Funny thing about Young and I Hate Fairyland. It’s even better when it’s toned down a little. This issue isn’t too gross, isn’t too mean, has a handful of really easy jokes, and it’s maybe the most pleasant experience of the series so far. Or maybe Gert is finally just a character. But we’re getting to better meet the citizens of Fairyland and they’re more amusing than the royalty too. It’s almost an entirely different book.

But Young doesn’t lose anything. He’s gotten the series to a point where the implied, off-panel humor is as funny as if he renders it, which isn’t an easy trick. It’s a very comic strip trick and not one he’s previously seemed concerned about. But Fairyland has always had more potential than what Young was doing with it.

Not anymore, though. Now he’s trying with the book and he’s off to a great start. Some of it works because no one’s particularly bright. Not even the bee. He’s kind of dumb too; it makes the relationship somehow more stable. It’s really cool and it helps with the narrative. It lets Young use expository dialogue. He’s good at the expository dialogue, he’s got a lot of wit, but it still should flirt with tedious and it never does.

Because it’s I Hate Fairyland; it’s brilliant in its saccharine putridity.

Based on this issue, which covers the entirety of the reign of Queen Gertrude the First (and Only?), maybe Young shouldn’t do arcs with I Hate Fairyland. He’s so good at summary storytelling, which fairytales rely heavily upon, he doesn’t really need to drag things out. He does amazing things with repeated visuals, repeated jokes. This issue’s narrative mostly takes place off panel but it’s still about as perfect a comic about a homicidal woman-child turned ruler of a fairytale kingdom could be.

The other thing about doing a bunch of short scenes is how much mileage Young can get out of the gore. Gertrude’s not just an evil queen, she’s bad at the job. She’s bad at being an evil queen. So he builds up expectation and then is able to fulfill it quickly before moving on. This issue is like a bunch of little hills. The gory, hilarious payoff is at the peak, but the journey’s the thing. While each gag has its punctuation point, the transitions are awesome too. Young knows how to make funnies.

I Hate Fairyland is high concept, but the series’s excellence isn’t in that concept. It’s in Young’s ability, which is sort of higher concept than the McGuffin. It’s masterful stuff. It just happens to be exceedingly gory and crude.

I Hate Fairyland succeeds, in general, because Young is always bringing at least two things to it. He’s bringing the story–the absurdity of a pissed off princess stuck in a fairytale–and he’s bringing the art. Young’s visualizing of Fairyland, which drips with such sticky sugar you’re ready to switch to stevia forever, is a delight. It’s a perversion of the saccharine, Saturday morning cartoon fairytale land. This issue lets Young unleash the literal dragon and lay waste. Both visually and narratively, though the narrative is a lot slighter than the art, which is intense.

This issue ends the series’s first arc; it’s a fitting ending, though one has to wonder if Young’s going to be able to keep it up in the new world order he creates–it’s so nice not to have a cliffhanger. Gertrude wages war on Happy, her replacement princess. All Fairyland learns they shouldn’t have messed with Gertrude; Young delights in having Gertrude recount her tale (narration is very important in Fairyland) and brings another layer to the book. All of a sudden, he’s using video game rhetoric as a narrative device. It’s simple (leveling up, bosses, etc.) and it lets him get through the flashback efficiently.

Young’s narrative devices are maybe Fairyland’s greatest asset. It’s not just his understand of how to do a perversion of a princess in fairytale land story, it’s his understanding of how to tell that tale.

Well, wait. The devices are maybe it’s second greatest asset, because Fairyland is always going to be glorious with Young’s art. Especially an action issue like this one, which has “My Little Pony” versus a dragon at one point. Lots of double page spreads, lots of gross out visual humor. It’s not a deep comic, but it’s masterful nonetheless.

It’s a solid issue. Young doesn’t do anything crazy like he did in the previous one, he just sets Gert out on a quest. She muscles her way through it. Young’s formula for Fairyland is just enough detail to make readers gag on the saccharine nature of it, but not too much to get caught up in it. He breezes through the details. His art is always more important that the associated text.

The issues work like big pieces Young is arranging. He doesn’t just have to move Gert, he’s also got to move the supporting cast. Fairyland is like a busy stage play. The hurried nature of it is part of the charm.

Still, it was a little disappointing to see such a traditional narrative after last issue’s nuttiness. There are a lot of good jokes, as Gert explores the dark side of Fairyland, but Young drags them out. He’s even got a pattern–little in text, little in art, lot in art–in how he tells them.

They’re good jokes and often quite funny, they just aren’t particularly creative ones to make. Young coasts through this issue and gets out without even using a third of his built-up goodwill.

Young’s a bit of a show-off this issue. He works on his subplot–the queen conniving to rid Fairyland of Gert–and gives Gert what seems to be a standard adventure. Until it isn’t. And then Young goes crazy with this lengthy sequence–it seems to take place over decades (or a day). It’s phenomenal.

Except it isn’t just that sequence, it’s what he follows it with. He uses the time transition to bring Gert into the queen’s subplot. It’s a great script.

And the way the subplot plays out leads to a battle royale between Gert and her erstwhile nemesis. It’s a lot for a third issue, but Young has thought out all these places he wants to go with the book. He’s moving quickly, but still deliberately.

Young’s pretty much gotten to where he can’t make any storytelling missteps as long as he at least tells it right. The content doesn’t matter, the visuals are so strong. It could be anything and he would find a way to make it visually compelling.

I Hate Fairyland is an excellent book.