Books to Die For

Mike Carey & Peter Gross' THE UNWRITTEN

THE UNWRITTEN isn't a book in the traditional sense. It's a graphic novel. But it makes this list because it's a story written for book lovers, and one that rewards the most well-read of them greatly all along its narrative journey, with plentiful nods to other tales from throughout history. 

The series, which launched back in October 2009, ended its successful, critically acclaimed run this past January with THE UNWRITTEN: APOCALYPSE #12. Meaning, if you haven't yet had the joy of discovering this series, you can now dive in and devour it from front to back.

Back in our October 2010 Halloween issue (RM#105), we caught up with the co-creator of THE UNWRITTEN, for a brief chat about comics and his completely addictive story about the power of stories.

Genre comics fans best know Mike Carey for his lengthy run on Hellblazer (#175 to #215), his work on Lucifer and, most recently, the dark, cryptic powerhouse that is THE UNWRITTEN (voted Best Comic Book by Rue Morgue in 2009). But his love affair of the medium goes way back to his childhood "addiction" to the four-colour page. As he grew up, Carey got involved in comics fandom and journalism, then eventually indie titles, comics about musical acts such as Ozzy Osbourne and Pantera, and a regular gig with the British sci-fi comic 2000 AD, before the doors at Vertigo opened and he headed up several genre titles, including a somewhat controversial stint on the long-running occult series John Constantine: Hellblazer.

"My approach has always been to respect continuity and mine it vigorously for story ideas," explains Carey. "It was a mixed blessing in Hellblazer, where more radical re-inventions have often been the norm. I was once accused of writing Hellblazer fan fiction. I don't really mind that accusation. If I'm honest, what it means is that I bring back characters and return to situations that have been set up by other writers."

Since then, Carey has continued to rock the boat with his stellar collaboration with Peter Gross on THE UNWRITTEN, a whip-smart, rabbbit-hole like narrative about the son of a famous children's author, who discovers there's much more to his own story than simply being the hero's namesake in his father's books. It's a tale that leaves readers just as unsure as the protagonist as to what is real, and much of it transpires outside of comics' conventional panels, in pages devoted to newspaper clippings and screens from online chat rooms.

"THE UNWRITTEN is a story about stories, and it's very much concerned with the way in which stories spread," explains Carey. "We're talking rumour, urban legend, propaganda, all those other forms in which story enters our lives. We wanted to dramatise the spread of ideas, and in a digital age that meant trying to find ways of bringing the insane richness and disorder of the Internet into the comic."

Considering Carey's extensive work in genre comics - and the fact that he's written a series of novels about a spirit exorcist - it's surprising to learn that he developed his love of horror as an adult. But he's no less opinionated about what makes for a good dark story: "The best horror arises out of immediately accessible and believable human emotions and situations. It's raw and painful and harrowing ... I guess it's also fair to say that I'm a psychological mess."

THE UNWRITTEN can be purchased anywhere fine comics and graphic novels are sold.