The "Urban Fantasy As Alternate History" panel at WFC 2009 made a compelling case that you can't introduce magical elements to a present-day world, or to the history of a present-day world, without all of the social institutions being rearranged. Besides Willingham and Grimwood, the panel included Paul Park, L.E. Modesitt, and Michael Swanwick. Among other things:

• If magic was real, it would be illegal. Or else, it would be regulated and taxed.
• If ghosts were real, as in Modesitt's novels, all sorts of institutions would change — women who died in childbirth would hang around, and the birth rate would probably go down.
• There would be civil rights movements for ghosts and the undead — and if they could vote, they would probably a majority.
• There would be whole new careers and economic sectors associated with magical and fantastical creatures.

Most of all, people in these "urban fantasy" worlds would take for granted many things that would shock us utterly. Says Willingham, "In my world, vampires are real, and they're just part of society." Adds Swanwick: "Gorillas used to be cryptobiology," until they became commonly known.

"There's kind of poignancy in the prosaic state," says Park.

Swanwick praised Rachel Pollack's Unquenchable Fire, in which shamanistic magic has pervaded "our" world, and now daily mouse sacrifices are required to keep your electricity on, and there are parades with bare-breasted cheerleaders with blood running down their faces. "It's prosaic and ordinary to everyone else, but absolutely strange to us, the reader."

Anticipate lots of weird legal questions if the supernatural became part of everday life — like, if a vampire "turns" you, is that murder? Or maybe a jury would rule that the vampire is actually giving the "victim" a gift: eternal life. Or maybe it's theft, because the vampire is robbing you of the promise of death. If you believe in Christianity, is the vampire robbing you of the possibility of salvation in the afterlife? Is a newly turned vampire a new person, with no existing property rights, or does he/she keep all the property from his/her life? The lawyers, as they say, would have a field day.

"Legal fictions are every bit as fantastic as magic, and yet they wield the same power," says Swanwick.

I admit, I'm biased; I've followed and enjoyed Willingham's Fables since the release of the first collection, way back in 2003 so, in one sense, I was a sitting duck for this new 300+ page adventure set in a world where fairy tales live on in present day New York. On the other hand, having been a fan for so long, the idea of Willingham attempting to spin-off the at-times-very-visual comic (with a lot of credit going to the series' main artist, Mark Buckingham) into prose was worrying: What if the book showed that he was more talented at comics than prose? What if the novel tried too hard to overexplain things for new readers and, in the process, alienated old ones like myself? What if, away from the restrictions of the monthly grind, the novel would become an overindulgent, unsatisfying experience, as previous spin-off graphic novel 1001 Nights of Snowfall seemed at times?

As it turns out, I needn't have worried: Despite a somewhat awkward start (Where, yes, Willingham veers close to killing momentum and interest through world-building for people who've just come in) and seemingly rushed climax, Peter & Max distills all of the charm and sly, subtle invention that Willingham has brought to the familiar characters in the series so far into an all-new story that sidesteps the comic's continuity for the most part, offering something that's familiar enough to reassure old faithfuls, but also unencumbered by a past that would scare off newcomers. The Peter and Max of the title are Peter Piper (who, as we all know, picked a peck of pickled peppers) and his brother, and the novel tells parallel stories of the characters' youth (which includes Little Bo Peep, as well as the Black Forest and the fine town of Hamelin, which may need some help with a rat problem) and the lead-in to their modern day reunion, something that Peter isn't particularly looking forward to. Fans of the comics can expect cameos from Bigby, Rose and other familiar characters, but this is a surprisingly self-contained story, even with the additional comic strip epilogue to place everything in context for those who need to know these things.

(The comic strip is illustrated by Steve Leialoha, who also provides spot-illustrations throughout the book. It's worth taking a minute to point out how lovely these illos are; Leialoha doesn't always get the credit he deserves for his comic book work, but these illustrations are beautifully rendered, with a European-influence that makes them curiously old-fashioned and storybooky, appropriately.)

Where Willingham falls down is pacing; as I said above, the end of the book feels oddly rushed, as if Willingham had a set number of pages for the book and realized too late that he had to get everything tied up and off-stage. It's not that the ending is a letdown, or even disappointing, but there's something... off about it, somehow. It's a minor complaint, and not enough to stop me from eagerly recommending the book. For fans of Fables, it's pretty much the novel you want it to be; for everyone else, if you've ever wanted to read a surprisingly epic story of love, loss and old fairy tales reimagined with more than a little self-awareness about the source material, Peter & Max is just what you're looking for.

Peter & Max: A Fables Novel is available in comic stores now, and released in bookstores next week.

The Fables pilot is being written by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, creators of the short-lived ABC series Six Degrees, and will be directed by David Semel, who also directed the pilots for Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy. The comic book series follows a group of Fables, characters from fairytales and folklore, who flee their magical Homelands after they are conquered by the mysterious Adversary. The Fables arrive in our “Mundy” world and build their own society, Fabletown, based in Manhattan.

There is no word on whether the pilot will follow the first book in the series, in which Fabletown deputy mayor Snow White and sheriff Bigby Wolf investigate the murder of Snow White’s sister Rose Red. But the writers promise that Snow White and Bigby will have similarly central roles in the show as they do in the comic books.

"We set up a structure to allow any fairy tale character to show up in any one episode," Metzner said.

The fairy tale characters will keep some of their trademark characteristics. For instance, Prince Charming will be handsome, while Big Bad Wolf will have to shave a four-day shadow from growing back every day.

But overall, "they are just like real people in the real world who live and breathe and look just like you and me," Metzner said.

This isn’t the first time a network has tried its hand at adapting the series. In 2005, NBC ordered a script for a Fables series, but never made it to production. If ABC ultimately decides to pick up Fables as a series, it could appear on the 2009-2010 television schedule.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

Even though I thought I was joking when I said that the tease "Superman Red or Superman Blue" was about Clark Kent's political affiliation, it turns out that I was 100% right, according to DC's Executive Editor, Dan DiDio:

We're entering a very interesting election year this year, and what I think is important about it is that it's that there's this excitement - a sense of "building"...there's change in the air in regards to the whole political process that's at play in the United States. What we want to do is tap into that emotion, and tell a story that plays in the DC Universe with our characters, while using the political backdrop we're seeing now to help to define our characters better... For the first time, we'll be having our characters make true political stands in regards to their leanings, as well as what motivates them to be heroes, and what they believe is necessary for their world and their country to move in the direction they believe to be the right one.

This is not about the actual candidates. Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and John McCain do not appear in this comic [laughs]. These are candidates that represent particular political beliefs, and it's more about why the heroes are motivated or respond to particular candidates themselves, or the platforms of particular candidates.

The biweekly series launches in September.

Dan DiDio on DCU: Decisions