The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: The Unwritten
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Perker’s finishes over Gross lead to a somewhat different look for the book. Besides Tom looking more like an action movie star than a twenty-something, there are some weird panel transitions. It’s not bad art, it just doesn’t feel like Unwritten at times. It’s a combination of an action issue and a revelation one. The…
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Perker’s finishes over Gross lead to a somewhat different look for the book. Besides Tom looking more like an action movie star than a twenty-something, there are some weird panel transitions. It’s not bad art, it just doesn’t feel like Unwritten at times. It’s a combination of an action issue and a revelation one. The…
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Frankenstein’s Monster does join the gang, but he doesn’t really do anything. He’s muscle, without a lot of dialogue; it’s too bad. This issue features Tom wielding the magic, Lizzie and Richie freaking out and a lot of action. Carey and Gross and M.K. Perker (who finishes) do a great job with the changing genres.…
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Frankenstein’s Monster does join the gang, but he doesn’t really do anything. He’s muscle, without a lot of dialogue; it’s too bad. This issue features Tom wielding the magic, Lizzie and Richie freaking out and a lot of action. Carey and Gross and M.K. Perker (who finishes) do a great job with the changing genres.…
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Carey’s resolution is unexpected. It’s sort of celebratory and life affirming (and shows he and Gross could easily spin-off titles from Unwritten) but it also has the series’s first big fight scene in a while. And it’s a comic book fight scene. While all the detours into literature (Dickens, Moby-Dick), one doesn’t often think of…
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Carey’s resolution is unexpected. It’s sort of celebratory and life affirming (and shows he and Gross could easily spin-off titles from Unwritten) but it also has the series’s first big fight scene in a while. And it’s a comic book fight scene. While all the detours into literature (Dickens, Moby-Dick), one doesn’t often think of…
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Carey brings the arc into port—sorry, couldn’t resist—and ends on a profound moment. Well, sort of. Tom learns the source of his power and, since it makes so much sense, it’s not surprising. Carey and Gross don’t go crazy visualizing it, showing admirable restraint. The real thing comes on the final page though, when it’s…
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It’s sort of an action issue. I think it’s got to be the fastest read so far in Unwritten’s issues, maybe because Carey doesn’t do much with any of the subplots. Tom calls the Monster (the Frankenstein Monster), who’s sort of his guide when he needs one, and figures a way out of the mess…
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Carey more than makes up for the previous issue’s weak cliffhanger with this one’s sublime one. The issue, with Tom trying to deal with being stuck in Moby-Dick while Lizzie breaks some bad news to him and he can’t seem to figure out what his father’s doing there. Meanwhile, Lizzie and Savoy meet up with…
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I think Carey just had his first misstep. It might not work out as a misstep… but he ends this issue like it’s “Quantum Leap” or something. It’s a terrible, terrible cliffhanger. The rest of the issue is pretty strong too. It opens with Tom and Lizzie, with Tom blathering on romantically and Lizzie sort…
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There’s a thread I thought Carey had resolved… the whole Savoy being a vampire being. Looks like I was wrong. I guess I just assumed Wilson Taylor knew stuff. That assumption is, apparently, quite wrong. This issue—kicking off the Melville arc—introduces a new villain. Or a possible new villain; she’s a doll maker and she’s…
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No way, Carey answers some questions. Without raising new ones. Well, okay, I guess he sort of hints at some new ones—we get to see the council of evil anti-readers for the first time. They look like Fox News personalities, but they’re meeting in a cave and have secret evil rituals. Okay, I guess I’m…
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The playful, “Choose Your Own Adventure,” aspect to this issue is stunning. It’s not the point of the comic—in fact, in a stream of consciousness sort of way, reading it straight through makes more sense (otherwise, why would Carey have ended the issue on the final pages)—but it’s a stunning device. This issue we get…
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So is Wilson’s editor in with Wilson or in with the bad guys? The issue has a soft cliffhanger for Lizzie—who somehow got to go home, but lost it too (I wonder if Carey’s seen Somewhere in Time because he really pulls a penny out of the pocket in terms of an easy fix)—but nothing…
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Wilson Taylor makes his first appearance in Unwritten’s present action this issue; it’s Carey’s biggest surprise so far. Not because his appearance is so extraordinary, but just the opposite. He shows up like he’s been in the cast the entire time. While the Pullman subplot develops, the issue brings Tom back to his literary geographer…
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Here Carey has another bridging issue. He gets in some great moments, but he’s mostly just building to the next big incident. He uses this pacing a lot in Unwritten, at least in the two previous arcs, and it always works out very well. But this issue also has another facet and it’s where Carey…
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Well, while I don’t known exactly what I expected from this issue of Unwritten, I will say I never expected the cliffhanger Carey finishes with. In most ways, the issue is innocuous. There’s the new Tommy Taylor book—a fake—and there’s an event, but that event isn’t happening this issue. There’s some more information about Lizzie,…
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Reading the latest side-story issue of Unwritten, all I could think about was how Carey and Gross should never stop the series, they should also spin out some of these side-stories. I guess they call these side-stories one-shots. Anyway. This one, “Willowbank Tales,” has more than enough promise to hold at least three issues. It’s…
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A small complaint. This issue features Tommy—sorry, Tom—having a big Jedi moment. Only no one thinks he’s a good enough Jedi to do it yet. But he can still do it… and Carey doesn’t even hint at why he can do it. It plays out fine because it’s a big set piece but it’s a…
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It’s been too long since I’ve read Unwritten. I had to remember stuff—why no recap page, darn it—I’m still not sure it’s been confirmed, before this issue, Wilson is alive somewhere. Maybe it has been. Anyway, Tommy and company end up in a sort of Nazi Germany where Tommy and the male sidekick—Savoy (Carey’s great…
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Holy bejeezus. I try not to give a lot away (about good stuff) on the Fondle so talking about this issue is going to be difficult. I’m a little stunned as to what Carey just did, in terms of what he’s doing with The Unwritten–he’s introduced the triumvirate into the “real” world too, mirroring the…
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Here’s why I love Carey (and The Unwritten). This issue is an interlude issue, but very different from the last interlude issue, which was about Rudyard Kipling. Instead, it’s about the corrupt warden who’s got Tom Taylor in his jail. It’s just about him and his family. Yes, it ties into the other story, but…
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A lot happens this issue–Lizzie goes to jail, it’s revealed she knows the flying cat, Tom’s cellmate is a reporter, the warden is corrupt–but nothing really compares to Tom’s conversation with the Frankenstein Monster. Carey gives it all away–at least some of all of it–in the conversation, as it becomes clear Tom is Tommy, but…
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Carey starts something new here, in Unwritten‘s second arc, which I didn’t expect before. Well, he actually introduces a couple things I didn’t expect. First, Lizzie Hexam, is working with someone in her quest to… do whatever… with Tom. Second, Tom can apparently bring characters forth from written works–this issue ends with Tom discovering Frankenstein’s…
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The first time I read this issue, it sort of shocked me. I mean, Carey spends the issue rewriting history; or something close to it, anyway. He spends the issue looking at how the way writing and writers work in The Unwritten has effected other writers, not just the characters in the main story. It…
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The fourth issue–I’m trying to remember if something magical is revealed each issue, but I don’t think so, just the first and second–ends on a wacky cliffhanger. I mean, it ends on a very dramatic, horrific note, but then on this, well, sweet one too. The potential for The Unwritten is just amazing–if Carey pulls…
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The third issue drastically changes pace. Instead of it being a summary of events, it’s more “real time,” with Tom’s trying to figure out the variety of weird things going on. Not the weird things overall, just the weird things going on since the end of the last issue. There’s a lot more humor this…
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The second issue introduces magic to the protagonist for the first time. Unfortunately, it’s one of the issue’s weaker moments, because his reaction is nowhere near intense enough. The series has become, at least for the moment, a quest story–the quest for knowledge–and it’s definitely an approach Carey is comfortable playing with. The revelations we…
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The premise of The Unwritten is simple–what if a Harry Potter-like character turned out to be real–but the way Carey weaves the story, the intricacies, the endless setups, makes The Unwritten so much more than its concept, it’s hard to remember the premise was ever simple. Carey introduces maybe nine things this issue–protagonist Tom Taylor’s…
The Stop Button 