The Snow White I never knew, or, the one I’d rather not know?

I didn’t know much of anything about Fables before, but now, from looking at , I do know some more about what it’s about, and why Bill Willingham is clearly not a writer whose books I want to read:

“No more happily ever after.”

That appeared on a wall, scrawled in blood, in the first issue of “Fables” in 2002, a monthly comic-book series starring characters from folklore. And it’s a concept that continues with “Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall,” one of the best graphic novels of the year.

If it was scrawled in bloodletting, something tells me that remains in question.

“Snowfall” is based on “Fables,” which is based on fairy tales. But not your mommy’s fairy tales, as indicated by that bizarre graffiti.

“With blood on the wall, the readership (was) duly warned that this is not your Disney-type story,” chuckled series writer/creator Bill Willingham in a telephone interview.

Uh oh. Any writer who’s going to chuckle like that about bloodshed isn’t getting very far in convincing me, I’m afraid.

The title is a reference to Snow White _ a much more assertive character in “Fables” than in the Disney movie _ who travels to the land of Arabian fables to forge an alliance with Ali Baba & Co. against the Adversary. Unfortunately, the sultan of that land intends to treat her as he does his own women _ by marrying her, having a one-night honeymoon and then executing her. But, as the title implies, Snow pulls a Scheherazade to forestall her doom.

Am I detecting the underlying contempt for women setting in already? Hmm. It’s bad enough that this was what one of the subjects spoken about in the forward for Tales of the Arabian Nights had to risk, but this is decidedly going too far. I knew that even the Brothers Grimm clearly had some kind of a bad influence on some people, Walt Disney being one of them!

“Snow White, when she’s in dire straights, she’s experiencing snowfall,” Willingham said. “(It’s) not quite a pun. … ‘1001 Nights of Snowfall’ is just 1001 nights in which Snow is in terrible jeopardy.”

Nights during which she tells stories, 10 of which are included in this graphic novel. Written by Willingham and illustrated by an all-star cast of artists, many are origins of a sort, revealing the history of some of the major characters in “Fables.” Not that you need to be a regular “Fables” reader to enjoy “Snowfall.”

Not that I need to take that last sentence at face value either. Stop trying to trick people into falling for this trash, please.

“This (graphic novel) was specifically designed to be a stand-alone,” Willingham said. “There are more than 50 issues of ‘Fables’ out, all in collections now, so if you want to read all of those, that’s great. But if you want to pick up just ‘1001 Nights of Snowfall,’ it’s a pretty self-contained story. … You don’t have homework to do before you can read and enjoy this.”

Because the graphic novel isn’t about the characters as they appear in the regular series, so much as backstories about how they became the characters in the regular stories. Most of which, Willingham says, he had rattling around in his head before the first issue of “Fables” hit the stands.

If I’m reading here correctly, what they mean is that it’s not actually about Snow White, Prince Charming, or even the seven dwarfs, it’s about the fairy tale stories that Snow herself is telling the sultan. So, that would imply that the seriousness of barbarism is pretty much trivialized in favor of a story that gets its kicks out of seeing a woman in jeopardy. Wow, what a pip.

And all this gives but a clue to what’s wrong with Bill Willingham’s approach to women in his books, and why a commentor on old Blogger software a year ago said that his work is “seething with contempt for women”. Johanna Carlson’s old entries from then are no longer there, but I remember it well.

And the following sums up just about all I need to know that this isn’t my cup of tea, any more than the rock bottom tales of the Brothers Grimm:

So we see how Frau Totenkinder _ the wicked witch of many, many tales _ got her taste for children. We discover how the Wolf got so big and so bad, and acquired the ability to blow down houses. And, yes, we find out the true story of Snow White and those mysterious dwarves.

Most of which is pretty grim reading, and definitely nor for the kiddies. Which isn’t all that much of a remove, when you think about it, because fairy tales were originally pretty ghastly tales designed to frighten children into behaving.

“They were absolutely grim and they were … lessons in behavior,” Willingham said. “My favorite being Hansel & Gretel, with the implied threat there being ‘You kids behave or we might become the kind of parents that drop our kids off in demon-haunted forests.’ … Even worse than that, it’s like ‘If you kids don’t behave, this character is going to bake you up in a pie and serve you to your daddy when he gets home.’ Which appears in so many different fairy tales that it was apparently just a standard thing.”

I’m sorry, but, Willingham fails miserably in convincing me. Because most of the children who were told or read those stories ended up becoming pretty grim themselves. (By the way, how come the name “Brothers Grimm” doesn’t appear in the text of this item? Not trying to protect their “good name”, are they?) And any parent, I hate to say, who’s going to abandon their kids in the forest are BAD parents, IMO. Not to mention that the original story of Hansel and Gretel was not exactly a “lesson in behavior”. No, it was the story of a child-hating wife of a woodsman, who wanted her hubby to get rid of the children, who promply ended up being menaced by a wicked witch who enjoyed eating children (ready to vomit now), and not only did it give me some insight into the mindset of what Germany’s then backwards society was like in their views of women, it also gave an idea of what their views of Jews, Gypsies, and other Europeans whom they despised, were like during WW2 as well.

And that’s what Willingham is inflenced by? Dear dear dear. I don’t want to know what the “true” story of the seven dwarfs is either.

And whether or not it was a “standard thing”, does that make it any good? The short answer is NO. They were sick, stupid stories laced with ugly stereotypes, and had a very bad impact on generations to come. Willingham is also distorting and blurring up just where it was that the grisly elements he cites can be found, and it’s not in Hans Christian Anderson, that’s for sure.

And as for the expected squawk that fairy tales are the preserve of the young, Willingham dismisses the concept.

“Children’s stories are kind of a new invention in our society and our culture,” Willingham said, beginning around the Middle Ages. “(And) every ‘Fables’ issue is plainly marked for mature audiences. … The intended audience is older, so the premise that these stories are for kids, I don’t accept.”

Which is evident in “1001 Nights of Snowfall,” a collection of fairy tales for adults. There may not be a happily ever after any more, but that just makes it more interesting.

But not to me. This just gives me some clues and insight as to how bad Fables really is, and explains why he was the wrong writer for Robin two years ago. He writes a story in which Tim Drake is targeted by a female assassin, uses the Ravens as adversaries in another, and, lest we forget…that War Games story in which Stephanie Brown is bashed up by Black Mask, who’s got a drill in his armory. And of course, there was also that story in which he set up even an old woman, Leslie Thompkins, to take the fall, the next year in Detective Comics. And in Day of Vengeance, he sets up Jean Loring to for more victimization when he turns her into a female version of Eclipso. And all his contempt for women there seems to stem from what he wrote in Fables beforehand.

Willingham may have since left the Batbooks, and won’t be missed, but he still left a lot of damage in his wake, and Robin’s sales have dropped.

I’m also tired of the self-justificatory argument that comics, fairy tales, or anything else of the sort isn’t just for children, or not at all. If Fables is written for adult consumption, that’s fine in and of itself. But that doesn’t justify the kind of grisliness it features, and even for adults, the kind of propaganda Willingham is foisting can do harm. And considering that the premise sums up a lot of what today’s comics are becoming, that’s why I don’t find it very interesting at all, contrary to what that horrid comics column I came across would like to make me think.