Saturday, September 22, 2012

The Unwritten #41

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

The last arc of The Unwritten was set some time after Tom Taylor's big showdown with The Cabal, and Tom only appeared at the very end of it.  Reading that last issue, there was a sense that many things had happened to Tom in-between appearances, and that is what this issue sets out to explain.

It opens with Richie Savoy, the vampire journalist, bringing an existentially wounded Tom to Villa Diodati, the Taylor estate in Switzerland where the series more or less began.  Tom spends most of the issue in a near-coma state, leaving Richie to look after him and to converse with the various ghosts who suddenly appear all around him.  These are the ghosts of the series - the writers who were slaughtered in the Villa, Tom's ex-girlfriends who were killed by The Cabal, and Miriam Walzer, Wilson Taylor's lover.  Mme. Rausch also makes an appearance, which helps to explain why Richie later went to visit her.

Richie is the focus of this issue, and through his experiences in it, he comes to a few realizations about just how Tom's powers work, and what happens to the people around him.  As always with The Unwritten, it is very well-written and marvellously illustrated.

No comments: