Imagine asking for pink lemonade and only getting regular. Sure, it’s kinda what you asked for, but not quite right. There’s the rub with Bill Willingham’s Peter & Max, the author’s first and only (insofar as I can tell) prose entry in the Fables universe. It gave me something close to what I wanted, but it didn’t hit my palate right once I tested the final product.
Peter & Max follows Peter and Max Piper, siblings with a years-long conflict brewing between them. No matter how much time passes or how much distance separates them, they’re at odds. Max, a brother spurned, seeks to kill Peter and steal Frost, the magical flute he believes was his rightful inheritance. Peter, settled down in the Farm—an upstate New York haven for Fables who fled the homelands—with his wife Bo Peep, wishes for the feud to end. When he hears Max has once again entered the Mundy world (our world, as opposed to the Fables’ homelands), he sets out to demolish his brother.
If only a smidgen of that paragraph made sense to you, then you’ll understand precisely my first issue with Peter & Max. Author Bill Willingham is famous for the incredible Fables saga. I’ve got all 15 deluxe sets sitting on my shelves, and it remains one of the most influential series in my life as a reader. In a brief note before the book proper, Willingham assures readers that Peter & Max is meant to stand on its own, though core Fables readers will enjoy what it offers. He then spends the greater part of 30 pages setting the scene, explaining to new readers what Fabletown is, why these fairy-tale beings live in our world, and what has happened up to this point in the larger narrative. All of this would be fine and dandy in theory. I don’t mind a summary for the uninitiated. However, so much of the book hinges on a greater understanding of the core comic series that I can only imagine a new reader will feel jerked around.
Say for speculation’s sake, that a new reader is completely fine with the lack of context and simply wants to enjoy a story about two flute-playing brothers who want to kill each other. Or, say you’re already a Fables fan. Either way, that’s one hurdle surmounted! But then we approached another. Peter & Max feels like one story—the beefier of the two—constantly being nagged by its smaller, more annoying sibling. Willingham ushers us on a fairy-tale-style journey through the pasts of his titular pair. It has a whimsical, fluffy feel to it despite darkness lurking around every corner, like any fairy tale of yore. However, this is juxtaposed with the modern-day story of Peter traveling to Germany to confront Max. These sections are fewer than their past counterparts and significantly shorter. They lead to the book’s denouement, and it’s good, but it had no reason to take place in modern times. Peter and Max’s tale felt at home in the twisted and magical world of fairy tales, and to yank it out in favor of the real world was completely jarring and unnecessary.
This issue also magnifies the problem with Max’s character. He commits some foul deeds early on after his brother receives Frost from their father. Max, the older brother, believes it was rightfully his. This starts him on a journey of self-destruction and outright evil, but it feels like we’ve crossed a bridge only to turn around and realize it never existed in the first place. Max goes from a mischievous little boy to a murderous villain in an instant. Had the modern-day sections not taken up so much space, maybe Willingham could have added some connective tissue to Max’s tale.
While I’ve spent the majority of this review railing on the book, I did enjoy Peter & Max to an extent. Willingham’s prose has a lilting quality to it that feels right at home in a fairy tale. A few of the setpieces and chapters were truly riveting, even if (again like a fairy tale) they skipped over action in favor of character dialogue or omniscient narration. I was entertained, which of course counts for something.
Peter & Max was a fine extension of Fables lore, but its problems far outweigh its entertainment value. I recommend sticking to the comics and letting this particular melody fade away.
Rating: Peter & Max – 5.0/10
-Cole
