The Longbox

After a week of being mostly snowed-in in the aftermath of the Snowpocalypse of 2010, I’ve finally managed to dig myself out and get back to drinking coffee and writing subpar blogs about comic books whilst being hopped up on cafiene.  Fortunately for you all, there were no new “Siege” books to come out this week so there will be no “Under Siege” this week.  Unfortunately for you, this week's Longbox is in the format of a love letter for Valentine's Day...

The Unwritten
issue: 10
writer: Mike Carey
artist: Peter Gross
publisher: Vertigo

Dear Mr. Carey,

Will you be my Valentine?  To me you are one of the hardest working, most consistently good cross-genre writers in comic books today.  I’ve been reading something by you ever since Sandman Presents: Lucifer: The Morningstar Option and probably even before that.  You also somehow find time to write your excellent noir/detective/horror books that follow the adventures of exorcist Felix Castor.

I’ve been following your run on X-Men: Legacy over at Marvel but today it’s your original series, The Unwritten, that I want to talk about.  You’ve masterfully taken the world surrounding children’s fantasy literature and crafted a certainly adult and surreal story out of it.

For nine issues, Tommy Taylor has been evading forces connected to his late father’s popular children’s books, forces he doesn’t quite understand.  Having escaped death by means of a magic doorknob, he finds himself and his companions lost in a ghost of Nazi, Germany where the mystery of just what Tommy might be deepens.  Meanwhile in the real world, the forces working against Tommy begin to put together a new strategy to find and make an end of him.

Your words together with the amazing art of Peter Gross bring to life Tommy’s unwilling journey of discovery about his origins and his destiny.  You two are a powerhouse team on par with the likes of Ennis and Dillon or Morrison and Quitely.  Give my best to Mr. Gross, it was very hard to choose between the two of you for a comic book Valentine.  This issue builds to the kind of cliffhanger I’ve come to expect and appreciate from you.

In any case, I hope this finds you well and I look forward to next month’s installment as well as well your X-Men stuff.  Also, I really should check out your The Torch mini-series as well.  You do so much, it gets hard to follow.

Your Valentine,

~M