Howard Tayler (Tayler Corporation)
• Serenity: Better Days: written by Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews, art by Will Conrad, color by Michelle Madsen, cover by Jo Chen (Dark Horse)
• Y: The Last Man, v. 10: Whys and Wherefores: written / created by Brian K. Vaughan, penciled / created by Pia Guerra, inked by Jose Marzan, Jr. (DC / Vertigo Comics)

The only one of these nominees I’ve read is Fables; I was lukewarm on it, but since it wraps up the story Willingham and Buckingham have been setting up for the last few years, I see why it was nominated. I have a feeling Y would have been nominated regardless of its content, for the same reason; v. 10 is the end of the series. The two licensed / spinoff titles, The Dresden Files and Serenity, have name recognition and might have benefitted from the low number of ballots cast (212, less than a third of the number of Best Novel votes and lower than any category other than “Best Fan Artist”). On the other hand, I’ve heard good things about Dresden, and Whedon’s work is, well, Whedon’s. I’m familiar with the Foglios’ work on Girl Genius, although not this volume in particular.

The only nominee I know nothing about is Schlock Mercenary. I’ve never heard anyone else talking about it either, but it appears to be a Web comic, begun in 2000, about a far-future mercenary company. It’s extremely different from the other nominees, to say the least — not only in form (comic strip vs. comic book) and initial medium, but it’s the only nominee to be produced by only one person.

This is the first year for this award, so there’s no history to indicate who might win. It’s not really worthwhile handicapping science fiction / fantasy awards anyway. But my guess would be that voters would go for what they’re most familiar with, and that puts Y and Fables in the driver’s seat. Or maybe familiarity with Butcher or Whedon wins out. Or maybe I’m wrong completely, and “Schlock Mercenary” or Girl Genius gets the award.

The Hugos will be presented at Anticipation in Montreal in August.

Fables, v. 11: War and Pieces

Collects: Fables #70-5 (2008)

Released: November 2008 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 192 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401219130

What is this?: The battle for the Homelands begins as the Fables in exile take the fight to the Adversary

The culprits: Writer Bill Willingham, penciler Mark Buckingham, and artist Niko Henrichon

Anticipation, like fame, is a difficult beast. It’s hard to capture and harder to hold onto, and often it turns out to be a bit of a burden.

Writer Bill Willingham, penciler Mark Buckingham, and a host of other artists have been building the story of the exile Fables for the past six years, telling stories of the community of exiled storybook characters as they first resisted the Adversary who drove them from their homelands and then put themselves into a position to return the favor. Willingham has been building to this volume — Fables, v. 11: War and Pieces — which I’ve read was originally supposed to end the series. (I can’t find a primary source, so you’ll have to take my word for that.)

But ultimately, War and Pieces disappoints, for the same reason The Good Prince disappoints. The hints and mysteries have all come to an end, and there is not enough suspense to replace them. There seems little danger, little challenge for the Fables during their war. They have their plan, which involves a flying ship filled with mundy weapons, and it is nearly unassailable. It all works too well. Willingham tries to make it appear anyone can die — and there are casualties — but one or two small reversals can’t create that atmosphere. It may seem like a spoiler to say the outcome’s never in doubt, but it’s obvious from the beginning, and there aren’t enough red herrings in the actual story to deceive. The anticipation of a tale of love and glory, a case of do or die, is blunted; I don’t think War and Pieces will live up to whatever story the reader has built up in his mind.

More enjoyable is the two-part story that kicks off the action, “Skullduggery,” in which superspy Cinderella retrieves a “package” in Tierra del Fuego. There is the action, the suspense, that the main story lacks, that the larger story of Fables has only rarely lost. Willingham and Buckingham do an excellent job with these little caper stories, and this one is no exception.

Buckingham’s art, as always, is a joy to see. It’s pretty, obviously, but Buckingham gives the story his usual attention to detail, interesting panel layouts, and page borders. Niko Henrichon supplies the art for the first issue in War and Pieces; it’s hard for me to give it a fair shake. It isn’t to my taste — a bit scratchy and imprecise for me — and the polished, smooth work from Buckingham only emphasizes the qualities in Henrichon’s work that I dislike. Fortunately, the subject matter — it’s a story about relationships — is a better fit to his style than the action pieces that follow.

This is a definite finish to the storyline that started in 2002, and it’s all wrapped up tidily, despite the narration’s insistence that there’s still a wild ride ahead. (I don’t doubt that there is; it’s just it spoils the ending, the triumph, the creators have spent so long building toward when they add a discordant note that late in the story.) This story is not a flop, like Episodes II and III of Star Wars; it isn’t even the disappointment that surrounded Episode I. It just isn’t as good as the overall, 75-issue story Willingham and Buckingham have created.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince

Collects: Fables #60-9 (2007-8)

Released: June 2008 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 240 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401216863

Fables, as I mentioned in my previous review, tells the story of characters and creatures out of legends and fairy tales who have made their way to our world as refugees from a world-devouring Adversary. In Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince, one of the Fables tries to reclaim a conquered kingdom for the first time as the rest of the Fables prepare and wait for war.

Writer Bill Willingham’s plot is essentially divided in two: the ramping up of tensions and revelations to what looks like an inevitable war and the story of bumbling janitor Fly, who becomes King Ambrose. The war preparations are more interesting; here, long-term hints are confirmed or denied, further threads are spun, and pieces are put in place for the final conflict. This is the path the series has been journeying down for six or so years, and it dominates the first half of the book.

Fly’s story, which occupies the second half, is a dead end, in which Fly goes to meet his destiny against the Adversary’s forces. After Fly arrives at his destination, his battles are seemingly effortless; he does what he wants, and the Empire’s troops are helpless to stop him. There’s little suspense here, even in whether Fly lives or dies, because either way, his story ends here. Mainly it seems an exercise in making the Adversary’s armies a more even match for the mobilizing free Fables.

Mark Buckingham does his usual great job on art, with an amazing amount of detail. As I said in my review of Fables, v. 7: Arabian Days (and Nights), I love his gorgeous art, with its smooth line and outstanding range. I still can’t help marveling over the page border art Buckingham designs for each setting in each issue, with the art occasionally taking over the border space if needed.

Also included is a one-issue story (#64) that focuses on Snow White and Bigby’s cubs learning the secret of their seventh sibling. It’s a nice change of pace in the middle of the book that doesn’t detract from the main plot. Aaron Alexovitch’s art is perfect for this more lighthearted tale; the art’s manga influences allow Alexovitch to show the exaggerated emotions of a pack of five-year-olds and Rose and Boy Blue’s awkward mutual crush.

Despite the unsatisfying chunks to the story, Prince keeps the story moving without derailing it. And until the big payoff, that’s really all we need, even if we hope for more.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Collects: Original graphic novel (2006)

Released: February 2008 in TPB form (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781401203696

One of the cleverer ideas out of Vertigo — one that falls in neither the Neil Gaiman-derived property or character-reimagined-so-drastically-even-its-own-creator-wouldn’t-recognize-it camps — is Fables. In this series, writer Bill Willingham, usually assisted by artist Mark Buckingham, tells the story of characters and creatures out of legends and fairy tales who have made their way to our world as refugees from a world-devouring Adversary. Here, they stopped fleeing, and the story has been slowly building, through several volumes, toward a decisive conflict.

But Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a flashback — or a prequel, depending on your point of view — set before Willingham’s story begins. In Snowfall, Snow White, one of the leading Fables, travels to the land of the Arabian Fables to enlist their aid against the Adversary. Unfortunately, Snow is forced into the role of Scheherazade and tells the stories of the refugee Fables to spare her own life and instruct the king in morality and of the refugee’s plight.

There are quite a few excellent stories that fill in missing pieces in some of the most prominent characters’ histories. The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is recast as a revenge tale. Old King Cole, a merry old soul in prosperity, is shown as a good king in adversity. Frau Totenkinder, the grandmotherly villain of Hansel and Gretel, truly and frighteningly lives up to her name. Ambrose, the lowly janitor of the Fables’ apartment building, becomes a tragic figure after spending so long as bumbling comic relief; this story should be read before Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince, or it loses most of its emotional impact.

For long-time readers, this is a reward, a book that simply answers questions without the plot getting in the way. Readers who are unfamiliar with the story might get something from the stories, but the background of the series is necessary for the stories to have their intended impact.

These are excellent stories; I can’t praise them enough. Willingham takes some of the oldest characters around and recasts them again, after already recasting them at the beginning of the series. Most of the stories have a war-refugee theme that link them together, which fits the frame of Snow telling the Arabian king these tales. The imagination is impressive, and even if I don’t care for one or two of them, overall Snowfall delivers.

On the other hand, the art didn’t match the quality of the writing. First, there are as many different pencillers as there are stories, giving the book a hodgepodge, thrown-together look. Secondly, I don’t particularly care for the art styles of two of the most prominent stories — John Bolton’s painted art inexplicably makes Snow White look Japanese and everything else look like an optical illusion, and Tara McPherson makes everyone look like a 2-D cutout. Other than Charles Vess’s illustration of the framing text and James Jean’s work on Ambrose’s story, I don’t really like the rest. I realize I am making a stylistic judgment into a decision on the work’s quality, and strictly speaking, that isn’t fair. Many people will probably enjoy Bolton and McPherson, but their work stylistically distracted my attention from the story without adding anything to it that a more commonplace style would have.

And thirdly, speaking of distractions and Vertigo, when related to the art: there’s a fair amount of gratuitous nudity. Other than Vess’s and McPherson’s work, every story with a prominent female character displays a woman’s breasts, if not more. I may be a prude, but I don’t think every story requires female nudity without any male nudity. I know this is mature-readers material, but come on: there are limits. Also, after seeing Bolton’s work, I’ll never see the Disney princesses in the same way again.

Fables readers who skip this volume won’t miss any plot points, but they’ll miss some very entertaining work. They’ll also miss a great deal of eye-straining art, but you have to take the good with the bad sometimes.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Columbus Day

No review today because of the sporadically observed holiday; reviews this week will be tomorrow (Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall) and Friday (Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince).

Fables, v. 7: Arabian Days (and Nights)

Collects: Fables #42-7 (2005-6)

Released: June 2006 (DC)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 1401210007

Having revealed the identity of the mastermind villain in the sixth volume of Fables, writer Bill Willingham and artist Mark Buckingham take a step to the side in Fables, v. 7: Arabian Nights (and Days). Instead of dealing with the Adversary, the Fables have their first contact with the fables of another culture.

The Arabian Fables show up in the form of Sinbad and his retinue, and as one might expect, certain characteristics of the American / Iraqi relationship appear. And that’s where Arabian Nights falls down.

Sinbad’s retinue contains two sore spots for the Fables: slaves, for the obvious reasons, and a djinn, because it is an incredibly destructive weapon (and of course, the back cover of the TPB compares the djinn to a WMD). Both of these problems are dealt with ridiculously easily, and the resulting conflict is swept under the flying carpet much too easily. Imprisonment, torture, and nation building are shuffled off the stage as quickly as they occur. Perhaps it will be dealt with in future issues; Willingham has left the probability it will.

It doesn’t matter whether Willingham’s story is critical of the failures or supportive of the successes that have occurred in Iraq. It’s just that the story calls up these echoes of the present conflict, then dismisses them without saying anything.

The volume ends with a long story of Rodney and June, wooden soldiers who wish to become human to express their love. The wooden-creatures-wanting-to-be-human story doesn’t resonate with me, and although it is well done, there is no deep message or twist ending to redeem the story for me.

That aside, the established characters do continue to grow and change. Mayor Prince Charming shows his true colors and gets a pair of dressings down for it; Old King Cole gets to show why he was mayor for so long; Red Riding Hood begins to develop a personality; and Beauty and the Best start to slip out from under their predecessors’ shadows. Snow’s cubs continue to grow, and Frau Totenkinder shows why you don’t mess with Frau Totenkinder.

Something I take for granted is Buckingham’s art. Not only is the art pretty to look at, with a smooth line that can exaggerate when need be, but there are also small touches that make it enjoyable: small cartoons at the top of each page and background art along the margins. The art has life; it is vivid. The story of Rodney and June, on the other hand, is by Jim Fern, and although it’s competent, it just seems bland and stiff (appropriate, that latter characteristic) compared to Buckingham’s work.

This is probably my least favorite volume of Fables. If you’re reading the series already, though, you’re going to read Arabian Nights anyway. And if you’re not, you definitely are not going to start here.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)