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All good things must come to an end and after a 10+ year, 150 issue run, Bill Willigham has announced the end of Fables. The huge and loyal fanbase will be left devastated by this, but….every fairy tale has an ending. On his website, he wrote:

UPDATE: WIllingham’s interview at Newsaramais up now, and he explains more including that FAIREST will also be ending, tentatively the month before the final issue of Fables.

Issue #150 is about 15 months away, and several storylines will converge with the final issue.

Fables is also currently in development as a film, and a game from Telltale is out now.

Opinion: Rest assured, in five years we’ll have a Fables reunion issue and in 25, Fables the Overture. A story this good and popular won’t just vanish. Maybe now Willingham can revive the Elementals?

Willingham: Well, we have the end of the "Camelot" story. We have, following that, a two-issue story that's sort of a side story, but it sets up the final, big saga. And that story is called "The Boys in the Band." And it's all about Boy Blue's Band up at The Farm. They go off on an adventure together. The adventure sort of lays the groundwork. It asks a few specific questions that, the answer to those questions are the last big Fables saga. And then that lasts for nine issues, I believe, ending in issue #150, which is going to be an oversized issue.


Here’s the first announcement

After more than ten years of publication, and hundreds of issues of Fables, and various Fables-related works, I have decided the time has come to begin the process of bringing our sweeping story to a close. And, along the way, I’ve decided to retire from a great deal of my comics work.

Retirement in the storytelling trade means, still working and writing every day, but being a bit more selective in what projects I take on. Pushing 60, I thought it would be a good time to start making concrete plans for those remaining good writing years.

Fables will end with Issue 150, which will be a larger than usual size, as were many of the other milestone issues. Fairest, our companion series, will also come to an end just before the big final Fables issue.

Both DC and I will announce more details later on, but first and foremost I wanted to let our wonderful readers know about this as soon as I could, and note that our story plans leading up to Issue 150 made it increasingly clear that this upcoming saga should naturally be the final story.

35 COMMENTS

  1. Well that’s quite the revolting development! This has been a series that has never lost steam and I’ll be sorry to see it close, but I’ll be looking forward to whatever Bill Willingham writes post Fables!

  2. Wonder if he’ll let Telltale continue to make Fables spin-off games. I think the one out now, The Wolf Among Us, has been doing pretty well thanks to goodwill for Telltale after their Walking Dead game won several Game of the Year awards last year.

    In case anyone is wondering, they’re likely not using the “Fables” name for the games because there already exists a major unrelated franchise for Microsoft’s consoles called “Fable.”

  3. I am very sad to the see the end of this series. I do like having series end at some point, a la (DMZ, scalped, 100 Bullets, sandman, etc.) but… I am not ready to see this go, even after 150 issues.

  4. I’m very happy to hear that, as a long time reader of Fables I was seriously hoping to see it end with 150th issue.
    In my opinion every story should have some kind of closure, even the best stories need to end because otherwise they would lose their meaning/impact or worse – become s#!t. For me the best of the whole series will always be when it was still fresh and it was still exciting to see new characters pop up (around 1-60) not knowing in which direction it’ll go or what happens next. Unfortunately later (even though it had some great moments) the monthly story arcs have stopped working when they became longer and slower. The ‘magic’ of those characters living in the modern world was lost somewhere, interactions with mundy humans kept at a minimum (since Fables are eternal it would have been more interesting to see them meet with some historical persons and to see their point of view on historical events).
    Main story of Rose, Snow, Wolf & his children is (almost) finished and it’s a good decision, it almost feels as if it was standing still for some time already because the cast has become too large. Even if it didn’t fulfil on it’s promise from those first issues and it was a different experience than I expected at the beginning it was a blast. Thanks but the ride must end so it’ll be a pleasure to revisit it someday in the future (maybe a spin off series like the Fairest that would focus on different adventures every few issues).

  5. Incredibily disappointing. Fables is consistently one of the best books on the market and still a pleasure to read each month. At least DC isn’t bringing the characters into the DC Universe and putting them in superhero costumes. Can we at least have Bigby graphic novels every few years? That would be just fine.

  6. Y’know, I’m okay with it ending. It probably peaked around issue #75, but has been good throughout the entire run. Better to end the series while it is still good.

  7. Don’t worry they will be folding Fables into the DCU in the spring. Bigby will be in JL Dark. It’s about moving characters forward, look for a draw Snow White naked competition in March and a lenticular cover.

  8. I love fables, I went to fables con last year and I will miss this series dearly. But it’s okay that it’s ending, there are a ton of great books on the stands right now fables has gone for a long long time. Thanks Bill, Mark, Steve, Todd, and the rest of the crew for such an Imaginative and fun yet adult series. Crazy news though.

  9. >> So why start a new con, FablesCon, if you’re only going to end the series? >>

    Because it was a terrific show.

    It doesn’t need to be more than that. If there’s only ever one FABLETOWN & BEYOND show, well, that’s fine. It was a good one.

    kdb

  10. Happy to hear it. All good stories have to have an end at some point. It’s sad to see something end but it always better than something just going on forever with no conclusion. Well done for the team behind Fables for having the courage to do this.

  11. “To yupsolo ^^^ you read comics and are telling me to grow up?”

    Disappointing response, Whatever. I am astonished that a reader of this website would hold comics in such low esteem. Aren’t we decades beyond the idea that comics are only for children and have such limited potential? You should probably take yupsolo’s advice, even if it was offered rudely.

  12. Rich thanks for the advice. I don’t take myself too seriously and certainly don’t take comic books or the people who create them too seriously. Comics are like music it’s better dirty and sloppy, corporate comics suck as much as corporate music. It’s all contrived crap. Comics aren’t some high minded art form, they should be accessible. If you and yupsolo think lenticular covers are art and not a pathetic marketing scheme maybe you should grow up. Why do you even care? Hoping for comics to get the respect they deserve maybe a story on the View?

  13. I’m not getting into it in the comments section but its pretty clear you are jaded when it comes to comics. Corporate and Indy each have their own upsides and downsides in all industries. Everything in a comic book is contrived, its fiction, whether or not you will overlook this in favor of enjoying a story is up to each individual.

  14. yupsolo it’s pretty clear I am jaded when it comes to comics and it’s pretty clear you have a different definition of contrived.

  15. Whatever the case, and whichever of you is jaded, FABLES is creator-owned and won’t be folded into the DCU any more than Y THE LAST MAN, PREACHER or SCALPED was.

  16. Corporate and Indy each have their own upsides and downsides in all industries. Everything in a comic book is contrived, its fiction. . .

    The reasons someone has for doing a story are always important. Do aesthetics matter to the creator at all, or is his motivation getting a paycheck? Commercial fiction can be as aesthetically pleasing as literary fiction, but that’s because standards for writing a good story don’t exclude writing for a mass market.

    One reason to appreciate fan fiction is that the creator’s motivation for writing the story isn’t money. Whether he’s writing out of love for a character or just for the pleasure of being creative, he’s writing to please.

    SRS

  17. “Whatever the case, and whichever of you is jaded, FABLES is creator-owned and won’t be folded into the DCU any more than Y THE LAST MAN, PREACHER or SCALPED was.”

    I would totally read a book that had all these characters interact in a ‘Vertigo Universe’ then read the current crap being produced from the Big Two.

    I had dropped reading Fables less then a year after issue #100 hit stands, I thought the quality had taken a huge nose-dive in short order. Still, I’m sad to see it go. A true classic!!!

  18. As much as I love FABLES, as much as it’s really the only monthly series currently being published by DC Entertainment that is actually entertaining, I won’t be sorry to see it end. Truth to tell, it should’ve ended shortly after the whole Adversary storyline was put to rest. Most everything that has come after that has been rather uneven – long stretches of dull with the occasional flash of genius (see the first FAIREST trade for an excellent example of this – The Snow Queen arc was beautiful to look at, but incredibly tedious, while the Beauty & Beast short afterwards showcased some mighty fine writing).

    It’s The Ten Year Rule in full effect. Anything great has a shelf life of roughly a decade before entropy sets in & starts gnawing away at it. This works for comics – as well as film, music or any other form of creative endevour. Honestly.

  19. “Maybe now Willingham can revive the Elementals?”
    I pray to the old Gods and the new that this would come true. But, alas Bill sold the rights to the Elementals and they languish in limbo.

  20. I write from Italy, and this is the worst news from the comic world of 2013, for me. After Detective Comics and Batman (2011) and Hellblazer (2013) my every preferred DC/Vertigo comics title have closed

  21. I’m glad Fables is ending. Not because it’s a bad book, it’s a favorite. But I felt post-Adversary War, it was starting to wander a bit, even have no focus at all, just resting on its reputation. It was also becoming too much about Snow White and Rose Red, we never got to see Fables from other folklore much. And pre-Adversary War, there was so much more urgency to the title, so many developments, so many ideas.

    With the Unwritten also ending, I wonder what newer titles Vertigo will have up its sleeve. It’ll be a shame to lose these two series.

  22. That is what happens to Mundies when Mundies forget their objective. The Mundies can’t ever see the Magical Forest beyond the Tree’s. They think they’re best stuff is yet to come but when you willingly toss away your magic it may never come back! If you look at his history, he has had no real magic like this before and probably won’t anymore. What a sad turn of events in the Mundy world.

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