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163rd out of 1,500 books
—
3,022 voters
The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity (The Unwritten #1)
by
Mike Carey (Goodreads Author),
Peter Gross , Yuko Shimizu , Bill Willingham (Goodreads Author)
Tom Taylor's life was screwed from go. His father created the Tommy Taylor fantasy series, boy-wizard novels with popularity on par with Harry Potter. The problem is Dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom's real life that fans are constantly comparing him to his counterpart, turning him into the lamest variety of Z-level celebrity. In the final novel, it's even i...more
Paperback, 144 pages
Published
January 12th 2010
by Vertigo
(first published July 2009)
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Apr 12, 2013
The Holy Terror
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
graphic-novels,
borrowed,
male-author,
male-protagonist,
urban-fantasy,
2013,
will-continue,
vampires,
magic
An interesting concept, for sure. The protagonist, Tom Taylor, is the inspiration for his father's Harry Potter-like books. Every day he has to deal with the fact that people confuse him with his fictional counterpart and he just wants to live his own life (though admittedly he does capitulate on his father's books' popularity and the fame that comes with them at times.) Then fantasy starts to bleed into reality and Tom starts to question his childhood, his father, and all of the things he was t...more
I like the premise, but the development is slow -- 7 issues in, the reader has long been aware that Tom Taylor, the son of the writer of a bestselling series of fantasy novels, is in fact the novels' protagonist Tommy Taylor, come out of imagination to reality, and that the mysterious Lizzie Hexam is his best galpal Sue Silver, but Tom is still in denial and the plot movement is mostly spent on horror film slasher tropes, about which I could hardly care less. I do enjoy the bits of the fantasy n...more
6 likes · like · see review
I'm re-posting this because none of my friends, besides Tracy, have marked it as to read or sought it out. Don't miss out!
What if Harry Potter were based on the author's son? And then the author disappeared--it has been ten years. And the son hits the conventions for money and was tired of being called by the fictional character's name and then it turns out that his father may have stolen him from his real parents and even though events around the world are grim all anyone cares about is this fr...more
What if Harry Potter were based on the author's son? And then the author disappeared--it has been ten years. And the son hits the conventions for money and was tired of being called by the fictional character's name and then it turns out that his father may have stolen him from his real parents and even though events around the world are grim all anyone cares about is this fr...more
4 likes · like · see review
It's been a good long while since I tried a new title from Vertigo. Fables was a massive disappointment. A dazzlingly simple, high-concept idea anyone could have had deserves a complex, layered treatment that everyone can only wish they'd thought of. Instead we get a less than fabulous soap opera and hackneyed The Two Towers-style building-to-the-big-fight plotlines. Y The Last Man was another potentially excellent title marred by an excessive reliance on violence as a plot engine, reducing its...more
Like all good stories, the Unwritten is about far more than it appears to be on the surface. And since the topic under consideration within its pages is the role stories play in our lives and our culture, we find ourselves one thousand steps down the basement staircase before we know what's happened.
Can't wait to continue the series!
Can't wait to continue the series!
2 likes · like · see review
I'm really enjoying this series.
Imagine if JK Rowling had a son in real life, and named him Harry Potter. Harry eventually grows up and millions of people recognize him as not only the son of the author who wrote the Harry Potter books, but also as a real-life manifestation of the character within the books. But he isn't, right? He's just a normal guy... right?
The Unwritten tells the story of Tom Taylor, who's father is/was the author of the Tommy Taylor novels - about a character who is pretty...more
Imagine if JK Rowling had a son in real life, and named him Harry Potter. Harry eventually grows up and millions of people recognize him as not only the son of the author who wrote the Harry Potter books, but also as a real-life manifestation of the character within the books. But he isn't, right? He's just a normal guy... right?
The Unwritten tells the story of Tom Taylor, who's father is/was the author of the Tommy Taylor novels - about a character who is pretty...more
This is the first volume of The Unwritten, an ongoing graphic novel series by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. It's about a boy whose father wrote very successful stories about him, and as an adult, Tom has trouble figuring out who he is. It doesn't help when a young woman stands up at a panel and asks him who he really is, presenting evidence that he may not be his father's son at all. He may, in fact, be the Tommy Taylor of his father's stories, rather than just the inspiration.
Mike Carey draws on...more
Mike Carey draws on...more
This volume is what comics are for - what they do best, why they still exist as an artistic medium, and why they continue to gain readership even in circles that would laugh them off as nothing more than a juvenile diversion.
The Unwritten has everything - identity issues, a plot that is circular, even bordering on metafictional, and art that carries and enhances the twisting narrative perfectly. Not to mention it name-drops Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and even the Song of Roland in the first tw...more
The Unwritten has everything - identity issues, a plot that is circular, even bordering on metafictional, and art that carries and enhances the twisting narrative perfectly. Not to mention it name-drops Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and even the Song of Roland in the first tw...more
To be brief, I love this. Though I will admit that I bought this book because of the cover, not of this volume, but of issue #43, which caught my attention while killing some time in a North Carolina comic book store. I went in search of the trade paperback and without much thought I bought it on an impulse. In the kerfuffle of Thanksgiving plans, I was ready to welcome a quick distraction. And it proved to be worthwhile.
The protagonist is one Tom Taylor, whose life is enmeshed in a media/fan f...more
The protagonist is one Tom Taylor, whose life is enmeshed in a media/fan f...more
Mike Carey’s and Peter Gross’s The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity is my first read in the “books with illustrations” category. I started reading an illustrated book of an evil Peter Pan (The Child Thief), but found myself hating it, and so I replaced Peter Pan with Tommy Taylor on P’s recommendation.
I have to admit to be a little underwhelmed. The cover of the comic proclaims “Wired” thinks its “one of the most interesting comics of the year,” and I’ll admit that it is a clever w...more
I have to admit to be a little underwhelmed. The cover of the comic proclaims “Wired” thinks its “one of the most interesting comics of the year,” and I’ll admit that it is a clever w...more
Another one that has been sitting on my shelf for quite a time, that I read and ordered the second in the same night. I really should pay more attention to what I put on my shelf before picking up something else, but I guess everything in good time.
Imagine Harry Potter was a son to J.K Rowling as Christopher Robin was A.A. Milne's, and there you have your set up. Tom "Tommy" Taylor is the son and inspiration for his father Wilson Taylor's series of very popular children's fantasy novels. Tom has...more
Imagine Harry Potter was a son to J.K Rowling as Christopher Robin was A.A. Milne's, and there you have your set up. Tom "Tommy" Taylor is the son and inspiration for his father Wilson Taylor's series of very popular children's fantasy novels. Tom has...more
I'm not sure how to properly track the books I read on Comixology, since I read them one issue at a time, so I'm going to settle for putting down the first graphic novel and see if that satisfies my own pointless sense of Goodreads organization.
The three star rating comes mostly out of fear. At this point I've read the first 20 issues of The Unwritten, and while I enjoy the creativity and Carey's style, I still don't feel like I'm any closer to concrete answers about how Tommy Taylor's world wor...more
The three star rating comes mostly out of fear. At this point I've read the first 20 issues of The Unwritten, and while I enjoy the creativity and Carey's style, I still don't feel like I'm any closer to concrete answers about how Tommy Taylor's world wor...more
The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity introduces the reader to Tommy Taylor, the adult son of and inspiration for a popular children's author. Much like Christopher Robin, Tom Taylor has spent his entire life both embracing and trying to make a name for himself rather than play the role of the character for whom he served as the basis. Soon, though, Tom Taylor finds himself in the middle of a whirlwind of people who believe that he is actually the character, magical abilitie...more
Full review posted on Across the Litoverse
Tom Taylor's no stranger to the limelight—of course, the fame was never his to start with. Tom's father, Wilson Taylor, won critical acclaim and a massive, dedicated fanbase for his thirteen-book series about a boy wizard named Tommy Taylor—since Wilson's disappearance, Tom has toured the convention circuit in his father's place, and he's learned to pander to the legions of adoring readers who see him as the flesh-and-blood incarnation of Tommy. Tom goes...more
Tom Taylor's no stranger to the limelight—of course, the fame was never his to start with. Tom's father, Wilson Taylor, won critical acclaim and a massive, dedicated fanbase for his thirteen-book series about a boy wizard named Tommy Taylor—since Wilson's disappearance, Tom has toured the convention circuit in his father's place, and he's learned to pander to the legions of adoring readers who see him as the flesh-and-blood incarnation of Tommy. Tom goes...more
Ugh, I've tried three times to start this review properly and fairly by giving a summary of the plot and a fair critique of it and I can't do it. This book just sucks. Tom Taylor is boring, he's Daniel Radcliffe in another life living off of Harry Potter. There's a mysterious organisation which seems to say the places and stories in classic lit are real and meaningful.
Tom's pop, an unlikeable prig, made him memorise fictional locations in novels because one day he'll need them. I have a problem...more
Tom's pop, an unlikeable prig, made him memorise fictional locations in novels because one day he'll need them. I have a problem...more
I love the idea this book presents - that stories have much more power than the average person realizes, and regularly impact our daily lives so much that a shadowy organization must keep tabs on them and their creators. The mystery behind Tommy Taylor’s true identity immediately drew me in - is he just the son of a famous writer, or is he really a fictional character from the writer’s Harry Potter-esque fantasy series brought to life? The multiple literary references sprinkled throughout the bo...more
This cover called to me in the bookstore and I immediately grabbed it, a frappe and muffin, and sat down to read until I was done. Had vol 2 been there I would have devoured it as well, but alas no dice there.
Tommy Taylor is the son of a novelist who straight up copied Harry Potter, only Tommy Taylor might actually be the living creation of the character his 'father' created in his novels. In this first volume we see Tommy get rattled at a convention, find out that is a menacing man coming for...more
Tommy Taylor is the son of a novelist who straight up copied Harry Potter, only Tommy Taylor might actually be the living creation of the character his 'father' created in his novels. In this first volume we see Tommy get rattled at a convention, find out that is a menacing man coming for...more
I picked this book up on a whim at Powell’s (I believe it had a “recommended” sign all it’s very own), based mainly on the lovely cover. It contains a twisted spoof of Harry Potter, and being a cynical yet devoted fan, I couldn’t resist. I’m also a sucker for anything that pushes the boundaries of reality and blurs the line between fact and fiction.
Some stories stay with you because they feel eerily real, despite impossible circumstance. The Unwritten is one of those stories. The fans' reactions...more
Some stories stay with you because they feel eerily real, despite impossible circumstance. The Unwritten is one of those stories. The fans' reactions...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
La historia mas fantástica es real, el cuento mas absurdo es real, son reales, porque existen en nuestra mente, porque nos influencian a ver el mundo de otra manera, a entender nuestra “realidad” de otra manera.
¿Donde comienza la fantasía y donde termina la realidad? ¿Quién establece ese límite? ¿Existe ese límite? Esa es la historia detrás del cómic “The Unwritten” de Mike Carey y Peter Gross.
Es en cierta forma un análisis del fenómeno de Harry Potter, de la magia de que la lectura regresó a lo...more
¿Donde comienza la fantasía y donde termina la realidad? ¿Quién establece ese límite? ¿Existe ese límite? Esa es la historia detrás del cómic “The Unwritten” de Mike Carey y Peter Gross.
Es en cierta forma un análisis del fenómeno de Harry Potter, de la magia de que la lectura regresó a lo...more
There's this plot device that pops up in fantasy here and there that specifically focuses on stories about story-telling. Unwritten's plot revolves around a grown man, Tom Taylor, who is famous for being the inspiration behind the beloved Potter-esque Tommy Taylor books, written by his father. It becomes clear pretty early on that a lot more is going on, and Tom likely is Tommy, or at least is capable of having some fantastical adventures of his own.
Behind the scenes exists a shadowy organizatio...more
Behind the scenes exists a shadowy organizatio...more
Enjoyable stuff, including the foreword ("The Land of LAF") by Bill Willingham of Fables fame. Not sure where this series is going, but it's shaping up to be a great literary mystery, with some serious philosophical stuff about the nature of books and authorship woven in. The writing is good, the art good as well, if not always in a style I like--more personal preference than objective criticism, though. Some nice stuff is done with layouts, especially in the Kipling sequence in the last install...more
Imaginez J. K. Rowling, la créatrice de Harry Potter, disparue, devenue subitement introuvable. Imaginez que cette disparition ait eu lieu avant de mettre un point final aux aventures du jeune sorcier. Vous ne pouvez pas l'imaginer, ce serait une véritable torture pour les fans et une disparition qui susciterait encore plus de questionnements que la mort d'Elvis ou de Michael Jackson.
C'est le point de départ de la série The unwritten. L'auteur disparu n'est pas J. K. Rowling mais Wilson Taylor....more
C'est le point de départ de la série The unwritten. L'auteur disparu n'est pas J. K. Rowling mais Wilson Taylor....more
We’ve started getting some graphic novels for our collection at the library, and this is a bit of a mixed blessing for me. For one, we get a lot of stuff that probably doesn’t belong in a technical college library – the Alex Rider series, the Artemis Fowl series, and some Classics Illustrated volumes — but at the same time, some of the stuff catches my eye. I’ve been out of comics for a long time, so I don’t keep up with this sort of stuff as much as I used to, and about the only way I find out...more
It's a graphic novel about stories and how they impact the real world. I mean, one of the lines is "Stories are the only thing worth dying for", and at that point it becomes rather hard for me to be objective, even without the Kipling/Wilde/Twain cameo.
It's interesting, it's smart, it's original as hell. It's clearly setting up for more developments, both in terms of plot and in terms of the world.
The protagonist's name is Tommy Taylor, both in the story and in the story-the-story's-about. He's...more
It's interesting, it's smart, it's original as hell. It's clearly setting up for more developments, both in terms of plot and in terms of the world.
The protagonist's name is Tommy Taylor, both in the story and in the story-the-story's-about. He's...more
1 like · like · see review
Tom Taylor is the son of an incredibly popular writer, and the Christopher-Robin-style muse of a book series remarkably similar to Harry Potter. Recently, Tom's father disappeared, and Tom has been trying to make a career in the literary world off of it. Then his life starts getting strange. It begins to parallel the character based on him, and people begin to question whether he is a real person at all. Soon he is viewed alternately as an impostor, or the literary messiah, written into being by...more
I'll admit that I was drawn into this series because of the Harry Potter similarities between the "Boy Who Lived" & the Tommy Taylor series that's so popular in the comic universe. After all, those similarities offer a solid base for some of the ideas in the series. (I know that the writer has said that Christopher Robin's more of an important figure of comparison, but the HP similarities are what people are going to notice first.)
I'm not going to bother with a synopsis so I can dive into th...more
I'm not going to bother with a synopsis so I can dive into th...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
“Stories are the only things worth dying for.”
Tommy Taylor is not just a fictional kid of magic. He's modeled after the author's real son Tommy Taylor. Up until recently Tommy has had to live in the shadow of his fictional clone. Things begin getting strange when a woman approaches Tommy at a convention and suggests that his entire childhood and past is made up.
I first heard of this series from an article found on Relevant (here) and, as an English teacher and proponent of great storytelling, my...more
Tommy Taylor is not just a fictional kid of magic. He's modeled after the author's real son Tommy Taylor. Up until recently Tommy has had to live in the shadow of his fictional clone. Things begin getting strange when a woman approaches Tommy at a convention and suggests that his entire childhood and past is made up.
I first heard of this series from an article found on Relevant (here) and, as an English teacher and proponent of great storytelling, my...more
1 like · like · see review
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.
Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storyli...more
More about Mike Carey...
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.
Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storyli...more
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“We make our own monsters, then fear them for what they show us about ourselves.”
—
24 people liked it
“You read any Greek myths, puppy? The one about the gorgon Medusa, particularly? I used to wonder what could be so terrible that you couldn't survive even looking at it.
Until I got a little older and I figured out the obvious answer.
Everything.”
—
4 people liked it
More quotes…
Until I got a little older and I figured out the obvious answer.
Everything.”
It is pretty much the best place ever : )
Apr 11, 2013 12:54pm
Apr 11, 2013 06:40pm