Fables story content to be in canon
 

I'm surprised nobody has commented on this yet -- in the Day 1 Telltale video from the San Diego ComiCon that's up on the blog page, Bill Willingham states that the Fables game storylines will be "in canon."

That seems pretty rare for game adaptations -- Telltale has been very good at coming up with stories that fit into existing universes without impacting them in any significant way. To have Willingham onboard with treating this story/these stories as canon may allow for some more interesting and/or significant developments.

The closest example I can think of in adventure/comic book games would be the Scott Adams QuestProbe series done with Marvel in the mid-80s -- but even there the Chief Examiner seemed to get retconned a bit as the series went on, shifting from (I maintain) Scott Adams himself in the first game to being a more generic character by the third. The fourth game was never published but the tie-in story did appear in a Marvel comic book later on, so I think it counts as canon (to the degree anything can in the ever-mutable world of superhero comics.)

Maybe the Fables universe just has so many story possibilities that Mr. Willingham feels comfortable calling the game canon without feeling like it will limit him. But I'd like to think it's a vote of confidence and trust in Telltale's ability to treat his world and characters with integrity and honesty. It's an interesting development, anyway.

I noticed this too, and I also think you made a good point about why this is. The reason nobody else is talking about this is likely due to a couple factors, such as the lack of information about the game and the far release date combined, whereas Walking Dead and Jurassic Park are coming up and King's Quest is a mild source of controversy as it clashes with some of Telltale's philosophies.

No question it's quite a ways off, and a lot could change between now and then. But it's reassuring to know that the series' creator is not only onboard, but enthusiastically committed to telling a genuine Fables story.

A photo of the teaser art Telltale was giving away in SDCC'11:

http://i589.photobucket.com/albums/s...7-26210838.jpg


http://ps3.ign.com/articles/118/1184...&RSSid=1184078

Yup, we're going to be canon... unless we mess it up, in which case Mr. Willingham will shoot us OUT of a cannon.

Okay, that was a lame joke. We're trying to get them out of our system now, BEFORE we start writing any dialog.

Mike "Plotting with Post-Its" Stemmle

Just received Fables Deluxe Volume 3 (Issues 19-27). So how much more do I have to read before I am not spoiled by the game? The Deluxe volumes are only coming out once every six months, but I have a friend who collected the single issues so I can probably borrow them from him...

We're working REALLY hard to make the game NOT spoil the comics. In fact, the story we're telling is almost guaranteed not to spoil the comics. Make of that what you will :)

Personally, I find the first three volumes to be the perfect primers for what we're up to.

Mike "Writing Up a Storm" Stemmle

Apparently, Bill Willingham wants to use Telltale's additions to the Fables canon in the comic series.

Telltale's Fables will be a prequel to the comics, so that will certainly give them a lot of leg room. Hopefully, though, if the events of the game are alluded to in the comics, they stay consistent. That way fans of Fables in both mediums will be happy, since the changes to Lily's backstory from Telltale's The Walking Dead to Kirkman's novel left a lot of game fans unhappy.

It's a bit weird to make it canon, though, ain't it? I mean, from what I've been told TWAU is done with the TWD principle, just upgraded and reformed to fit being a detective. Now that implies different choices, approaches, dialogues, outcomes and such.

I'm not very familiar with how comic books and their canon work, to be honest, I've never really read them, only now I started reading Fables which is like the second comic book I've ever read. How can a game with a story that can go either way, even if it's just with a different conversation, be canon? That sounds like basically just dumping alternate universes and making them all legit.

For that reason, I'm guessing that the choices will be more restricted than TWD. Lee did have some defining characteristics, but he was still mostly a blank canvas for the player to shape.

They can't really leave Bigby as open, since so much has already been established about him in the comics.

My guess is that we will meet some new characters or witness some events which haven't been referenced in any detail in the comics, but which don't break the existing continuity and which may influence the comics going forward.

I'd be more surprised if something really significant is impacted, given that this is positioned as a prequel. But additional backstory or exploration of events alluded to but not depicted in the existing comics seems like a possibility.

Even if they're more restricted, they're still there, which is still confusing me a bit on how can they be canon.

Unless only the main arc without the details is supposed to be canon, rather than the whole thorough story.