the unwritten

is this any good?

i've read every issue and it's kinda not going anywhere and it is often more "clever" than clever but occasionally there's a bit like the aa milne riff in #12 that makes me laugh or the ghost nazi stuff in #10 (i think) that looks cool/is a cool idea and i keep buying.

which is to say that none of the actual story arcs really hold my attention (jailbreak? really?) but carey is working some angles that can offer $2.99/month worth of entertainment. i'm not sure it is realistic to expect more from a comic book. see? ambivalence.

covers are really nice tho.

I was a bit bored by Lucifer, but I really liked Crossing Midnight, and was disappointed that it got cancelled so soon. I've been meaning to check out The Unwritten, how does it compare to those two?

I thought #12 (the A.A. Milne/Beatrix Potter one-off) was pretty excellent too, though the first book left me cold.

I find the one-offs (Winnie The Pooh meets The Prisoner, the Kipling episode) are the best things about this title. The story as a whole is maybe a bit over-complex.

I like it. But I have bad taste, so YMMV.

i have bad taste too--i wait excitedly for each new issue of batgirl ffs--but what i worry about is the smugness (which is the overwhelming vibe i get from the unwritten, gaiman-y hamfisted literary allusions and parallels, vertigo house-style art [because it's all about the writing], wink and nod stuff) of the smart but not too smart comic book.

the fact that this book presents to me so much ambiguity w/r/t a really basic question--is it worth reading?--is part of what keeps me interested. carey et al, assuming rational homo economicus types here, are concerned with making me give two dollars and ninety-nine cents worth of a shit every month just as i am concerned with maximizing the thrillpower (say) of my monthly comics budget. going about making me give a shit a roundabout way--by teasing me with goodness rather than actually providing it--and doing it in a way that provokes me into typing about it on the internet is in itself a sort of sputtering thrillpower. in that sense the unwritten is as good (which is to say "worth reading/buying") as batgirl. almost.

That last post has kind of made me buy the latest issue of The Unwritten.

i liked the latest issue! it made me feel like things might get going at some point in the future, like when a pretty bartender comps you a drink.

bewildered protagonist w/ sidekicks who have varying levels of inside information/ulterior motives reminds me of what was good about preacher, which i dug as a teenager but rubs me wrongly now. it's a pretty basic setup (frodo clueless/rest of fellowship reasonably clued) but lizzie's often frantic scrabbling for guidance from her shadowy mentor--ie book-blood magic--is what keeps her from being a prissy deus ex machina all day long.