Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf in Gotham #1

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"Batman vs Bigby was written with the idea that some of the readers will be new to Bigby and Fables. Everything essential that you need to know is already cooked into the story. You don’t need to be Fables-wise to fully enjoy it. But that’s not to say a reader couldn’t enhance the experience by starting to read Fables too. In fact, I hope many new readers will be inspired to come to Fables as a result of this tale.

However, if you’re one of the readers who knows all about Fables but nothing about Batman? I’m not sure such a creature exists, but if you do, I’ve tried my best to make the essential Batman as understandable as can be. We’ll see if I’ve succeeded." -- Bill Willingham

( Scans under the cut... )

Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

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In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

Germany's post Angela Merkel future looks set to be run by a coalition after a very narrow election result. but it will take months to agree so she's still in charg until it gets sorted.

In the UK a fuel crisis is ongoing, caused by a lack of lorry drivers/Brexit/crappy pay and conditions/media induced panic buying/ or all/none of the previous suggestions. Whatever the cause, it's a mess and the proposed solutions so far include trying to recruit EU drives on special visa's that will expire on Christmas Eve and having the Army on standby to ferry fuel around. Sigh....

Star Wars: Visions arrived and showed that if there is ONE thing that Japanese anime directors got out of Star Wars it's that lightsabres are the coolest thing ever. Which they're absolutely not wrong about, but did get a little... repetitive.

Personally, I preferred "The Twins" with it's "Let's have our not-Luke use a giant sparkly rainbow lightsabre to bisect a Star Destroyer whilst perched on the nose of an in flight X-Wing because HELL YEAH WE CAN!" and Tattoine Rhapsody which told a story mercifully lacking in Sith/Jedi conflicts, so not a Star Wars story, but a story IN the Star Wars universe, which is what I'd been hoping to see more of)

The BIG geek news was the BBC announcing that the new Doctor Who showrunner is Russell T Davies, who will come back, just in time for the series' 60th Anniversary in 2023. For those unaware, RTD is the person who relaunched the show in 2005 and stayed until the end of David Tennant's reign in 2010. He also oversaw the launch of both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

I am intrigued by this news, (aside from wondering what the hell the BBC offered him to come back because I imagine he could have asked for pretty much ANYTHING and he'd have got it) as I wasn't always a fan of his writing (A lot of people still have issues with how his tenure treated Martha and Donna), but can't deny the man came brimming over with wild and wonderful ideas, adding a soap opera element to the show which served it VERY well.

And yet the show has changed so much since 2010, we've had our first female Doctor and Master, and our first on-white Doctor and Master. But RTD has been 100% supportive of these moves and I wouldn't be surprised if he also casts a female Doctor, and possibly a non-white one too. So it'll be interesting to see what new directions he goes in this time.

There's a long time, and a series and some specials, before this is even an issue so I hope this doens't overshadow Jodie Whitaker's last season, because she has earned a final chance to shine (and yes, I do genuinely think she's been an excellent Doctor both on and off screen)

And, seemingly not to be outdone, JM Straczynski has confirmed that a Babylon 5 reboot for the CW is being planned and he will be in charge of it. It's a reboot he stresses because A) the world and his TV making skills have changed and grown and B) so many of the main cast of B5 are no longer with us (Given the CW's usual obsession with making everyone young and pretty, I wonder if he'll be allowed to cast it as old as he did (The Bab5 Ambassadors were plausible because these were people who were mostly middle aged and you could believe had earned their positions)

The new James Bond film finally opens this week after almost as many date changes as the New Mutants movie.

UK's Magic Circle has appointed it's youngest, and first female, President

I've just discovered "Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko" ("A World That Definitely Becomes BL VS A Man Who Definitely Doesn't Want to Be in BL") a live-action four-episode TV series based on the manga of the same (long) name, about (as the name suggests) a guy who suddenly realises his high school life is now a manga, and a Boys Love manga at that, which he is not terribly happy about, because he's straight. His dejectly noting that "The ratio of handsome boys on campus is oddly high, and the girls are almost ignorable" sets the mood nicely.

Doom Patrol started it's third season with a three episode drop last week. The first episode seems to be serving the purpose of the season 2 finale, which didn't get made due to Covid restrictions. I'm spacing my viewing these out so I can enjoy them at leisure, so I've only just seen episode, but it does tidy things up for the season proper to start.

Random question: What was your favourite subject at school. Not the one you were best at necessarily, but the one you enjoyed the most.

Locke & Key/Sandman: Hell & Gone #2

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