Punk Rock Jesus #6 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (story & art), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Sean Murphy’s story about religion, faith and belief comes to a close.

Review (with SPOILERS): This was very nicely done.  Ending a complex story has to be the biggest challenge in creating fiction.  Anyone who consumes much fiction knows that clever ideas are a dime a dozen and that the rare skills are (a) executing on the clever idea to tell a snappy story and (b) conceiving an acceptable ending.

Punk Rock Jesus had already proven that Sean Murphy could execute on his clever idea.  Over the last 5 issues he’s told us a story that was entertaining and thought provoking.  So, the only real question was how would it end.  I think this ending is largely successful.  There might be a few places I would have liked to see a slightly different choices, but even there we’re talking about changing something that is “very, very good” for some unknown avenue – that might have turned out worse.  I doubt that the “perfect ending” exists just because a work of fiction means something different to every reader.

Punk Rock Jesus #4 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (writer/artist), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Bad things happen and J2 rebels

Review (with minor SPOILERS): One reason I love PRJ is that it is damn hard to review.  There’s a lot of meat on the bone and it challenges you as a commentator to write something that isn’t messy and running all over the place.  I can tell you: Not many comics have this quality.  Even the best issues of a really good superhero comic (like the Snyder/Capullo Batman) have a very defined emphasis to them, and it makes them more orderly to review.  The same thing is true of really good creator-driven series like The Walking Dead or American Vampire or Scalped.  Reviewing PRJ is more like commenting on Charles Burns.

Punk Rock Jesus #3 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (story & art), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: It’s hard for mommies when their kids grow up.

A few things: 1). Transitional issue. – When I first heard Murphy talk about this series, it was about how there was this cloned Jesus Christ who was on a reality show and he got sick of it and rebelled.  Until we got to this issue, I kinda wondered if Murphy was pulling my leg because after issue #2 the kid was still a little baby.  How was he going to be a rebellious teenager before issue #6???  This is the issue where we rapidly pivot from the issues around J2’s birth to the issues facing him as a young man.  There is a lot of ground to cover and it does make this feel a little like the dreaded “transitional issue”.  These things are just a fact of comic life and every writer (except for Scott Snyder) seems to have a slightly awkward issue where they must flow from how the story began to how it will climax.

Punk Rock Jesus #2 – Review

By: Sean Murphy (writer/artist), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Things get a little claustrophobic on the island where the J2 reality show is being filmed.

Review: This is a hard issue to review.  It’s very good, but reviewing it in exacting detail feels a little like reviewing a TV show between the first and second commercial breaks.  At this point, we’ve met the characters and are just watching them settle into their roles so we can grow to like or loathe them more as the story chugs along.

The Unwritten #35.5 – Quick Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story), Gabriel Hernandez Walta (art), Lee Loughridge (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover, Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead version of The Unwritten.

The Review: I tend not to pay very close attention to solicitations for ongoing series that I’m committed to.  So, when I checked the Diamond Comics Distributors website to make my pull list last week, I was surprised to see The Unwritten #35.5.  Huh?  I thought that The Unwritten wrapped up the War of the Words story arc very well with The Unwritten #35.  So, what was this #35.5 issue going to be about?

One of my favorite literary devices is the old trick of showing us a story we already know from another character’s point-of-view.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a classic example, but there are many others: Wicked, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, etc.  Not only do these stories serve as a nice refresher on key events from the ongoing saga, but they always provide more information.  You know those scenes in the “main story” when you wish the creators would let you stay and linger in a scene for another panel or two?  Well, you always get that extra view in THIS type of story.

In this case, we see The Unwritten saga from the point-of-view of a guy working in The Grid for the Cabal.  We see his recruitment, his odd working conditions and his special missions as he follows events right up until the happenings of issue #35.  What’s great is that he’s just a guy: He was an English Literature major who graduated from college and was just happy to have a job.  He’s not some evil henchman or privy to the Cabal’s plans.  He’s just a dude.  But, in watching him, it added so much more richness to the story we’ve experienced over the last 2.5 years.

Kudos also go to artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta.  I got excited right away when I saw his name on the cover because I’ve seen his work in a few Marvel issues here and there.  His style is more restrained here than it was when he did a few X-Men titles recently, but the cool elements are still there.  What I love about Walta’s work are the almost straight lines he uses throughout.  When you get in close to his panels, you see that it looks like he drew some complex surface like the front of a woman’s blouse with a bunch of straight lines.  And….they are STRAIGHT.  I mean, it looks like he did them with a ruler.  I just love any artist that has such a unique look, especially when it looks like a style that would be a complete pain-in-the-ass to draw.

Dominique Laveau Voodoo Child #1 – Review

By: Selwyn Seyfu Hinds (writer), Denys Cowan (pencils), John Floyd (inks), Dave McCaig (colors), Clem Robbins (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor), Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A young woman gets involved in some funky voodoo/werewolf action in New Orleans.

Review: It was bound to happen: Vertigo has released a new series where I didn’t enjoy the first issue.  The publisher has been on quite a run recently: Unwritten, Sweet Tooth, American Vampire, I Zombie, Daytripper, Spaceman, New York Five and the recent Saucer Country… all were quite good and some are/were great.  But, Dominique Laveau Voodoo Child #1 left me pretty cold.

Full Disclosure: I’m not a fan of New Orleans-based voodoo stories.  Someone must enjoy them because various writers and publishers are drawn to the material, but I completely don’t care.  I’m just not a fan of weird, pseudo-godlike creatures fighting their battles on Earth or anything like that, so all the scenes of Caribbean immigrants speaking in tongues or scenes in graveyards leave me cold.  Also, I’m bored with every New Orleans story happening around the time of Hurricane Katrina.

And, that’s really my biggest complaint with DLVC #1… The subject matter just didn’t click with me at all.  It does have one positive: A young female protagonist.  That’s often a good start for me and I am willing to give this title a few issues to see if it can get it’s act together.  I never get tired of seeing stories where young women “grow up” and become a powerful force for something. I just don’t like it when their reason for doing so has to do with some unknown destiny they have because they are related to some ancestor they didn’t even know…

The Unwritten #35 – Review

By: Mike Carey and Peter Gross (story and pencils), M.K. Perker (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A big finale to the War of the Words storyline as Pullman explains most everything to Tom/Tommy.

A few things: [SPOILERS]

1. So….THAT’s what’s going on! – Presuming that Pullman is telling the truth, this issue makes 90% clear what is going on in world of The Unwritten.  Basically, there is this “leviathan” that is representative of the consciousness of the entire population of the world; remember that wonderful image of the whale as composed of thousands of little stick figures back around issue #22 or so?  And when the leviathan takes a fancy to a particular story the characters from those particular stories become real.  Thus, Pullman as the original Cain is a story that has persisted for thousands of years because the leviathan likes that story a lot and won’t give it up (like a dog with a rag).  Tom/Tommy is just a recent manifestation of that leviathan phenomenon.  So, circling back to the first issues of the series where people criticized The Unwritten for being like Harry Potter…..it is exactly like Harry Potter!  It just isn’t similar to Harry Potter in the way that you thought.  And then the next logical step is that some dastardly humans decided to exploit the leviathan phenomenon for greedy purposes.

There are still a ton of questions though.  Is there a distinction between Tom and Tommy?  Can he be “just Tom”?  Is Leviathan real?  He sure seems real when he smashes through that wall!  And if Cain is around as a story, where are the other figures from religious books: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed?  And what of modern myths with LOTS of books written about them like Abraham Lincoln?  Luke Skywalker?  Spider-Man?  Tarzan?  I just wouldn’t think that of all the stories in the Bible that Cain is what leviathan would like the MOST.   What about John 3:16?

2. Loss of a friend… – I hope this isn’t the last we see of Lizzie….and I’m pretty sure it isn’t.  Tom and Richie will have to try to salvage her, right?  This isn’t just a minor thing either.  I still don’t particularly enjoy reading about Tom.  He’s kind of a dick.  But, I DO enjoy Lizzie and Richie and would be sad if they weren’t around to humanize Tom (which is ironic since they’re literary constructs too).

3. Very solid art. – The art in this series almost never blows my doors off (except for the issues inked by Vince Locke), but it also never has so much as a bad panel.  Every panel is well constructed from a perspective and storytelling standpoint, the characters are clearly drawn and the actions are always clear.  Everything is nicely colored and when you have Todd Klein doing your letters….well….it’s going to be really nice.  It’s just so damn professional looking.

The Unwritten #34.5 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story), Gary Erskine (art), Lee Loughridge (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor), Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: A kinda origin of Wilson Taylor set in World War I.

Review: This was a very well done comic that left me cold for some reason.  I’m very much an “art first” reader, and this art is lovely, and that makes all the weirder that it didn’t really connect with me.  Gary Erskine has a great style for a WWI comic.  Depicting battles in trenches is hard because you don’t want to see the first hint of anything light-hearted.  Honestly, regular series artist Peter Gross has exactly the type of “almost realistic/slightly cartoony” style that wouldn’t quite work on a WWI comic, so I’m glad the creators brought in Erskine for this story.  You almost wonder if they knew that Gross would need some help during this time of double-shipping and highlighted THIS issue as a good candidate both from a workflow and subject matter standpoint?  Regardless, Erskine has a very straight-forward and direct style that is appealing for the subject matter.  The colors also play a big part and Lee Loughridge shows that there’s a LOT you can do with shades of brown.

So, the art checks out…

But, the story itself just failed to light my socks on fire and certainly didn’t approach the heights of previous .5 issues of The Unwritten: #32.5 [I gave this a B-, which was probably too harsh in hindsight] and #33.5.  Perhaps that is simply because this story focuses on Wilson Taylor and we already know quite a bit about Wilson, whereas the other .5 issues explored new areas of The Unwritten universe.  We also saw a good bit of Wilson’s relationship with The Cabal in the On To Genesis storyline and while that story didn’t show how he first met The Cabal, I’m not sure I was curious about that event.  Hopefully it connected with other readers more.

The Unwritten #33.5 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writer & pencils), Vince Locke (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: An origin of the nasty nun with the marionettes.

Four Things: 

1. These .5 issues are seriously good. – The biggest problem with the .5 issues of The Unwritten is how badly they overshadow the regular issues of.  These stories have so much meat on the bone.  You really feel as if you could catch some new filbert of information on the 5th reading.  And, they’re so involved in the background mythos of The Unwritten with how they keep touching on the power of story and “the whale” that is made up of all of us and eats stories.  When you compare to this deep and adult storytelling, it’s really hard for a story about a man with a magic wand (i.e. the regular issues) to not seem a little silly and lightweight.

2. Wonderful, self-contained story. – This was a great story.  We’ve seen bits and pieces of Ms. Toller and her marionettes over the last year or so in the pages of Unwritten, but it wasn’t really clear who she was.  Well, this gives us a great insight into why she’s such a nasty old lady.  Given her dark childhood and the scars visited upon her by her father, it’s no wonder that she has no trouble being a torturer or sorts for the Cabal.  This issue’s story is heartbreaking, violent and thrilling.

The Unwritten #33 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (co-creators, writer & pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor goes on the offensive versus the Cabal now that he’s all powered up by the belief of his fans.

Five Things:

1. Finally an action-filled, quickly-paced issue. – Things happened in this issue.  Whether it was Tom/Tommy (the distinction is becoming meaningless) fighting his way through Cabal minions with his spells (which are wonderfully illustrated by Gross) or the revelations coming from inside the Cabal, we were always getting either important bits of new information OR forward action in the series.  I love this series, but it needs more of this, especially as we’re reaching a climax in the action.

2. Pullman remains the most interesting character. – Tom and his buddies aren’t uninteresting, but they’re mostly tools to figure out what the Cabal is all about.  But Pullman is really intriguing.  On one hand, he’s the hired muscle for the Cabal.  But, he’s also really old (as we’re learning from the .5 issues of The Unwritten) and the members of the Cabal seem afraid of him.  He’s kinda third-party in all the action that just happens to be aligned with the Cabal.  Furthermore, he seems like he really understands this whole system whereby reality is warped via the mass belief of the people, and he understands it in a deeper way than the Cabal’s leadership does.  The true nature of Pullman is THE big mystery that I want to know about in the second half of the series.

3. Interesting reversal by the Cabal. – This is slightly SPOILER-y, but it was very interesting how the Cabal defused Tom’s powers.  They just kinda fired up a bullpen of writers to write stories about Tom and then read them aloud.  And….since the readers were in close proximity to Tom (which Pullman had taught us was important), it screwed up the power of the public to feed power into Tom.  Maybe there was some deeper meaning to the passages being written by the bullpen, but it seemed like they were mostly tossing a monkey wrench into the gears.  This power of the people to warp reality via story and the implications it has in the real world for the use of propaganda is fascinating.

The Unwritten #32.5 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (co-creators), Dean Ormston (finishes), Fiona Stephenson (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Another one of the .5 installments that looks at stories through history.

Three Things:

1. Lots of good nuggets in these .5 issues. – It’s funny, but the .5 issues of this stretch of The Unwritten are much more enjoyable than the “normal” issues that are focusing on our “main” characters.  These .5 issues are showing the roots of this Cabal that it trying to rule the world through the power of stories (if that is their goal since it is a little unclear what they’re up to).  30+ issues into this series, we need some answers.  That doesn’t mean that Carey and Gross have to end the series, but they need to give the readers some resolutions to mysteries that have been building since issue #1; these .5 issues are doing MUCH more towards that end than the “normal” issues.  This issue takes place in ancient Egypt and features Pullman (at least I’m pretty sure it is him) guiding an Egyptian king on a hunt for the Leviathan who gains his powers from consuming stories.  Seeing ancient Pullman, the birth of written language, the links between the Leviathan and the WHALE that have appeared throughout this series, the concept that characters can survive their own death via story, etc… It was all very neat.

2. But, kinda slow paced. – This first half of this issue dragged badly to the point where I fell asleep reading it 3 nights in a row before deciding that this was a comic I couldn’t read in my comfy chair in front of the fire at night.  That kinda methodical complexity is both The Unwritten’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness.  There is a LOT of meat on the bone, but the reader MUST bring more mental focus than for an issue of Astonishing X-Men.  All that being said, this issue still had some pacing problems in the first half.  I’m not a writer, so I can’t offer too much in the way of suggestions for improvement, but it seems screwed up to have an issue with  ~5 really cool things in the last 10 pages yet the first 10 pages put you to sleep 3 nights in a row.  And I appreciate that this series is being “written for the trade” but if it’s going to be released in single issues there should be greater effort to make each page of each issue snappier.

The Unwritten #32 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross (pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor’s turns to crowd-sourcing his powers.

Five Things: 

1. Interesting new aspect of Tom’s powers. – I guess we always knew or suspected that Tom’s magical powers could be crowd-sourced given the themes of the series.  All along one of the primary angles of the series has been that the Cabal was trying to control the world via stories and propaganda and we’ve recently learned that Tom Taylor is basically an artificial construct sprung from the pages of the Tommy Taylor novels.  So, it kinda makes sense that Tom’s powers would be greater the more Tommy Taylor fanboys are out there jabbering about what happened in Book 3 or doing cosplay at conventions.  This whole relationship between story and fan base is kinda neat and it was fun to see it coming together in this issue.

2. It’s moving way too slowly. – Sure, it’s well written and the art is lovely, but the pacing of this series is glacial.  I’m pretty sure this story-arc is supposed to be a mini-climax in the story, but climaxes shouldn’t take 6 months to happen.  If anything climaxes need to be faster than the rest of the series.  Just for comparison’s sake, I’ve been reading the Jack Kirby Kamandi Omnibus and that‘s how more comics should be paced: something new happening on every single page.  I appreciate that there is depth to a story like Unwritten, but the depth isn’t the point of a climax.  The climax isn’t “about” seeing Lizzie and Richie and the winged-cat hanging out in an Antarctic research station….the climax is about fighting the Cabal and a little too much development is bogging down the main story.

3. Really do enjoy the dynamic that Tom’s gang has. – All that being said, I do enjoy the dynamic that Tom’s gang has.  Watching Lizzie and Richie interact as the “normal” folks who got left behind is interesting because they are fun characters.  But, continuing my point above, watching their experiences is kinda like watching the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead version of the series: It’s great and well done, but it is still the appetizer.

The Unwritten #31 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (writer & pencils), M.K. Perker (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: The War of the Words begins as Tom Taylor starts to fight back against the Cabal.

Five Things: 

1. Tom Taylor has the power!  After spending 30 issues watching Tom growing in power, it was pretty neat to see him in full-on “beast mode”.  He knows what he is now and has also learned a really interesting method to augment his powers.  Of course, he’s lacking in experience and that might come back to bite him, but talent and power go a LONG way.

2. Tom’s friends make for a pretty good team.  Of course, we’re used to seeing Tom accompanied by his loyal friends, Lizzie and Richie (what a relief that they haven’t become a love triangle, huh?).  So, it’s no surprise that they’re going to be at his side as he begins to take down the Cabal.  But, it was pretty neat to see that he has Frankenstein’s monster helping as well.  That certainly enhances the power of the team.  Frank is also an interesting addition because he’s kinda a literary construct like Tom (although I’m not sure that I’m intelligent enough to figure out if this is what the creators are going for).

3. Kinda slow otherwise.  It may be a personal problem of mine, but I always feel that stories need to speed up as they approach a climax.  The simple fact is that the audience/reader anticipates the climax and doesn’t want to wait very long once it begins.  Even though a story (in its entirety) is about the journey, the climax is very much about reaching the climax.  So, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if these series of issues picked up the pacing a little bit.

Unwritten #30 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writers & art), Vince Locke (inks on 1930s sequences), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor learns about his half-brother.

Review: This is another of those “hard to review” series because I find myself saying the same stuff every month: Unwritten is very good.  There is momentum from issue-to-issue, but it isn’t the hot new comic anymore (being up to issue #30).  It always irritates me when the comic blogosphere drops its coverage of titles like this that remain excellent, but aren’t new and fresh because Unwritten is precisely the type of title we need more of in comics.  One of the more common threads on comic message boards is “how do I get my girlfriend/wife into comics?”  Well….giving her a pile of Wolverine comics isn’t going to be appreciated, but there are a LOT of folks not reading comics who would find the themes of Unwritten very appealing precisely because it isn’t superheroes.  It expects you to understand a little about literature, it expects you to pay attention from issue to issue, most altercations are solved without muscles coming into play, it doesn’t objectify women and the hero isn’t a dude with bulging pecs.

The Unwritten #29 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story & art), Vince Locke (inks on 1930’s sequences), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor), Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: We learn more about the events that drove Wilson Taylor away from the mysterious cabal trying to rule the world through stories.

What’s Good: This is a tricky comic to review in single issues.  On one hand, Unwritten is a darn fine comic and I always think it is a shame when a darn fine comic has no trouble getting reviews proclaiming it’s quality after the first 5-6 issues and then no one wants to talk about it anymore.  On the other hand, Unwritten is a story that needs to be really judged on a big scale; even though it has story arcs for the purpose of trade publication, it is just one BIG story.  So, reviewing the single issues is kinda like pausing a movie every fifteen minutes to say what you think.  At this point, Unwritten has established itself as a very well written and well-drawn comic that is pulling at the concepts of what a story really is and whether stories can have a life outside of the written page once enough people read and embrace the story.

Much of the action in this issue is set in the 1930’s as we see a more confident Tom Taylor using his magical powers to summon the images that go along with his father’s diary.  It’s a neat effect and the decision to mix in Vince Locke’s inks is wise because it sets off these sorta-flashbacks and makes them look different than the rest of the issue.  The most interesting thing of this story arc has been seeing Wilson Taylor (Tom’s father) transition from a loyal servant of the cabal to the character we knew from early issues of this series where he was in active resistance (including his creation of Tom as a weapon of that resistance).  This issue shows the events that led to his schism with the cabal.  Even if we don’t know everything yet, this is really filling in the blanks nicely.

Of course, there is a big reveal at the end of the issue too.  SPOILERS…  Tom has a half-brother and this brother seems to have magical abilities to summon literary characters to the real world too.  Thus far, most summoned characters have been on Tom’s side, so this new wrinkle is very interesting.

The Unwritten #28 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (presumably writing & drawing respectively, but they don’t say), Vince Locke (inks on flashback sequences), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor learns more about his father’s 1930’s relationship with a cartoonist (who also happens to be a very pretty lady).

What’s Good: This is another of those “good but not great” issues of The Unwritten.  Almost the entire issue is consumed with Tom going through his father’s old journals.  We’ve learned that at one point in time, Wilson Taylor worked for this mysterious and ominous organization that was attempting to rule the world through story.  This story arc is detailing Wilson’s dilemma as he has been sent by Pullman (the enemy throughout most of the series) to kill a cartoonist who is upsetting the organization’s plans.

The budding romance between Wilson and this Miriam Walzer is entertaining to read, especially when you know that Wilson either has to shoot her OR alienate the organization.  To the creators’ credit, there is some mystery around this decision, but you get the sense that however it turns out, this will be the event that ruptures Wilson’s relationship with the organization.

It’s also fun watching Wilson have his eyes opened by Miriam as to the power of storytelling.  My ‘history of Unwritten” is a little jumbled, but in this time, Wilson seems to be more of a heavy than a writer and it’s possible that Miriam inspired Wilson to become the writer that he was later in life and helped him to develop the skill that allowed him to create Tom/Tommy.

The Unwritten #27 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (writer and artist), Vince Locke (inks on a few pages), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) and Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: More goodness in the Unwritten universe as Tom and gang continue to find clues about the secret society that seems to be pulling the strings of the world.

The Review: It sounds ugly to say this, but this was a fairly unremarkable issue of The Unwritten.  That isn’t to say that it is a “bad” issue, as it is cleverly written and has art that tells an excellent story, but the “big mystery” of the series has been hanging out there for soooo long that any issue that isn’t a payoff is going to be somewhat unremarkable.  The feeling it reminded of me was reading the Star Wars: New Jedi Order books years ago.  For those unfamiliar, the NJO books were a ~20 novel series (ugh!) that promised to “remake the Star Wars extended universe” as the Star Wars galaxy was invaded from aliens from a whole other galaxy.  There were lots of mysteries about who these aliens were, how they had come here, how their technology worked, what their weaknesses were, etc.  But by about the 15th novel, I had gotten wholly sick of reading a 5-page description of a lightsaber fight and just wanted to skim ahead to find out who won the fight.  At some point in a story, the “journey” becomes less enjoyable and we need to see an ending in sight.

Unwritten is getting that way for me a little bit and it could be that this part of the series will read much better in collected editions.  We’ve now been following the story for over 2 years and the story is at the point where any issue that doesn’t have a major reveal feels light.  I understand how important the collected editions are to Vertigo’s strategy, but they still make the bulk of their revenue on the single issues and a bigger effort needs to be made to ensure that each and every single issue has a BANG to it that makes it worth reading.

So, the upshot on this issue is: not enough happens.

The Unwritten #26 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (writer & art), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: How will Tom and gang get free after being captured during that auction house raid last issue?

What’s Good: This is a perfectly fine issue of Unwritten.  It checks all the boxes: nice writing, flowing story, nice art, tasteful colors, good lettering, etc.  All the hallmarks of a good quality issue….

The story is part 2-of-2 and picks up directly from Unwritten #25.  If you’ll recall, at the end of that issue, Tom and his buddies are captured while raiding an auction house that is about to auction some of Wilson Taylor’s (Tom’s dad) personal effects.  I guess the cool twist at the beginning of this issue is [SPOILERS] that they are now trying to auction off Tom himself to a nefarious group of rich folks, one of whom is that nun-ish woman who tortures people with voodoo-like puppets.

There are neat moments in this comic, such as when Richie shows the bad guys that you can’t chemically sedate a man who has turned into a vampire.  And the big stuff is that we’re getting further confirmation that Tom is some kind of construct who was created by Wilson Taylor for reasons unclear.  But, even that dawning realization is kinda understated in this issue.

The Gross/Chuckry art is again very solid and the storytelling is superb.  I do tend to love artists who are showing off in every single panel, but I really can appreciate that a scene in a small auction-house meeting room doesn’t need to have all kinds of little detailed stuff in the background.  Everything is just clean and straightforward.  The colors aren’t mostly flat-ish and I like that a lot too.  Nice lettering from Mr. Klein to boot.

The Unwritten #25 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writers & art), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: The gang reunites and sets about trying to steal some of Wilson Taylor’s personal effects from an auction house.

What’s Good: I know that people like “jumping on points” and if you were looking for a place to start picking up the single issues while you catch up on the collected editions, this is a pretty good spot.  Much of the story here is exposition that kinda reminds us of the status quo as the trio of Tom, Lizzie and Richie get back together (via a pretty cool magic effect from Tom).  It recaps who Wilson Taylor is/was, who this trio of heroes are, who Pullman is, that Richie is now a vampire, that they have a cool magic doorknob, etc.

None of this stuff is laid out in gory detail and you’ll certainly want to go get the collected editions, but it does a pretty good job of resetting the story.  Even for those of us who have been reading the single issues since the beginning, it is nice to have a recap because this story can get pretty dense at times.

There are also a few cool things that happen in this issue: Richie demonstrates his “mutant healing factor”, there’s a tell-tale stuffed bunny rabbit, we see an interesting listing of Wilson Taylor’s stuff that is being auctioned and the best is an uncomfortable scene where Lizzie and Tom are getting “reacquainted” while Richie (who can overhear them) quietly drinks his blood in the next room.  And, we end with a nice cliffhanger.

The art is again really solid.  There’s nothing too wild and crazy in this issue.  It is just straight-up storytelling.  One thing I would give kudos for is that the haven’t made these heroes look like prime physical specimens.  I mean, Lizzie and Tom aren’t ugly, but it really wouldn’t have fit the story if Lizzie had dropped all of her shy, introverted and bulky clothes and revealed a pornstar body and then the next panel showed Tom’s rippling muscles.  They’re just normal looking people…

Joe the Barbarian #8 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Sean Murphy (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Pornsak Pichetshote (associate editor) & Karen Berger (editor)

The Story: Joe the Barbarian wraps up.  Will “the dying boy” overcome a hypoglycemia?  And what will become of his family’s home?

What’s Good: Sean Murphy’s art is very, very good.  There isn’t a single thing I can fault with his art in this issue.  He draws in a cartoony style that allows his characters to fully emote and crackle with energy. Murphy also seems to have a wonderful understanding of how bodies move and bend and where weight is distributed because all of his characters just look perfect.  When I say “energy” in a character, I mean that when you see one of Murphy’s characters doing anything other than standing up straight with their arms by their sides, you always think they look like they’re running or ducking……You never think they look like an unbalanced mannequin that is about to tip over.

And, the amount of detail he crams into these panels is just really something.  The splash pages are really something to behold, but in a mere 1/5 page landscape panel, he draws ~20 rat soldiers complete with swords and shields.  Damn, this book is just an artistic tour de force.

From a story standpoint, I have a lot less positive things to say, but I was really pleased to see Jack the Rat show back up.  Not only did it give Murphy a chance to draw his awesome warrior rat again, but I felt like the relationship between Joe and his pet rat was the best thing about this comic series.  I do question whether a rat shows this much devotion to its owner though.  [Or perhaps that was another way to show how sad Joe’s life was.  He doesn’t get to have a dog like a normal boy, he has to have a rat and pretend that he and the rat are great friends and that the rat will help him out in a jam like a dog would????]