Tag Archives: Wil Wheaton

Conventions: FablesCon aka Fabletown and Beyond

A lover of fairytales, folklore, mythology, etc I found it rather interesting that I didn’t pick up this series sooner. In fact if you head on over to the Entertainment link in the upper right hand corner and on the drop down menu click on Literary you’ll see that the Fables series is one of the book series that I highly recommend reading.

Fables
For anyone that really enjoys fairytales and nursery rhymes and are open minded to the seeing them in a new light would really pick up this series. Taking many of the beloved fairytale characters and re-imaging them while staying true to their roots (roots as in the original Grimm stories and those from Hans Christian Anderson, etc… none of the Disnified versions).

A very strong example of this is the story of Snow White, while everyone knows of the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves the tale of Snow White and Rose Red. Bill Willingham masterfully combines the two “Snow Whites” and created a full and colorful backstory that not only is unique, colorful, and truthful.

The Fables world eventually expanded into Jack of Fables, The Literals and the Great Fables Crossover, the Cinderella mini-series which includes: From Fabletown with Love and Fables are Forever and most recently Fairest.

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Visual Art Commission: The “Expanded” Genres by Tony Akins

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Disney has ruined fairy tales for me, well for all of us really. I mean we grow up thinking that there is a happily ever after, except when we start reading the original fairy tales that the Disney versions are based off of, we end up with a rude awakening. Namely that the fairy tales don’t really have a ‘happily ever after’ in fact they usually have a warning label or a lessons learned disclaimer on the back.

Interestingly enough, I started to really enjoy the original fairy tales and soon started to look for other tales from various other cultures to satiate my thirst. That was when I was introduced to “Fables”.

You see, Fables is a comic series from Vertigo that takes all the beloved fairy tale characters and sends them to live in New York City, far from their Homelands where a singular enemy has turned all these beloved characters into refugees on the Earth or Mundy as they like to all it. Not only is this a witty conglomeration of every beloved fairy tale that you can possibly think of, but the creator of the series: Bill Willingham, has quite intelligently combined fairy tales and nursery rhymes together when necessary.
– Take the Big Bad Wolf for example (also known as Bigby Wolf in the series), he is a singular character in the Fables universe, but he is the same major wolf character in a variety of stories.
– Snow White is widely known as the beloved princess of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but she is also the sister to Rose Red in the fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red. In the Fables universe she is also introduced as the uptight, strict deputy mayor of Fabletown.
– Little Boy Blue isn’t quite so “little”, rather he is not only Snow White’s right hand man in the mayor’s office, he also has a hell of a military back story from back in the Homelands
What Bill has done is very creatively and realistically tied together stories to create a richer back story to these beloved characters in such a realistic and natural way that you can’t help but love them even more.

Then Bill did something new, he expanded upon the universe and created a world of Literals beings who were essentially the personification of literary themes and terms. The Editor became Mr Revise, Deus Ex Machina became Dex, and the various fictional categories became The Genres. All of these characters found in the spin-off series: Jack of Fables.

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Conventions: Calgary Expo feat TNG EXPOsed

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First off, let’s get one thing out of the way. I’m a Trekkie. I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I believe that Patrick Stewart is the best thing brought to this world since sliced bread, for he is the hottest guy ever to me, bar none. He has the kind of screen and stage presence that can fill up a football field even if he was the only one there. He is a proper actor, having done Shakespeare prior and after his time on TNG… but in my youth, I didn’t appreciate him nearly as much as I crushed on little Wesley Crusher. Apparently I have a thing for mis-understood geniuses and is probably why the majority of the guys I have been in relationships with were intelligent and socially awkward.

I read the novels related to the Star Trek Universe, I have four of the five Star Trek series – in their entirety – on DVD. I have a few of the series’ bibles for reading amusement, and I keep up with most anything Star Trek related. I have a general knowledge of the life of many of the Star Trek main characters, and am interested more in the cultures, academia, etc of the Star Trek Universe over the technology, starships, etc that most conventional Trekkies know.

I became an engineer because I wanted to do what Geordi LaForge, Reginald Barclay, B’Elanna Torres and, yes, even Wesley Crusher did and became an engineer (well they were some of the reason). I got into robotics because of Data and Lal, and loved studying astronomy because of Star Trek. I became interested more and more in the human psyche and the personalities of people and what drives them because of Data’s constant interest in humanity… I guess in a lot of ways I saw myself more like Data than anyone else.

But one thing that I loved about these characters of the Star Trek universe… is that they weren’t all just techie-nerds, they weren’t all just brilliant minds, they had hobbies that were outside of the box. Data did some acting and singing (although he was an android by all accounts), Beverly Crusher danced, Jean-Luc Picard sang and showed off his Shakespearean chops.

So when word got around that the entire first season cast of Star Trek The Next Generation were going to be at the Calgary Expo in late April, I about nearly bought my tix to fly out to Canada just to see this happen live… and then convinced myself out of it. *sighs* Damn reasoning getting in the way of everything else. Instead I did the right thing and stayed in the states and waited til videos of the one hour plus discussion with the first season cast of ST: TNG. Oh, Em, Gee it was worth the wait.

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