Let me let you in on a dirty little secret of mine: when I was a child, I had no imaginary friends.
“Yes, and?” I hear you saying. Also hearing things like “Big deal.” Ok, stay with me.
As a child myself, I would see the idea of imaginary friends all the time in movies or tv shows for kids. Some darling little urchin would get so involved in a world of their own building that they’d be swept away into The Land Of Make Believe, some magical place set up by their own brain that felt so real as to be so. Calvin had his Hobbes. Big Bird had Mr. Snuffleupagus (until the Stranger Danger hysteria, anyway). The kids in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe cartoon had their group hallucination…whatever that was. But me? No matter how hard I tried to make it so, every time I opened up my closet hoping to find a mystic realm, all I found was a pile of laundry. Oh, and some dry dog food a mouse had been hoarding from my dog’s food dish. The hard slap of reality, brought to me by Purina.
So, I turned to books for my escape.
Then, with a little assist from somebody else’s printed words, I could lose myself for days or weeks at a time in an alternate world, surrounded by characters as vivid and real as any I’d have to actually interact with in the real world. Even now, a good book, or even better, series of books, is still my escapist avenue of choice. The characters in the books didn’t contribute to my bad day and their world is not the one with the problems I’m trying to avoid. What’s not to like?
But, in the end, I know when to put the book down. Whatever I’m avoiding, needs to be dealt with. Bills paid; bosses appeased. Someone has to be there to put Rob to bed when he falls asleep on the couch watching old pro wrestling documentaries, preferably before he spills beer on the couch.
So, what does this have to do with The Unwritten #37, written by Mike Carey with layouts by Peter Gross?
A look into the crazy world of Twihards…and comic book spoilers…after the jump!
As you may be aware, Rob and I go to San Diego Comic-Con yearly. We have a great deal of fun, even though the con has reached just about the bursting point because of its popularity, which has spiked because of the inclusion and promotion of movies and television shows in the programming of the convention over the past few years.
Hold on to this thought while I talk about The Unwritten so you can see where I’m going with this.
The Unwritten is a long running story about Tom Taylor, the son of Wilson Taylor. Wilson wrote a fabulously popular series of books about a boy wizard that are pretty much the Harry Potter books, if J.K. Rowling had based the main character on her own kid instead of inserting her own damn self in the supporting role of Hermione. Millions of readers loved the Tommy Taylor books. Then Wilson Taylor mysteriously disappeared. In the previous 36 issues of this series, Tom Taylor discovers that “pen is mightier than the sword” as he taps into the power of stories to battle the Cabal, a shadowy society that means to control the world through the stories to which mankind has access. Ultimately, if a person can tell a powerful enough story, then that story will become reality. This is knowledge that has made Tom incredibly powerful, at the expense of ruining his life.
Issue #37 finds Tom about to begin the Australian leg of a world tour in support of a book written by his good friend, and closet vampire, Richard Savoy. The book clears Tom of the litany of wrongs he had been charged with from the events of the past several issues, including the death of his own father. Tom has been selling out arenas as the masses flock to hear his side of the story. His most recent live audience figures have surpassed five million attendees. Not too shabby.
Meanwhile, a religious cult based on the Tommy Taylor books has sprung up. Headed by the former president of the Auckland Tommy Taylor Fan Club, the Church of Tommy Taylor sees the books as the new bible. The Church believes that Tom is some kind of messiah. They are also under suspicion in the mysterious disappearances of seven people.
Why would anyone drop out of their lives to join a church, a cult really, based on the ideas of a young adult novel? It seems outlandish on its face, but consider the real world parallels that Carey is drawing upon when telling this story. These are some photos of people waiting to get into the Hall H screening of Twilight: Breaking Dawn at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con:
The picture on the left are folks queuing up on Wednesday (some showed up as early as Tuesday) for a Twilight panel to be held at 11:15am on Thursday. The picture on the right zooms out to show the full horror effect of the people waiting to get to that panel. Except, not really. That line, as it tapers down to the left of the picture, turns into a line that goes around the back of the building and down the sidewalk about another football field’s worth in length. I’m not kidding.
Say what you will about the quality of the the Twilight series of books and movies, that is a frighteningly large group of individuals united by single mindedness of purpose in their fandom of a story and its characters. Some of them even belong to their own church/religion, Cullenism. Ok, they don’t actually like to be called a religion, but:
Cullenism is a mass group of people,referred to as Cullenites, who have come together to appreciate the values and ideals represented by the Twilight series. We are not a religion(or a cult,lol) But we will be comparing and discussing Twilight with religion.We are nondenominational and don’t intend to make anyone give up their own personal beliefs to be a part of the Cullenism group. We are simply fans who cherish the values of Twilight (not just how cute Edward is)!
They do this through a weekly get together called TwiChurch. So, it’s not a church except that it’s called one.
The Harry Potter fans also have their own religion over on Facebook. Hey, it’s social media bringing like minded folks together! To be…social. Social is good, right? To quote a good man, “Sad and demented, but social.”
The power in Carey’s story is that you can see the bare bones of it play out in real life and question if, just for a tiny moment, if the reverse didn’t happen instead and wonder what story imprinted itself on reality and affect the participants instead. That is the tiny moment where the reader risks getting lost in the story and why I recommend this book.