I meant to point this out earlier, but I'm the forgetful type: Kalinara at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise has a nice post about one of her favorite covers: Fables #1, by James Jean.

I like the covers to the first five issues well enough, but it's not until Issue 6 that Jean moves away from the more straightforward painterly approach and hits upon that Fables "look." That's where I really start to get into the covers.

Kalinara's appreciation for Issue 1 comes through in her post, where she delves into the depictions of the central characters: Snow White's more traditional, fairy-tale appearance, Bigby's emergence from the wolfskin.

But it's in her dissection of Bigby, the Big Bad Wolf of the stories, that Kalinara's post becomes particularly interesting:

See Bigby's the only one that's completely divorced from who he had been. Yeah, he can still take the form of the wolf, and huff and puff, but this isn't the same guy that terrorized Little Red or tried to eat the Three Pigs. If you consider fairy tales often originated as warning stories, don't talk to strangers, don't eat things you don't know, don't steal, don't impersonate others... The Wolf is the symbol of chaos and danger. He's the one who'll eat you if you let him, who'll invade your house if you can't defend it. He's unknown, wild, uncontrolled and he'll eat you if you let him.

She makes some insightful comments about the similarities between Bigby and Frau, too. It's a good read.