FABLES: Legends in Exile by Willingham, Medina, Leialoha, and Hamilton

Fairytales live among us, but they're not what you'd expect. They've been driven out of their homes by a mysterious power only known as the Adversary. Those who can fit in with the 'mundies' live in Manhattan, while those that are more difficult to explain away live up on the upper eastside on The Farm. They have their own government, identities, and issues. They are not the Disney-fied characters that you grew up with.

I'm really enjoying this series so far. I've wanted to read it for a while, and a friend loaned me the first two volumes. I'm so happy she did. It seems that each volume (so far) deals with mysteries with the overarching theme of the Fables getting back to their lands and overthrowing the Adversary. There's all these little plot twists and turns to keep things interesting, but what really got me was the character development. They fairytale characters are essentially immortal and so they have twisted personal issues that have lasted for centuries; e.g. when Beauty doubts her love for the Beast he gets horns. But they're not all silly, most of the fairytale characters are dealing with doubts about self-worth, money, identity, and overcoming the stereotypes that they were written into. These are characters with depth and emotions that are tapped into beautifully through the illustrations of Mark Buckingham and Steve Leialoha. This is what was one of the main contributors of what hooked me; how well the drawings and the text play into each other and really develop it into something really special.

ZENtertainment kind of epitomizes the feeling I got from reading this, "FABLES not only lives up to - but actually exceeds - all of the hype." Volumes 1-13 are already out and the 14 comes out in December.