I don’t understand The Fiction. I don’t understand what Pires is going for. This final issue, which is so movie-ready the black guy realizes he’s the third wheel in a meta-moment, dumbs down the story. It’s like Pires wanted to make The Unwritten simpler. This issue I also noticed the numerous similarities to Stephen King’s It.

But what Pires doesn’t seem to get is how mismatched Rubín is for that approach to the material. Rubín can’t do craven commercialism, which is what Pires asks this issue. The result is a funny looking comic with no visual rhythm. It doesn’t help there are four or five endings, starting about five pages into the issue.

In all The Fiction has been a disappointment. But Pires is getting better. I don’t think I finished his last book for BOOM!. Will his next series be better? Probably. I mean, he doesn’t threaten another series of The Fiction, which is a good start.

The Fiction only has one issue left, which is sort of good. Pires doesn’t exactly run out of ideas this issue–it’s just once he gets his regular cast together it does remind all of a sudden of Unwritten and then it’s hard to think of Fiction on its own.

Also because it’s almost over. It goes one more issue, so reading this issue, it feels like the grand setup for the finish. Pires does maybe four flashbacks, one flash forward and then two asides with the evil monster thing running the otherworld place. It’s even got a hard cliffhanger with the three good guys about to face off with their evil friend.

Like I said, while Pires might not entirely be out of ideas, it really seems like he let the impulse run its course. It’s an eighties cartoon all of a sudden.

The comic’s not compelling exactly when it needs to be most compelling.

The Fiction is real close. Pires is there with the script, but artist Rubín is just a little too loose on the characters. He doesn’t age them right. It screws up the narrative flow–it almost looks like he’s trying to echo the characters at different ages (specifically when he’s in flashback to childhood, showing a flash of the adult version).

The problem is Pires’s script has different flashbacks to different times and their order needs to be clear visually and Rubín just confuses.

But the art’s good otherwise.

Pires’s getting tricky with the plot, tricky with some hints. But a good kind of tricky, the kind where he’s not so much showing off as inviting the reader to admire the story alongside him. It’s a really good issue; beautifully paced, so much of the pay-off in the last few pages as it cliffhangs.

Maybe Fiction will be special.

The Fiction isn’t a particularly strange book. The story isn’t strange. Even though it deals with getting sucked into a world of infinite imagination and danger, still not a weird story. Writer Curt Pires is very matter of fact about it. He seemingly gives the reader all the available information–it’s about adults returning to this alternate reality for the first time since they were kids. They seem to know as much as the reader does.

It makes Pires immediately trustworthy. He’s apparently not doing the thing where the characters are another part of the puzzle (at least as far as what they know, not their meaning in the story). It’s a nice change. The Fiction is compelling without being tricky.

What does make The Fiction different is artist David Rubín. He’s not otherworldly exactly, but he’s also definitely not realistic. He’s like a fantastic cartoonist.

It’s a cool book.