Broken Frontier

You wouldn’t say Fables has been around for almost a decade, seeing how strong the series is still going. One hundred issues in, the title is as vibrant as ever. Yet, shortly after Bill Willingham had first pitched the idea to Vertigo, he feared his conception would be trampled under the foot soles of an ogre from Hollywood. A week after DC had greenlit Fables for publication, Willingham saw the ads for the original Shrek movie on television. The writer admits that if he had seen those promos before submission, he probably would have pulled the plug fearing his editors would stumble over the presumable likenesses between the two properties.

Even before Shrek, Willingham suffered an unhealthy dose of stage fright to actually pitch Fables to DC or Vertigo. He didn’t want to pitch his idea directly to the mothership, because it didn’t fit in with their superhero line, and even at Vertigo, Willingham felt, it would be an oddball concept. Luckily, editor Shelly Bond pulled the pitch out of him during a phone conversation, and Willingham sent in the formal outline the morning after. As it turns out, Bond was instrumental in putting Willingham in touch with the people still working with him on Fables today.

Read the full article in The Frontiersman #15. Get our digital comics magazine here:

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