Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love

Although I believe it's the first "Fables" book not to carry Bill Willingham's name on the cover, "Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love" works as a very natural extension of the Fables universe. In many ways, in fact, it reads more like a regular Fables story than most of "Jack of Fables."In brief, "Fables" is about the characters from fairy tales and folklore (e.g. Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Pinocchio, etc.) who fled a conquerer in their fictional homelands by escaping to the 'real' world, where they settled in their own secret section of New York City, dubbed 'Fabletown.' Cinderella has had relatively little screentime in the ongoing book, but Willingham established her as Fabletown's international secret agent, dealing with issues of concern to the Fable community. This globe-trotting setup certainly lends itself to an adventurous solo tale, and Chris Roberson was given the job of spinning that tale.One shortcoming in Cinderella's 'secret agent' treatment is that it's not exactly a natural outgrowth of any aspect of her original story. Apart from giving her a bit of a shoe theme, the character might as well be an original creation, an author working from a blank slate. (Part of this is due to the Cinderella story simply not providing much character-based material for its own protagonist; she's poor, and then with some magical help, she meets a prince who falls in love with her. The End. This is also why Disney's  Cinderella II - Dreams Come True  was such an atrociously bad idea.) Roberson tackles this problem in two ways. One is a spoiler, but the other is simply to play up the shoe aspect, by devoting a couple of pages an issue to a subplot about her shoe store ("The Glass Slipper"), and a magic-related scheme by her store manager (Crispin Cordwainer, the eponymous shoemaker of "The Elves and the Shoemaker"). The combined effect of this is that Roberson succeeds in making this a singularly Cinderella story, rather than just an espionage story featuring someone called Cinderella.Roberson also partners Cindy with a character who's more of a natural fit in an adventure tale, in the form of Aladdin, and gives small but valuable roles to a few other Fable characters. He even has one plot point that spins out of the regular Fables book, from a setup of Willingham's that always did seem underdeveloped.Roberson introduces a couple of his own plot points that never quite pay off, too. One involving the deal made by Crispin the shoemaker, and another with some underexplained villainous henchmen (who at one point he establishes as poisonous, only to never make that detail relevant).I'm no more familiar with the art of Shawn McManus than I was with the writing of Chris Roberson, but his work here is very much in the Fables house style. I'm sure the colors of Lee Loughridge and the lettering of Todd Klein are a great assist in that level of consistency, and their work is excellent as always. Faces occasionally look off (particularly in one scene where Cindy and Al appear inexplicably angry with each other), but it's mostly solid.On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and knocked out most of it in one sitting. It's a fine extension of Willingham's work, and could easily serve as an introduction to a new reader unfamiliar with the Fables universe.

If you've been following along with Fables, you know about Cinderella & how she serves as a spy for Fabletown in general. If you haven't been following along with the story, I really do suggest that you go back & read at least up until volume 7-8. While some readers new to the series might be able to follow along with the story, there's a few things in this volume that would be considered spoilers to readers only familiar with the first few volumes.From Fabletown with Love follows Cinderella as she's sent to investigate reports of magical items landing in the hands of the mundy. What she discovers is a smuggling ring trafficking in magical weapons that leads her all the way back to the Homelands. Along the way she runs across the dashing Aladdin, a spy for his own Arabian Homeland. Together they must discover who exactly is behind this & stop them for good!While I'll admit that this wasn't as strong as the regular Fables comics, this isn't bad for a spinoff. I loved seeing more of Cinderella's past as well as seeing her in full spy action. She doesn't have a huge amount of appearances in the main series so it was nice to see her getting the spotlight for once.The only drawback is that we don't get as deep a look into Cindy's head as I'd like & I do wish we'd seen a bit of her doing her training. The part with Crispin (her help at the shoestore) is OK enough, but was easily the weakest part of the comic & it could have been removed entirely without it being missed overly much. Overall though, this is a fine addition to the series.4.5/5

Bill Willingham's Fables series of graphic novels is a treasure -- great storylines, excellent graphics and tremendous characters. As far as I know, this is the first member of the group without Willingham's name on it, but it doesn't seem to suffer *too* much. I preferred this entry to the tiresome Jack stories, but still prefer the main Fables books in general.In this edition, Cinderella -- nominally a shoe store owner but really a superspy for Fabletown -- teams up with Aladdin to discover who's been smuggling magical objects into our mundy world. Fine art but without the greater impact of a Fabletown story. (I can't believe I just wrote that, but I'll stick by it.)

Bill Willingham's Cinderella of Fabletown fame was a sharp, well-written, entertaining character with just enough cool and separation to be interesting in her own right. Chris Roberson's Cinderella is disappointing cut-out character with far too many self-indulgent moments.This was just pleasurable enough to go down, but I'm sure I'll pick up my copy again in a year and ask myself, "So what happened...?"The antagonists (it's not really fair to call 'em villains) really lack the sophistication and punch of the wooden soldiers Cindy faced the first time around in the main Fable arc. Too bad.

I am a HUGE fan of Bill Willingham's Fables and thus I was rather excited for Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed. It really lacked in the story department and Cindy came off as just a bit too vapid and stereotypical. Fables is so masterfully written that this in comparison just doesn't quite hold up. It's enjoyable, but on a very base level and I do hope we get to know Cindy a little better and not only as she's written here.

I bought this graphic novel for my class, I ended up really liking it. The classic story of cinderella is turned into an action packed spy adventure.

I love the Fables series and this is such a great addition to my collection! I think it's great that they gave Cinderella her own miniseries and I keep looking forward to whatever the next story is.

I loved this book, it is just as good as all the other Fable books. I liked it that Cinderella had issues with her fairy godmother. I thought the plotline with that creative.

J'ai adoré Fables jusqu'au 11. L'idée de passer à un autre auteur que Bill Willingham ne m'enchantait pas vraiment, je dois dire. Mais nous n'avons pas à faire là à une de ces indignes sous-séries mal fagotées et mal dessinées. Le personnage de Cendrillon, si fascinant dans les tomes de la série n'est pas maltraité.Au contraire, il prend encore du relief et du charisme. Une belle extension pour prolonger le plaisir, avec l'espionne qui venait des contes de fées.