Vertigo just recently wrapped up its series, Jack of Fables, after fifty issues that spanned about four and a half years.  It wasn’t one of the publisher’s attention-grabbing comics like 100 Bullets, Y, The Last Man, and even Fables, but I think that Jack was one of its smartest.  For this reason, I’m sorry to see it go.

What made Jack of Fables so successful was its combination of humor and intelligence.  It’s easy to poke fun at Jack and his ego, and Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges never missed an opportunity to do so and keep us in on the joke.  But what was even better was the way that the comic book made fun of itself as well as the adventure genre conventions that fed the series.  On top of this was the title’s clever play on literariness.  We get this to a point with Fables which is, after all, a self-conscious spin on and bending of the world’s various folk tales.  But Jack goes one step further.  It overtly plays with literary conventions and concepts.  We get this from the very beginning when Jack is captured and taken to the Golden Boughs Retirement Village, the “home” of various fable figures whose effectiveness is wearing thin.  The place is run by Mr. Revise, a man who holds the fables there so that they will be forgotten and lose their impact on everyday lives of us “mundies.”  What a wonderful concept and commentary on the place and power of folk tales–as well as of other literary figures–in today’s world.  In addition, you have the Page sisters, librarians all (and hot!), who are charged with maintaining control over the fables.  Then there is Revise’s son, Bookburner, and then his own father, the Pathetic Fallacy (also known as Gary).  In fact, Gary is one of the Literals, characters who literally embody literary ideas and concepts.  Much of the metafictional play comes to a head during “The Great Fables Crossover,” a series of Fables, Jack of Fables, and The Literals titles (the latter being a miniseries that only functions as a bridge during the crossover event).  Kevin Thorn, the creator of the entire Fables world (apparently) is upset with where his creations has taken his fiction and plans on ending the story…and in effect, ending all the fables’ existences.  What better spin on author/creator relationship than this, at least in contemporary comics?

All in all, Jack of Fables was a insightful and fun comic, and my reading life won’t be the same without the series.  But as they say, all good things…