The Unwritten/Night In The Woods

"So fuck the truth. We dont know where it is, and we probably won’t know it when we see it. She just chose the story she needs right now. The story that keeps her standing. That's probably all any of us get to do./Um, so like, the constellations, I don't believe there's a whale out there, but I, uh, believe the stars exist and that people put the whale up there. Like, I dunno, we're good at drawing lines through the space between stars. Like we're pattern finders, and we'll find patterns, and we like really put our hearts and minds into it even if we don't mean to. So I believe in a universe that doesn't care and people who do”

Writing: Mike Carey

Penciller: Peter Gross

Inker: Ryan Kelly

Colors: Chris Chuckry, Jeanne McGee

Letters: Todd Klein

Editor: Pornsak Pichetshote

Poll 1

Tagged by @blueberrymffn to reveal my WIPs? Vanya why :( 

-These two I haven’t written at all yet but.... Sequels to superbat fics I’ve done, with both Authority|Warworld!Supes/Mora!Batman, and then my it’s a violent vertigo fic, a sequel to that because well. I love them. 

-And then, my dreamling wips.... ah. 

-Well there’s this one, which I’ve done a bit of. Oh babygirl curly-haired Dream.... *holds him gently*

-Then a fic set during 1789 and with judicious use of Dream’s ruby, which I’ve also done some of. 

- Oh yes, mushroom roulette!!! My first ever dreamling I have yet to finish. :D The first scene is Hob dying from eating a bad mushroom, fyi. 

-2 as of yet unwritten ones - one with a timeloop and closeted Dream. (my beloved) Then another one featuring Dream in an Outfit and - okay, that one’s mainly gonna be smut tbh. 

And then there’s my smapril drabbles, but usually I don’t plan those. Depends on the vibes on the day, and what I want to write. Usually I just let a little idea marinate in my brain for a few before writing it. 🤔   

Tagging, uhhhh..... @virgo-dream @supermanstoddlerleash @frownyalfred @aquilathefighter​ but no pressure ofc. <3

the dismay...in thinking that my life has scarcely enough years to read or reread a limited number of the volumes spread out before me.

I want to try to analyze the sensation I have whenever I visit a great book fair: a kind of vertigo as I get lost in this sea of printed paper, this boundless firmament of colored covers, this dust cloud of typographical characters; the opening up of spaces like an endless succession of mirrors that multiply the world; the expectation of a surprise encounter with a new title that piques my curiosity; the sudden desire to see reprinted an old book that can’t be found; the dismay and at the same time the relief in thinking that my life has scarcely enough years to read or reread a limited number of the volumes spread out before me.

—  Italo Calvino, from “A Book, Books” in “The Written World and the Unwritten World: Essays. Translated by Ann Goldstein. (Mariner Books Classics, January 17, 2023)

An introduction to my Fables posts

(This is a rewrite of my original intro post about Fables, because after some try-outs and testings I finally found how I wanted to make my posts about this comic book series).

“Fables” is a comic book series by Bill Willingham (and Mark Buckingham, who was the main artist). It started in 2002, and ended in 2015 at 150 issues - but not before giving birth to a dozen of various spin-off series, as well as a very popular video game (whose fame got its own independance apart from the comics): “A Wolf Among Us”. 

I will talk about it right off the bat: Fables is a divisive comic series. It is divisive because some people do not like Bill Willingham or his personal social and political views - and there is a debate as to how much of them he placed in his comic-book series. It is also divisive because some people feel somewhere in the middle of its run the series’ quality downgraded heavily, and what was a great comic devolved into someone contrived, cliche, nonsensical or edgy for the sake of it. It is divisive because it has some... very divisive characters. 

But there is one thing that cannot be denied: this series is a landmark in fiction, and cannot be ignored. It is one of the great titles and best-sellers of DC’s “Vertigo”, putting it on the same shelves as Sandman, Hellblazer, Swamp Thing or Doom Patrol. It even had two crossovers, one with “The Unwritten”, another wth Batman himself! It was one of the great works of urban fantasy and “fairytale fiction” of the 2000s, which had a great influence on how both genre are treated today. It won several Eisner awards. And its success is so great the main series was re-started not so long ago, and a sequel to the game “A Wolf Among Us” is in the works. 

I remember when I discovered “Fables”. Until now I only knew of “shared fairytale universes” and “fractured fairytales” throughout things such as “The 10th Kingdom” or “Once Upon a Time” - both actually related to Fables, as The 10th Kingdom was one of “Fables” primary inspirations (alongside “Into the Woods”), while “Once Upon a Time” was born of a failed attempt at adapting “Fables” into a television series. When I first started reading it, it was like a shock, a revelation. Everything I liked about the 10th Kingdom and OUaT, but in a darker, more serious and adult tone, with this typical “Vertigo” feel to it, the feel of a “literary comic”. I devoured the entire series in one go or so - it took several summer months, but I just read through it. At first I was there for the story but after a moment I wans’t even carried by it anymore - it was like a weird fever dream where all sorts of fictional worlds crashed together in a splash of beautiful art. 

And this is one of the things that marked me and struck me with Fables - one of the reasons I am constantly drawn back to this series and why I want to make posts about it. Fables is a living encyclopedia - or rather a gigantic illustrated bibliography. The shocking thing with Fables is the amount of fictional characters, worlds and references in it. Willingham did a massive, extensive research to create an entire multiverse of fairytales and nursery rhymes - it has more characters than any other fairytale world I know of, and it made me discover many MANY stories I didn’t know about. It isn’t even just fairy tales and nursery rhyme, but also more modern literary work, and various poems, and myths and legends. It is a MASSIVE monster. 

Anyway - all of that to say summer is coming, and for me summer is the Fables seasons. I always read the issues during summer and I associate its mad magic with the long hot days. And so I plan on making several posts about it. I will avoid talking about the divisive topics below - because I have not the expertise or knowledge to actually truly speak about them, but also because I want merely to focus on the cultural references and on the powerful things, the reasons “Fables” was adored, famous and beloved in the first place. 

Yuko Shimizu The Unwritten: Apocalypse #10 Cover Original Art (DC/Vertigo, 2014)

DC Universe Infinite adds 5,000 Vertigo, Black Label titles

Subscribers to the “Ultra” tier can now access ‘The Books of Magic,’ ‘The Unwritten,’ ‘Shade the Changing Man’ and much more.

The Unwritten #50 (August 2013)

Cover by Yuko Shimizu

Vertigo / DC Comics

The Unwritten Vol. 1 by Mike Carey and Peter Gross 

Check out the artist Yuko Shimizu’s blog post on this cover, which includes preliminary and alternate art!

I only half understand this but I'm having a great time

The Unwritten #18

Writing: Mike Carey

Art: Peter Gross

Colors: Chris Chuckry

Letters: Todd Klein

Cover art by Yuko Shimizu for 'The Unwritten' issue #34.5, published February 2012 by Vertigo Comics

Vertigo Comics Series I’ve read in the entirety and some thoughts Part 4

Punk Rock Jesus - I didn’t connect to this. It’s premise involves a boy who is supposedly cloned from Jesus’s DNA as found in the Shroud of Turin, being created for and reared on camera for reality tv. There is also a traumatized by the Troubles Irish bodyguard. If you read the title and premise and decided you want that treated as reverently as possible, you will probably like this more than I did. Though, given how much 2016 changed how I feel about things under the punk aesthetic, maybe I’d feel differently about it now too.

Red Thorn - ancient Scottish Gods re-emerging in modern times. Mostly liked it. Made me wish I knew more about Celtic mythology.

Survivors Club - while several series here have been optioned for television, for some reason this is the one I’ve set on filling the iZombie sized hole in my viewing schedule. It is about survivors of 1980s style horror franchises and a woman s adults facing an evil that sort of always has been there. I needs to read some of co-writer Lauren Beukes’s prose books.

Trillium - I should stop everything and reread this. It’s that good, and made me a Jeff Lemire fan for the foreseeable future. See also Underwater Welder and Roughneck. I should get around to Sweet Tooth.

The Twilight Children - I remember the circumstances I read it better than the book. Still, it was good, tense, filled with sunshine and sadness. One of if not the last thing Darwyn Cooke worked on. Worth checking out.

Unfollow - social media satire with a conspiratorial survivalist drive. Sometimes clever, mostly mean. I don’t recommend it.

The Unwritten - one of my favorite takes on pop culture in recent years. The choose your own adventure issue was seriously heartbreaking. I like it so much I even forgive it for having a cross over with Fables, the comic I hate with the passion that can only come from really wanting to like it. It makes good on the promise of Lucifer and I’m going to follow the creative team of Mike Carey and Peter Gross anywhere. The fact that one of the first replacements for Vertigo DC has announced is the Joe Hill curated pop up imprint with a Carey/Gross miniseries makes me feel like DC is personally soliciting my business.

Vamps - There is a new edition of this coming out soon. I was pretty underwhelmed by it, and don’t remember much of the plot. I’m glad there is a new edition.

The Wake - very scary disaster plot followed by a funky post apocalypse. I was much more into the first part, though the second had an interesting take on censoring expletives from the future. I should reread this to see if the two halves work better for me as a whole this time.

Y: The Last Man - I hated the premise. Then I became a fan of Brian K. Vaughan because of Saga and I decided to check out the comic that really put him on the map. It’s so much more thoughtful and silly than I could have imagined. The art is fantastic, co-creator Pia Guerra is currently one of the most important political cartoonist of our age (see her book, Me the People). In Y: The Last Man she created a beautiful collection of distinct characters and a crazy panoramic view of a post apocalyptic world. Must read, and I’m excited for the tv show that is finally happening.

Quand un livre est lu, une chose irrévocable se produit... un meurtre, suivi d'une imposture. L'histoire contenue dans l'esprit tue l'histoire écrite, et prend sa place.

«The Unwritten» volume 1, #8, Mike Carey & Peter Gross, Urban Comics - Vertigo, 2017

Original and final cover art by Yuko Shimizu from Unwritten #4, published by DC Comics Vertigo, October 2009. 

Ever read the original Books of Magic series? Is it any good? Also fuck it what are some must read Vertigo series?

I know I read that original mini and liked it well enough, but could barely tell you a thing about it. I'd say Astro City, Daytripper, Enigma, The Filth, Flex Mentallo, The Invisibles, Lucifer, Preacher, Sebastian O, Dark Night: A True Batman story, and The Unwritten number among my own Vertigo favorites from what I've read (though I haven't even come close to finishing Lucifer or Unwritten).