The origin of my love for fairytales was when I discovered that they’re folklore. When I was putting Fables together, I like this idea of a hidden community, and it was either going to be mythology characters or fairy tale characters, I liked both.

This is a story that doesn’t happen to important people far away, it happened to me or my aunt. I am not impressed.” There’s a sense of wonder, there’s a sense of justice and absurdity, but not a sense of removal, you’re right in there. Mythology is “oh the Gods are this and that and mysterious and exciting,” and folklore is “well I’m going to tell you the tale of the Gods, but I’ve been their housekeepers for 600 years, and I know how he used to poop his diapeys. Willingham: Well it’s folklore, and folklore is mythology told by people who stopped being impressed with you. TMS: I’m always curious why certain nursery rhymes or certain fairytales–stuff that isn’t mythology– I started realizing ‘this guy is full of ideas!’ so I said ‘pitch ideas and all that.’ So yeah, he started contributing ideas early and often, and some of the best ones came from him. And then there’s that second look-through to find all the crap he put in there that is just the droppings–the Mark Buckingham droppings–of a guy taking delight in his work.

The Oath of Toth is “first, tell the story.” So every page I get in, that analytical part of me says ‘did he tell the story,’ and with Mark it’s always wonderful. I thought ‘is there an equivalent for that?’ And because of the rhyme of it, I decided to call it the Oath of Toth, Alex Toth. Willingham: I told Mark right away that I would welcome ideas, and I think he set that conversation up because he started adding visual elements here and there that were ideas in visual form, and I was delighted by them! I was trying to communicate the idea of what I wanted to do with an artist, so I decided to rip off the Hippocratic Oath, the idea that in all of medicine there is this one overriding Oath that is ‘first, do no harm.’ You know, you don’t just try things on whims, your requirement is to serve the patient only, not your own sense of exploration.

Bill willingham