pub: Titan/Vertigo. 304 page graphic novel. Price: £ 7.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84856-577-7.

check out website: www.titanbooks.com

It's not much fun for Tommy Taylor. He's rich, sure, and his life is measured out by signing his late father's novel which features Tommy's fantastic adventures as a boy wizard. But Tom can't be happy. His father vanished some time ago leaving the series of novels unfinished. The fans think he is a pretty poor substitute. It gets worse when he is accused of being an impostor and someone who thinks they are a fictional character from the book tries to kill him.



'The Unwritten' is a great graphic novel and really races along with the plot. It's interesting because of our own obsession with fictional characters and the confusion people sometimes have between the actor/character. Only recently a soap actor got punched in a pub for something his character did on screen. The obvious inspiration for the book is the most famous young wizard Harry Potter and the inserts of the book the character of Tommy appears in are a broad adult re-working, ie with added gore, of this type of book.

I'm not a huge fan of graphic novels where the experience is over far too soon and you are left with the ink still drying waiting for the next instalment. That said I thought this one was brilliant and I'm thirsting for the next instalment. The pictures are excellent and the story has some real guts, some of them displayed on the page. The added extras including an additional story which fill in some of the gaps from the main narrative. The story continues in 'Volume 2: The Inside Man'.

Sue Davies