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 Pott...
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Nov 01, 2011
Ryan
rated it: 
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 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 More...
Apr 01, 2011
Mely
rated it: 
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
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Sep 20, 2010
Corvus
rated it:
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!
3 comments
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Jan 03, 2012
Lucy
rated it:
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 fan More...
Some stories stay with you because they feel eerily real, despite impossible circumstance. The Unwritten is one of those stories. The fan More...
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Jan 03, 2012
Nicole
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Oct 22, 2011
Vladimir
rated it:
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 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 More...
Jun 30, 2011
Andrea
rated it:
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 shado More...
Behind the scenes exists a shado More...
Jun 13, 2011
Jennifer
rated it: 
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
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Apr 11, 2011
R.
rated it: 
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 T More...
C'est le point de départ de la série The unwritten. L'auteur disparu n'est pas J. K. Rowling mais Wilson T More...
Mar 04, 2011
Thomas
rated it:
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 ou
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Feb 25, 2011
Frances
rated it:
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 i 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 i More...
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Feb 07, 2011
David
rated it:
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
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Jan 05, 2011
Chibineko
rated it:
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 More...
I'm not going to bother with a synopsis so I More...
Nov 09, 2010
Jesse
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Nov 07, 2010
Barky
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Sep 05, 2010
Fred
rated it:
“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 proponen 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 proponen More...
Aug 25, 2010
Julio
rated it:
Mike Gross and Peter Carey are the masterminds behind the Vertigo series, "Lucifer" which was spin-off of "The Sandman" by Neil Gaiman, or sorts...in that series Gross and Carey create a dense and wonderfully complex story that elaborated on the themes of sin and redemption, revenge and hope, creation and destruction...and with this opening volume of their new series, "The Unwritten" it looks like they are embarking on an even greater endeavor...on the surface it be
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Jun 04, 2010
Brendan
rated it:
A friend loaned this graphic novel to me and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The plot revolves around Tom Taylor, the real-life child of a world-famous fantasy novelist who went missing fifteen years ago. The fantasy novels (think Harry Potter) told of the magical adventures of Tommy Taylor, and our protagonist, Tom, makes his living at conventions talking about his dad's work. And then, suddenly, it becomes evident that things are not so cut-and-dried, or fictional, as they seemed to be. A few other
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Apr 01, 2010
Purplycookie
rated it:
Tom Taylor is the son of Wilson Taylor and the unwilling namesake of the protagonist in his dad's wildly popular 13-book fantasy series. The Tommy Taylor industry of movies, video games, and geek-ridden conventions is given an extra dash of drama by Wilson's having mysteriously disappeared years before, leaving a cynical Tom (who inherited none of his millions) to eke out a grubby living at paid appearances. But after an encounter with a mysterious woman inquiring into his past, the question of
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Mar 10, 2010
David
rated it:
Imagine that you are Harry Potter. Not the character in the wildly popular book series, but actually a young man named Harry Potter who is the basis for the wildly popular, thirteen book series that your father wrote with the main character based on you. What do you think your life would be like?
That's basically how The Unwritten opens. Tom Taylor's dad has written an enormously popular series of books, very similar to the Harry Potter books, and based the main character of the serie More...
That's basically how The Unwritten opens. Tom Taylor's dad has written an enormously popular series of books, very similar to the Harry Potter books, and based the main character of the serie More...
Feb 08, 2010
Melissa
rated it:
Tommy Taylor's dad, Wilson, wrote a series of successful fantasy books a lot like Harry Potter and used his son, Tommy, as the main character. Then, one day, Wilson Taylor disappeared. Since that time, Tommy has been making the convention rounds and living off the fame created for him by his dad. Fans fall at his feet considering him to be the boy wizard of the books.
The Unwritten is a joint effort of Mike Carey and Peter Gross. You'll have to forgive me here because I'm not quite s More...
The Unwritten is a joint effort of Mike Carey and Peter Gross. You'll have to forgive me here because I'm not quite s More...
Mar 03, 2011
Tom Taylor has lived in Tommy Taylor’s shadow all of his life. Everyone thinks it must be great to be the living inspiration for his father’s best selling character, but Tom hates it, he’d rather be himself. He’s sick to death of Tommy and his two faithful companions, Sue and Peter, and their arch nemesis Count Ambrosio. Maybe now that his dad is dead, and there will be no more Tommy Taylor stories, now Tom can live his own life.
Ha, foolish mortal!
As Volume 1 of The Unwri More...
Ha, foolish mortal!
As Volume 1 of The Unwri More...
Jul 29, 2011
Dan
rated it:
I wasn't sure what to expect from this series. For the longest time I saw Mike Carey as a Neil Gaiman/Garth Ennis/Alan Moore knock-off. Carey wrote the Lucifer series, which was a spin-off of Gaiman's Sandman; he wrote a long run of John Constantine: Hellblazer which was a defining title for Ennis; and it always seemed to me that Carey was just coming around and basking in the wake of these guys... that he was the guy they called when they needed someone who could ape these guys. I was so wro
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May 09, 2010
Megan
rated it:
I actually read this in one sitting, so that is why it had no "currently reading" status.
It is a fascinating premise: Tommy Taylor is a fictional boy wizard with two friends (Sue and Peter) and a flying cat, and he must fight the evil Count Ambrosio throughout many books of his series. (Sound familiar?)
These books were written by Wilson Taylor, who mysteriously dissapeared. His son Tom Taylor, reluctantly shackled with his fictional counterpart, carries on his More...
It is a fascinating premise: Tommy Taylor is a fictional boy wizard with two friends (Sue and Peter) and a flying cat, and he must fight the evil Count Ambrosio throughout many books of his series. (Sound familiar?)
These books were written by Wilson Taylor, who mysteriously dissapeared. His son Tom Taylor, reluctantly shackled with his fictional counterpart, carries on his More...
Nov 21, 2011
Jean-Pierre
rated it:
This is a book that I was intrigued with as soon as I read promos for it, but for some reason didn't get around to reading when it came out. Fast forward about thirty-something issues, and there is a cover done in homage to Golden Age super hero comics. Though I didn't know much of the back story, that one issue blew me away with its interesting philosophizing about storytelling. I had to go back to the beginning!
The story of Tommy Taylor and his sudden identity crisis is one of the most More...
The story of Tommy Taylor and his sudden identity crisis is one of the most More...
May 18, 2011
Kerrilyn
rated it:
So clever. I keep thinking saying that about all the graphic novels I have read to date (which is not many!), but this one is clever in literary ways, which sincerely appeals to me. I think they did a great job of introducing so much in this book while not completely neglecting the action, and there are many interesting ideas that came up that can take the storyline in so many directions. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat wondering about the map and also the secret literary organization that ha
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Aug 29, 2011
Nicolas
rated it:
Suite à une envie de comics sans super-héros, j'ai jeté mon dévolu sur The Unwritten, avec en souvenir une bonne critique de ComicsMarvel le concernant. Qu'en est-il au final ?
Sous un graphisme sans plus, qui accompagne l'histoire sans la transcender (à la manière de Y Le Dernier Homme , on tombe sur une histoire à plusieurs niveaux.
Le premier raconte une histoire où le fantastique vient pourrir la vie d'un gars normal, un peu à la Neverwhere. Agréable, cette partie nous laisse en p More...
Sous un graphisme sans plus, qui accompagne l'histoire sans la transcender (à la manière de Y Le Dernier Homme , on tombe sur une histoire à plusieurs niveaux.
Le premier raconte une histoire où le fantastique vient pourrir la vie d'un gars normal, un peu à la Neverwhere. Agréable, cette partie nous laisse en p More...
Apr 26, 2011
Halik
rated it:
You know Harry Potter has arrived when a graphic novel meant for 'mature audiences' draws heavy parallels with it. The premise here is somewhat different. We have Wilson Taylor, uber famous author of the Tommy Taylor boy wizard series of books, suddenly disappearing. His son, Tom Taylor, who the main character of Wilson's books have been based on, in a surprising twist turns out to be the very (fictional) character Tommy Taylor himself! brought to life! woaaaah...
And that's not all. More...
And that's not all. More...
Jan 04, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
If I had picked up the first couple of issues of The Unwritten, rather than the first collected volume, I don't think I would have kept reading. Mike Carey has a tough time getting the story established, and I found both the story and the characters initially completely uninteresting. However, by somewhere in the middle of the 3rd issue, the story picks up and I found myself completely hooked.
The Unwritten talks about the blurring of lines between reality and fiction and follows the a More...
The Unwritten talks about the blurring of lines between reality and fiction and follows the a More...
Sep 22, 2010
Bludhaven
rated it:
This is an interesting Vertigo series that I should have picked up sooner. I love the intertextuality, the way text and art play with the different media of novel/film/Internet and the slow built up.
The premise is also interesting: Wilson Taylor is the famous author of a book series featuring the boy wizard Tommy Taylor that is an obvious allusion to Harry Potter. His novels also become a cultural phenomenon - much like the Potter Books. The the author disappears - leaving behind his More...
The premise is also interesting: Wilson Taylor is the famous author of a book series featuring the boy wizard Tommy Taylor that is an obvious allusion to Harry Potter. His novels also become a cultural phenomenon - much like the Potter Books. The the author disappears - leaving behind his More...
