Read This: The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

One of the neatest twists during Neil Gaiman’s run on Sandman was Lucifer’s decision, at the end of one storyline, to abandon Hell and take an extended vacation on Earth; author Mike Carey and artist Peter Gross eventually picked up that narrative thread for another DC comic, Lucifer, which ran for six years—I didn’t read the entire series, but the story arcs that I did read were quite well-done. The pair have reunited for a new series, The Unwritten, which starts off with a mundane premise—a young man whose father based the lead character in a Harry Potter-like series of fantasy novels copes with the ramifications of his fame, and not always admirably—and immediately spins it off in fantastic directions. The first five issues have now been collected as a graphic novel, Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity.

I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for a certain type of comic book, almost always published by DC’s Vertigo line, that sprinkles literary or intellectual elements into its fantasy narrative—which tend to be largely the domain of UK authors like Gaiman and Carey (see also Grant Morrison) for some reason—and The Unwritten falls squarely into this camp. Of course, you have to accept that this first volume is as concerned with establishing the foundations for a much larger narrative as it is with the individual story arc; the stand-alone story that closes out the book, which recasts the life of Rudyard Kipling in light of the magical/literary conspiracy lurking behind the Unwritten curtain, offers a glimpse at the scope of what Carey has planned. It will almost certainly be worth keeping tabs on.

10 March 2010 | uncategorized |