Written by: Matt Sturges and Dave Justus
Art by: Steve Sadowski, Shawn McManus, and Travis Moore
Publisher: Vertigo
A month after releasing the first issue of Fables: The Wolf Among Us digitally, Vertigo gives us the issue in print form. The comic is the first in the miniseries based on the popular Telltale Games’ game The Wolf Among Us which acts as a sort of prequel to the Fables comic. Get that all?
This comic introduces us to Bigby Wolf and various other Fabletown characters. However, things soon get messy in the form of a murder. Those who played the game will instantly recognize the plot as being the same exact plot found in the game. Fables: The Wolf Among Us is simply a comic retelling of the Telltale Games events with a few extra panels here and there that give us a little more information on the characters and fleshes out the story a bit more.
The comic is wonderful. It’s absolute wonderful. Matt Sturges and Dave Justus completely nail the character dialogue, introduce characters beautifully, and write great inner monologues for Bigby. The writing is rich and feels just like the game. Which is kind of a problem.
The story and writing between this issue and the game’s feel so identical that I was having a hard time keeping interest in the comic. It’s not a bad comic at all, but by now the game has been out for a long enough time that many people are sure to have played it multiple times. The comic picks many of the “safe” responses you could have given in the game and the extra panels of information are so light that I couldn’t even figure out what hadn’t been available in the game.
Because of this, the art is probably the largest difference between the comic and the game. Telltale has a pretty unique art style and I’m happy to see that whoever was in charge chose not to try to replicate their style. And this first issue actually gives us 3 different artists who each do a set of pages. Steve Sadowski, Shawn McManus, and Travis Moore each have their own style and they blend in quite nice together, with artists switching during set changes or large action moments that act as nice transition points for the art.
The comic is great to look at and a few key action scenes actually look better in the form of comic with more detail being allowed within panels and close-ups that really lend to the feel of the story. Since you don’t have to pay attention to any potential quick-time events, you can sit back and watch all the action unfold.
Ultimately I have a hard time recommending this to people who have already played the game. If you haven’t played the game though, this is an absolute must buy as the story and cast are great. However, I find it hard to recommend if you’re familiar with it all, especially as you could pick the game up again and play through the entire story well before this comic wraps up. It’s still a wonderful story, it’s just one you’ve already heard.
If you haven’t played the game or consider yourself a die hard fan that needs absolutely every tiny little fact about The Wolf Among Us, then you should definitely pick this up. In fact, why haven’t you already? But if you’ve already followed Bigby through his Fabletown murder case, there’s not much here for you.
