Bill Willingham, best known as the creator of Fables, collects odds and ends from his career as a comic book writer and artist in Bad Doings & Big Ideas. The beefy tome curates non-Fables tales, including some that never garnered much readership in their initial runs. The result should have been a delightful collection of short graphic fiction. That potential is squandered by an unfortunate set of beliefs.
Three major stories headline the collection, and I’ll focus on those in this review. Short and micro-stories are also peppered throughout, breaking up the book into readable chunks.
Willingham opens with The Proposition Player, an ill-fated comic series that never gained traction during its initial run. The publisher let Willingham take the story through to a six-issue conclusion, and we’re treated to it in Bad Doings & Big Ideas. It follows Joey Martin, the titular player. He’s hired to play poker at a Las Vegas casino, and he’s pretty good at it. He has a rocky relationship with Lacy, one of the dealers there. One night, Joey, Lacy, and some other friends are hanging out at a bar when one person claims he isn’t superstitious. Joey challenges this notion, asking the man to sell Joey his immortal soul for a beer. The man obliges after some prodding, then extends the offer to the other patrons of the bar. That night, Joey goes home as the unwitting owner of 32 immortal souls. Soon, agents of heaven and hell get involved, pursuing Joey in an attempt to claim the souls for their side. Gods of death from defunct religions rear their heads too, and what began as a simple story about a man trying to win at the tables unravels into a battle for control of the afterlife.
I love this concept, perhaps because my day job plops me right into the heart of the gambling world. It’s playful. It’s whimsical. The characters—in most cases—have that Willingham combination of snark and style. But it’s hard to ignore the sexist undertones of the series. Women are rampantly objectified and relegated to damsel status throughout, and Willingham passes up any opportunity to engage in a discussion of how Vegas perpetuates these ideas. I’m not surprised, considering Willingham’s past comments, including a now-infamous, rant-filled panel from 2015. Still, I’m disappointed. Willingham’s ass-backward beliefs tainted what could have been a wonderful story. In fact, reading this collection made me rethink my stance on Fables. I once counted the graphic novel series among my all-time favorite stories. Now, I’m not so sure. I read Fables when I was much younger and had a lot to learn about my privilege. I’m certain I would feel very differently about it if I picked the series up today.
It’s worth noting that, to some degree, the story would otherwise be just fine if you could isolate the problem and take it as a narrative without context. Willingham is a good storyteller—it’s what made Fables so good in the first place—but context is crucial, and here it is his downfall.
You might wonder whether such issues are corrected later on, and the answer is a blatant no. The other two robust stories in the collection are The Thessaliad and Thessaly: Witch For Hire (you may remember Thessaly from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman). Both, like The Proposition Player, have fun concepts. The former plunks Thessaly into a plot to harvest her soul while a ghost appears to shepherd her to his bosses. Ever the sharp witch, Thessaly knows how to disrupt the gods who seek her. If those were the sheer bones of the story, I’d have been enamored. I still am somewhat enamored with the idea itself. Thessaly is a wonderful character, and Willingham gives her lots to do in these stories. He then ruins it by making the ghost incredibly horny for Thessaly, even as she spurns his advances. It’s sleazy misogyny played as a joke (but what’s the joke, exactly? That a woman won’t sleep with a ghost/man? Jeez, my guy), and it turns another sweet concept quite sour.
The ghost returns in Thessaly: Witch For Hire, where the story essentially continues the same way as Thessaly defeats increasingly vicious monsters.
A few of the shorter stories between the big ones avoid the sexism, but most do not. I closed the final cover initially pleased with Bad Doings & Big Ideas. The more I thought about the book, the more icky I felt. While it contains nuggets of good ideas (despite the title) and stunning artwork, it is plagued by issues I’m not willing to overlook.
Rating: Bad Doings & Big Ideas – 3.0/10
-Cole
