The New Fables Questions for Willingham thread

[Eddy Stone]

Talk about Cindy and her going into the spy business just reminded me of where we first see her: getting a fencing lesson from Bluebeard! It only now occurred to me that she was acting as Bigby's agent trying to gain information about his various schemes. What a dunce I've been! Of course PC made that mostly moot when he killled Bluebeard and tossed the body down the Witching Well

Wow. I always thought "Oh Cool! We saw her getting fencing lessons as part of her spy/assassin training. It all makes sense in retrospect". She's probably the 2nd best fencer in Fabletown now, behind PC (we see her with a sword during the battle of Fabletown beside Snow when she gives her speach). But it never even occurred to me that it was probably a two-fold mission: to get fencing lessons (which would be useful) and to get information. Nice spot, David.

[Anke Wehner]

I'd like to know where Mr. Willingham got the name Frau Totenkinder which translates to Mrs. Death of Children (or Mrs. Child Killer if you want to be less literal).

Hm, actually it translates to "children of the dead" or "children for the dead".
"Death of children" would be "Kindertod".
"Child killer" would be "Kindermörder".

[Bill Willingham]

Darn. And that was a piece of German I thought I could pull off on my own, without hiring an expert.

[Eddy Stone]

Darn. And that was a piece of German I thought I could pull off on my own, without hiring an expert.

Well... we still get the general intention. Besides: Totenkinder is way better than Kindertod.
Though Kindermorder would have been pretty sweet...

[Anke Wehner]

[insufferable know-it-all] Kindermoerder. :oops: Sorry, the whole topic is something of a pet-peeve of mine.
Ö and o (ä/a, ü/u) are different sounds, and if you just replace one with the other you'll either end up with a word that doesn't exist, or a word with a different meaning. For example "töten"/"toeten" means "to kill", "Toten" is a declined form of "[der/die] Tote" = "[the] dead [man/woman]".
Another example: "ächten"/"aechten" means "to ostracize", "achten" means "to respect".


Totenkinder does make sense and I assume it doesn't change the general theme of what was intended, which means it's still better than quite a few attempts at German you see in other comics. One example I found recently went like this: They apparently started with "white", found "weiß", mistook the ß/ss for a B, and ended up with "Weib", a derogatory term for "woman".

[Bill Willingham]

Well, at least in my years spent in Germany, I did learn the double "s" symbol that looks like an unfinished B in our alphabet (and which my keyboard won't let me duplicate here -- and don't even get me started on not having an umlaut key on our keyboards).

I still know how to sing Edelwiss as "Edelwiss," and not "Edlewibe," except for the horrible time when I burned my tongue so badly on a Bagel Bite (cheese and peperoni, natch) that all "s" sounds were coming out as "b's" for a few days.

For better or worse, Totenkinder has been locked in, and her name will remain unchanged from now on. But now that you're part of the forum here, Anke, I may run future German terms and phrases by you, before publication.

[Bill Willingham]

Has anyone asked you what YOUR favorite comics/novels/movies are?

From time to time. It's an impossible list to construct exhaustively, but I'll jot down a few that come readily to mind.

Comics:

Anything Hellboy, or anything by Mignola for that matter. Shanower's Age of Bronze and Linda Medley's Castle Waiting are high on my list. Dave Sim and Gerhard's Cerebus was a must-read, when it was coming out, and one I have to revisit about once a year. Same with Jeff Smith's Bone.

Novels:

Clavell's Shogun is one I have to reread every two years or so. I agree with Orson Scott Card that it's the very best example of the (usually fantasy worldbuilding) subgenre of "A hero from our world goes to an alien world and has adventures as he explores that new world in detail, revealing it to us readers as he discovers it." Herbert's Dune used to be tops on my list, but I have to admit that the bad film adaptations, along with the truly wretched prequel novels done by his son and the collaborator whose name I can't recall, have soiled my love for the originals, I am very sorry to say.

Movies:

Some nearly perfect movies are: Shakespeare in Love, which even the usually-horrible Gwyneth Paltrow couldn't ruin, Elizabeth, Godfather's one and two, but dear God not three, Patton, and just about anything that had The Duke in it.

TV:

In the nearly perfect catagory: Rome, Deadwood, The Shield, How I Met Your Mother (solely for the Barny character), The Office, both Brit and American versions, Battlestar Galactica (based entirely on the new series as the original series was a vast bag o' crap), and Band of Brothers, which I have to watch again and again and it never fails to amaze me, no matter how many previous viewings. And, though not perfect by any means, I have a fondness for: Sopranos (good, but spoiled by all of the filler episodes, dream sequences and the idiotic devotion to mental-therapy), Monk, House and The Unit. Things I absolutely loathe on TV are: Any so-called reality shows, which are not reality in any sense of the word, but are simple gameshows in every sense of the term.

That's a very short list that doesn't begin to skim the surface of what I enjoy.

[Bill Willingham]

Beside Peter Pan and company, is there anyone else that's off limits, either legally or through your own decision, like a character you just don't want to use?

Plenty. Too many to list.

[Bill Willingham]

I was wondering if you could tell me just who the Kings of Madagao and Bornegascar are. I've never heard of them before reading 'The Last Castle' and was wondering if you could tell me what fable these characters are from and what their story is. I'm also curious to know just who is Sir Herman Von Starkenfaust.

Jon,

Sorry it took me so long to answer this, and now I see someone got to it later in the thread. I'll try to be more prompt in the future, but work does occasionally intrude.

[Bill Willingham]

Bill, we know you sing, do you play any instruments as well?

Nope. I tried many times to learn to play various instruments, but always without success, due to zero dexterity and a tin ear (which is a slander to a fine metal like our friend tin).

[Bill Willingham]

Bill,

What's the deal with Bigby and killing? Does he NEED to kill or is it just a hobby? Most wolves kill for food, he seems to kill just for the sake of fighting. Is that way he went off to fight WW2 in '39 before even the U.S. got involved or was it just that he realized that it would become a much bigger conflict then anticipated?

Chris

I don't think he has a need to kill, at least not in the psycho-killer sort of way, but he is a wolf in full, at the same time as being a man in full, and I think he has a different idea about the utility of killing than we do in our precious modern western culture. I think he could say the line, "Some folks just need killing," without irony. As far as his involvement in the wars, I would put it down to an old-fashioned sense of duty that he characterized once to Snow as a need to protect one's territory.

[Bill Willingham]

Yeah, but Bigby jumped in before America became officially involved. I've always thought that the residents of Fabletown considered themselves as New Yorkers/Americans in addition to Legends in Exile.

I think in many ways Bigby is far from the typical resident of Fabletown, if there even is such a critter. As far as entering the wars early, let's just say that he could see what the correct and proper thing to do was, a bit before his country caught up to his thinking, and being who we was, he didn't wait for a national consensus before he acted on his understanding. I don't see Bigby as a "waiting for consensus" sort of fellow. But at the same time, he didn't seem to see the need to preach his virtues to his fellow Fabletowners either. His ideas of what is right and wrong, and his willingness to act on them, don't seem to be dependant on making others agree with him.

[Bill Willingham]

Is there a period limit as mayor of fabletown now that it passed elections (some years ago actually) and Prince Charming was elected?

The Fabletown election rules seem to be: one is elected to office for as long as no one else is specifically challenging you for said office. Prince Charming's term in office will last as long as no one insists on a new election to boot him out (and gets the requisit 500 signatures to force the new election).

[Bill Willingham]

Americans had little interest in the goings on in Europe, the country itself had become isolationist at the time. I would say maybe a few expected that America would have to get involved, but certainly not in the way that the US did (through Pearl harbor).

Then, just as now, Americans weren't universally one thing or another. The county was divided on whether or not to get into the wars, isolationism being one of the chief motivations for some for insisting on staying out of "those European messes," pacifism being another. But there were plenty who thought then that we should have gotten into the wars much sooner than we did, thus making those wars much less terrible than they ultimately were.

[Bill Willingham]

1)What differentiates a fable from one of the endless (Sandman) or a God?

2)Worship and sacrifice is one thing are there any others?

3) So many stories (books like Anansi boys and even Carey’s Lucifer) state that the strength of gods comes from their believers.

4) And as a personal request can you do a more adult Fable (one shot or more) of Jack the ripper?

5) And please could you NOT link UFOS and Area 51 to any fables?

I took the liberty of numbering your points so as to be able to better deal with them.

1) Power level mostly, and the fact that most Fables want not to be noticed by the mundys, whereas most gods seem to crave mortal attention (at most) and/or deference (at least).

2) Yes. See answer # 1.

3) Yes, the notion of consensus reality is not a new one -- not even to funnybook writers.

4) Nope. I've never been all that interested in Jack the Ripper, and what interest I did have was thoroughly satisfied by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's wonderful exploration of the material, in their funnybook, From Hell.

5) You bet. UFOlogy and all of that nonsense bores the socks off of me (as evidenced by the fact that I am completely sockless as I type this).

[Bill Willingham]

1) Who is Colonel Thunderfoot?

2) I also want to know if it's ever established what happened to Mouse Patrol Sergeant Wilfred who was spying on Bluebeard.

3) I'm also confused... if the popularity of a character helps make it more difficult for the character to die (like Goldilocks and Snow White) then how can any popular character die, either in the Mundy world or in the Homelands? Like Robin Hood or Mary's Little Lamb.

4) BTW why was she killed off? It was so cute when she was teasing Rose Red about Weyland that I felt so bad when Ghost killed it later).

5) ...what possessed him to make a rogue like Reynard the fox such a hero?

Once again, I numbered your questions to make it easier to answer them in order. For those who want to pose more than one question per post, please consider numbering them for me, or at least promise not to take umbrage if I do it for you.

1) He's a character I made up, being fond of Watership Down and wanting to contribute something of my own to the vastly under-used anthropomorphized bunny adventure story sub-genre.

2) He survived and will be seen again.

3) Becasue hard to kill is not at all the same as impossible to kill. Please revisit the terrible struggles of Snow, in issue ten, to recover from her near-death event. See what you made me do? Now I'm assigning remedial homework to my readers.

4) Mary's Little Lamb was killed off because I am a cruel and terrible man. And because I like lamb. Mary had a little lamb. Her little lamb's now dead. So Mary takes the lamb to school, between two slabs of bread.

5) Because I like rogue characters in general and Reynard in particular. We'll see more of him in the future, and though hero he may have become, he'll never be fully nice or tamed.

[Bill Willingham]

Is the little boy who put his finger in a dam to save Holland a Fable?

Probably.

[Bill Willingham]

Which is your own favourite (a) Fairy Story and (b) Nursey Rhyme?

A) It varies, but for now it's the one I am basing the next new Fables big hardback project on. And I won't be telling you anything about that, including identifying the tale in question.

B) It varies, but for now it's the one I am basing the next new Fables big hardback project on. And no, I didn't accidentally double post my answer to the first question. The new big Fables project is based in roughly equal parts upon one well-known fairytale and one well-known nursery rhyme (with other fairytales and nursery rhymes thrown in for good measure). Sorry for being so coy.

[Bill Willingham]

Hi Bill! When will we see james jean painting a story again. I think you will agree that the guy is awesome!!!

I do agree he's awesome, but he's also terribly busy and had to take quite a personal pay cut just to do the one story he did. So I wouldn't look for it anytime soon. But who knows? Perhaps you should ask him. The doors here in the land of Fables are open for him to illustrate more stories any time he likes.

[Bill Willingham]

I'll throw in an easy one, what is you're favorite color?

Possibly ocre.