I Hate Fairyland #44 // Review
There’s someone looking for Gert. She’s a total badass witha katana. She’s slashing and killing her way across fariyland in search...of Gert. And seeing as how it is the case that so many people have such a bad feeling about her, it's not going to be that difficult for the warrior in question to track her down. From there, things are going to be a little bit more complicated though. She will find that even totally bad ass warrior skills aren;t necessarily going to be enough in I Hate Fairyland #44. Writer Skottie Young continues a deeply enjoyable, lightly sprawling fantasy comedy series in another issue brought to page and panel by artist Derek Laufman and colorist Jean-Francois Beaulieu.
The warrior in question is an anthropomorphized fungus...but she looks totally cool and everything, so she’s way more appealing than she might sound. She’s the last Shroomurai of the Shiitake clan. Her entire clan was killed-off by Gert and now she has come for revenge. She doesn’t eactlly find a receptive audience in Gert, though. And that's only the first of her frustrations in a conflict that doesn't exactly go as planned for anyone involved.
Once again, Young finds something novel in old cliché. The personalities of the characters and questions aren't necessarily very original. It's the way the dynamic plays out that makes this particular issue of this particular series. Is that much more fun than it has any right to be. Young has done a really good job over the course of the long run of this series in taking traditional action fantasy tropes, taking them apart and putting them back together in ways that make for completely new stories that are totally enjoyable and completely novel. This is a perfect example of just such a story.
Laufman once again does a very impressive job bringing cartoony action to the page in a way that's both Cory and cute at the same time. It's a very bizarre experience but very familiar. Because all of the imagery that the artist is bringing to the page feels so very cozy and warm and based on aesthetics that have been around in comics and animation for a very, very long time. The action actually rushes across the page in impressive form.. Beaulieu’s colors once again lend some very beautiful sheen and residence and volume to everything that's going on on the page. It's very appealing from beginning to end.
Shroomurai is actually a very interesting character. She would probably work really well in her own title. That's not something that can be said of a whole lot of the supporting characters that have come out of this particular series. Young really has found a totally new way of introducing a appallingly derivative character. There really isn't any reason why this type of a character should be anywhere in interesting as she is. And yet she is a grat deal of fun... and oddly enough more interesting than the central character of Gert in this particular issue.
