By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)’
The Story: Tommy Taylor finds a post-apocalyptic wasteland as he journeys through storyland to find Lizzie.
A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). The story is very locked in right now. – Sometimes The Unwritten makes me feel like I’m not quite smart enough to be reading it. There have been 4-5 issues runs where “the story” felt like I was trying to grab onto a handful of eels. That’s somewhat intimidating when you’ve been reviewing the series for a few years and you hope/need to say something intelligent about it every month. But, right now, the story is very locked in and I know exactly – or at least “mostly” – what is going on. I think I almost appreciate the story more now because I’ve had to struggle to understand it in the past.
2). Apocalyptic storytelling. – At this point in The Unwritten, the basic “rules of the universe” are fairly well known. We know what Tommy can do and we know about this ability for certain characters to bounce between the land of stories and our real world. But, in entering storyland, Tommy finds something unlike he has seen before. It all ties back to Leviathan and the wound that Leviathan sustained at the end of War of the Words. When Pullman stabbed Tommy and thereby wounded Leviathan (presumably as an act of suicide on Pullman’s part), it causes an apocalypse in the land of stories. So now, when Tommy enters, he finds a scene out of Mad Max: story animals attacking humans, Eliza Bennet from Pride and Prejudice performing tricks for a sandwich, etc. It’s so bad that even a noble creature like a unicorn can’t get people to listen to reason – or even get a decent burial because the apocalypse isn’t wasteful of protein. It’s obvious that Tommy needs to heal Leviathan, but unclear whether his quest to save Lizzie helps or hinders that goal. I love apocalyptic stories and this is an interesting twist because it doesn’t feature zombies or vampires or terrorist EMP attacks or super-flu.
3). Creepy animal villains. – Man, Bonesmith the polar bear is kinda a creepy dude, huh? Much of this is due to Todd Klein’s awesome lettering skills and how he gives Bonesmith a crazy shaped word balloon. Bonesmith seems almost like a serial killer in animal form. And the rabbits are kinda something too. One interesting item is that Bonesmith doesn’t seem to be plucked from any piece of real world fiction – or at least nothing I could find on Google. It is interesting that all the human characters in storyland have obvious sources, but the animals are new creations for this comic. It makes me wonder if Bonesmith is like Pauly Bruckner the rabbit: humans who have been banished into storyland.
4). Very effective art. – I think I say the same thing every issue: There’s nothing that blows my doors off about this art, but it is so methodically effective. It’s highly impressive to see an artist who is just grinding out panel after panel after panel of relentless storytelling. It takes a lot of dedication to do that on a small-selling Vertigo book for a multi-year period.
Conclusion: The story is really clicking right now. I have a handle on it, it makes sense and it really entertaining. If you haven’t been reading this series, it is highly worth catching up on.
Grade: A-
– Dean Stell
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Conclusion