Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

Unwritten Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity reviewed by Nymeth (thingsmeanalot.com)

February 2nd, 2010

My thoughts upon finishing The Unwritten: Oh no – I got myself hooked on yet another series. It’s not a bad thing, not exactly, but those long Vertigo graphic novels series tend to be heavy on my wallet. But on the other hand, O! the happiness they bring me. My life would be so much poorer without Fables or The Sandman. This is only volume one, and I almost don’t want to say it lest I jinx it, but *whispers* I suspect that The Unwritten might be up there with those two.

Mike Carey and Peter Goss (of Lucifer fame) open The Unwritten with a scene from a book within the book: the final scene from the last Tommy Taylor book, an extremely popular series about a boy wizard and his two best friends. The series ends somewhat ambiguously, and its author, Wilson Taylor, mysteriously disappeared shortly after finishing the last book. Behind he left a son, Tom Taylor, who has to deal with the pressure of being seen as a “real life” Tommy Taylor by millions of fans. He takes advantage of this by going to conventions and signing books on his father’s behalf, but one day—

Well, I don’t really want to tell you more about the plot. I’ll just say that it challenges the boundaries between fiction and reality, and also that it’s so awesome that my head very nearly exploded. You’re probably thinking that the Tommy Taylor books sound suspiciously like a certain very popular series about a certain boy wizard—which yes, yes they do. But fear not, there’s no ridiculing. The story is written with true respect for Harry Potter fandom, as well as for the fact that stories matter enough to people to inspire such passion.

The literary references don’t stop at Harry Potter either: we also have Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, Dickens, William Blake, and cameos by Kipling, Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde. Honestly, I thought I’d died and gone to metafictional heaven. And the thing is, The Unwritten is clever and literary, but not in a too-clever-for-its-own-good sort of way. It’s also an exciting, satisfying, good old-fashioned piece of storytelling. This is because all those references aren’t there to make the writers seem clever, or to make readers who get them feel sophisticated and well-read. They’re there because they make sense in the story – because The Unwritten is a story about stories, about the way they shape how we view the world, about why they’re such a fundamental part of what makes us human.

It’s a book about why stories matter, really. As Tommy Taylor’s mysterious ally Lizzie Hexman says, Nothing matters more than the stories we tell ourselves to explain the world. And this is how Count Ambrosio (or a supposed Count Ambrosio), the villain from the Tommy Taylor books, puts it:

Just a story? Tell that to the Greeks who fought at Troy, Tommy. Tell the women burned as witches, the Rosenbergs, Sacco and Vanzetti. Tell the martyrs of all the religions and the millions who fell in all the wars since time began. Stories are the only thing worth dying for!

I’m not sure what is a good reason to die and what isn’t, but the fact is that he’s right—people have been dying for stories since the beginning of time. And living for them as well. As those of you who’ve been reading this blog for a while know, this is a literary theme I come back to again and again. I really have the feeling this series and I are going to be good friends.


Bill Willingham, who wrote this volume’s introduction, says that literature-based, animal and fairy-tale fantasy is becoming as important and defining a genre in the comics medium as superhero stories once were. (He also says he wishes he’d written this book. Just thought I’d let you know.) The examples he gives are convincing, and they also happen to be some of my all-time favourite comics series. I really think The Unwritten will end up joining that list.

(PS: The real reason why I got The Unwritten: Mike Carey has awesome taste in music.)