The Unwritten

is awesome, and you should read it.

Imagine a world where Harry Potter was thought to have been based on a real person, named Harry Potter.  And then, it was somehow revealed that the Harry Potter the books are based on, is literally the Harry Potter from the books.  As in, Harry Potter transcended the reality of his books, into ours.  The word made flesh, as it were.  And there you have the premise of The Unwritten, except it’s Tommy Taylor instead of Harry.  Or do you?

Now, I’ve only gotten through the first few issues at this point, but I’m so excited about it I felt a burning, itching, swollen urge to blog about it.  (Did I just use STD language to describe my desire to blog?  What has this semester done to me?)

From what I can tell, The Unwritten is going to be very “meta.”  I mean it is a story about Story, a myth about myth.  And I love that.  That was essentially the premise of Final Crisis, which is one of the best things I’ve read in recent memory.  Story is all around us.  It’s how we relate our experiences to each other – via conversation, via Twitter, via Facebook, and everything else.  It encompasses everything.  And to quote Jamba Juice via Natalie Portman, “It’s everything we believe in.”  Or to quote Grant Morrison, “The stories we tell ourselves are real because they’re important to us. The type of stories we tell might determine our survival.”  I freaking love that.  Stories are real because we love them.

The Unwritten, obviously, takes that literally.  Tommy Taylor becomes REAL.  And he becomes a Messiah – at least to some.  I have no idea where the plot is going to go, but I’m excited.  I hope it takes the “all myths are true” approach.  I want to see Tommy encounter Madame Thenardier in France or Hamlet in Denmark.

So anyway, I guess that’s all I have to say at this point, but I’ll keep you posted on if it continues to awe me.

UPDATE: It does.  The mythology is continuing to build.  We’re beginning to see stories come to life, mostly where they were written.  We’re beginning to see how stories can change the world – for good or for bad, in the life of a nation or the life of a child.  We’re beginning to see what can happen if a story becomes distorted into something it shouldn’t, and the consequences that can have.  And we’re beginning to see the conspiracy coalesce, and Tom come to terms with his own powers.  It’s been great so far.