Waiting for Trade? – The Unwritten Vol. 1 Tom Taylor and the Bogus Identity

Creative Team: Mike Carey (W) and Peter Gross (A) Yuko Shimizu (C)
Price: $9.99
Available now

I have so many good things to say about this series from Vertigo. It is near the top of my read pile every single month (normally only behind “Tiny Titans”). I have enjoyed it so much I am picking up the trade, even though I have all the floppies. The series has received Eisner Nominations for Best Single Issue (#5, included in this collection), Best Continuing Series, and Best New Series.

Tom Taylor doesn’t have a lot going for him. His father, who has disappeared, wrote a supremely popular book series about a young boy wizard named…Tommy Taylor (in the same way that A.A. Milne wrote about his son Christopher Robin in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories). The character very closely resembles Tom and, as his other ventures fail, he reluctantly rides the coattails of his father creation, attending book signings and making convention appearances.

During a convention panel a girl in the audience questions Tom’s actual identity, claiming that records pertaining to his birth and childhood have been falsified. The public is outraged and fraud accusations abound. Tom just wants to lie low until things die down and go back to his normal life. But if the mysterious group involved in a conspiracy spanning all of literature gets their way, Tom’s life will never be normal again.

“The Unwritten” reminds us that every story has a story. And teases us with the idea that perhaps there is a single story behind ALL of the stories. This series blurs the line between reality and fiction. It touches on how stories affect us as readers and how we in turn affect those stories. It is compelling in a way that I feel many comics today are lacking. The writing is solid and the art fits the story really well, both in the real world and in the many fictional worlds we get glimpses of. The cover art by Yuko Shimizu is beautiful too and they are included in the trade along with some sketches unseen anywhere else. The story is smart; the dialogue feels natural with some good humor. I hope that this is one comic that will keep going for a long time.

You might be thinking this is some sort of Harry Potter rip off, but I’d have to remind you that the Harry Potter idea itself wasn’t new. Magic has always been a draw for people, and the exploits of young witches or wizards has been a popular way to present magic to people. I for one loved the movie “The Worst Witch” when I was a child. I won’t say that parallels can’t be draw between Harry Potter and the Tommy Taylor story, but “The Unwritten” is about so much more than just the Tommy Taylor books. Also, this is a more mature title with cursing, violence, and death with a darker tone than Harry Potter. The fairest comparison is probably that the two are drawing from the same inspirations and working in the same ideaspace.

But, as they used to say on Reading Rainbow, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can download the complete first issue from Vertigo's website. Then you can get some extra insight on all aspects of that first issue from the writer, artist, and cover artist. There are a good number of interviews with the creators on the net as well, and every time I read one I get more excited about the future of this comic. The interviews I’ve linked here are mostly from early in the comic’s run and thus are spoiler free.

If you’ve been waiting on this one I hope that you will pick it up now and enjoy it. I envy that you won’t have to endure the wait through the many surprising cliff hanger endings as I did (although the last one is a dozy!). And as its only $10, what have you got to lose?

Volume 2 Inside Man comes out August 11th and will cost you $12.99. It includes 2 more issues than the first volume, hence the price hike. And it’s still worth every penny.

Comic Buzz – iZombie

Creative Team: Chris Roberson (W) Michael Allred (A)
Vertigo (DC), ongoing, first issue available now

Vertigo is on fire right now (and not the bad kind that involves hospital visits). All of the titles I’m pulling from Vertigo at the moment are very satisfying, with "The Unwritten" at the top of my read pile every month. This new title looks like it won’t be far behind.

I like zombie stories. Zombies are probably my favorite of the mystical monsters (vampires, werewolves and the like). There is just something cool and scary and awesome about the idea of zombies. I love the “Walking Dead” (and before anyone cries foul as to why it isn’t on my pull list, it’s one of the few exceptions that I pick up in trade. I started reading it in trade form and now I’m kinda stuck with the six month wait). So even just the title was enough to grab me and make me want to read more.

It sounds like a book that will be fun to read with a quirky fresh take on the zombie idea. Instead of a post apocalyptic dark tale, this book offers a modern world with monsters infused within it. Our main character Gwen is just your average zombie gravedigger detective. As a zombie she must eat a brain once a month to keep her own memories and personality and not become a mindless shambly thing. But as she digests a brain she shares the memories of the deceased person for a week and is compelled to help resolve any unfinished business they may have had.

The title features an amusing cast of characters including a hippie ghost and a were-terrier. We’ve also been promised future characters in the form of monster hunters, vampires, a sexy mummy, a mad scientist, a Teen Frankenstein, a ghostly pulp avenger, a fish-man, a cultist, secret agents, Soviet Zombie Super Soldiers, and a talking chimpanzee. Roberson seems to have a lot planned for the world of "iZombie", and I look forward to being along for the ride.

But don’t take my word for it. Links are your friends. You can find the solicitations for the first three issues on Vertigo’s website. There are not one, but two interviews with the creators of the project, the second of which contains a preview of some pages from issue one. And there is another bonus preview, seven pages that were published in the “House of Mystery Annual” back in February. I have no idea if this is a separate thing or a preview of some pages from a later issue, but it lets you see the art and some of the characters. I can’t imagine that it’s really a standalone though since it doesn’t really resolve anything, but what do I know. However it’s worth a read if nothing else than to see Gwen dressed up in a “Shaun of the Dead” inspired Halloween costume.

I’m really excited about this one, and in wonderful Vertigo fashion the first issue is only be $1. You have very little to lose by trying this one out. It was released May 5th, so you still have time to get to your comic shop and find it. I won’t get this issue until early June, so you can enjoy it before me!