Comments on: Fairest #13 – Review http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2013/03/12/fairest-13-review/ Your source for comic book commentary Tue, 19 Mar 2013 05:34:13 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.15 By: Minhquan Nguyen http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2013/03/12/fairest-13-review/#comment-6715 Tue, 19 Mar 2013 05:34:13 +0000 http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/?p=31786#comment-6715 I wouldn’t really classify the Hundred Demons Night Parade as a plotline so much as clever concept thrown in to even the odds in the Japanese Fables battle.

I also probably wouldn’t quibble with the use of “bezoars” so much. Calling them “hairballs”–because that’s essentially what they are–would have been accurate, but sort of underwhelming, no?

While there were lots of little details that probably could have been fleshed out more, I thought Beukes gave us everything we needed to have a satisfying, cohesive story. Short of having an ongoing (and I’m not saying that’s a bad idea, either), I’m not sure Beukes could have done anymore to deliver a complete arc and flesh out all those items you thought were lacking.

]]> By: Gerry O http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2013/03/12/fairest-13-review/#comment-6714 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 02:43:02 +0000 http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/?p=31786#comment-6714 I started out loving this story arc but my enthusiasm waned as the story progressed. It seems that there were perhaps a half-dozen really important and interesting story points spread out over the whole story arc and Buekes could have explored any of them with much greater detail and depth (Rapunzel’s defiant decision to leave Fabletown and go to Tokyo; the origin of her relationship with Tomoko; the loss of and search for Rapunzel’s children, etc…) but each of these elements that are particularly important to this story are squeezed in with a whole lot of seemingly extraneous plot elements that don’t serve to propel the story and are confusing and distracting. For instance, what purpose did Jack serve in this story, other than comic annoyance (I hesitate to say comic relief)? Also, the superficial exploration of Rapunzel and Joel’s strange relationship and the appearance of Totenkinder just seemed unnecessary to the story and instead of a streamlined, interesting story arc, the plot became weighted down and crowded with a whole lot of noise. The Hundred Demons Night Parade is an enormously fertile plotline that is tossed in as a clever plot device to wrap up the conflict but c’mon – a couple pages in the last issue? I still admire Beukes’ imagination and the artwork was consistently good (better in the earlier issues, I thought) but I found myself wishing that there wasn’t so much frenetic action and a little more focus on the core story elements. Also – the bezoars are ridiculous and poorly named. A bezoar is a medical term that refers to indigestible materials that are found as concretions in the stomach and occasionally have to be removed endoscopically. They may or may not contain hair. In my humble opinion, “The Hidden Kingdom” started out with an A grade, but finished up with a B minus.

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