I Hate Fairyland #50 // Review
Back in 1965, Wonder Woman writer Robert Kanigher wrote a story in which he marched a good portion of the supporting case of the comic book into his office to essentially fire them. Writer Skottie Young does something very similar some six decades later as he celebrate the success of I Hate Fairyland #50. Gert and her associate Larry are thrown through a spoof blender as Young struggles to figure out how best to celebrate the 50th issue. He’s feeling the pressure of a looming deadline for the big 50th. The series reaches its milestone with artist Derek Laufman and colorist Jean-François Beaulieu.
Gert’s hearing a voice that Larry can’t seem to hear. It’s big. It seems to be coming from everywhere. Larry can’t seem to hear it. It might be the sound of writer Derek Laufman pounding the keyboard with his forehead. He’s blocked. He has no idea what to do with Gert to celebrate her 50th issue. He’s going to rush her through spoofs of Frank Miller’s Hard Boiled, DC’s Absolute Universe, The Exorcist, Indiana Jones and quite a few other things before settling her into the final parting splash page of the 50th issue of the series.
It’s all very weird and lighthearted. The spoofs are superficial and silly, though it IS nice to see Gert being Gert in a variety of different settings and situations. There doesn’t seem to be any definite order to the spoofery. That’s kind of the point: Young is expressing a strong desire to take a little bit of a break from the book so that he can get back to it later. As cramped and crammed-together as the script is for this issue...Young is making a really, really strong case for a bit of a hiatus from Fairyland.
The art team isn’t attempting to perfectly mimic the work that Young is spoofing. “Absolute Gert” doesn’t change Laufman’s rendering style at all. Young takes the spirit and overall art direction of the Absolute universe and plays with it, but the art remains essentially Laufman’s. There’s A LOT that Laufman could be doing to satirize Miller’s ridiculously amplified art style in Hard Boiled. Laufman doesn’t go for anything specifically intricate with the art...merely allowing heavy inking and lack of color tell the story with a few weird angles. Just as Gert remains Gert from setting to setting...so too do Laufman and Beaulieu.
Though it can be a lot of fun for a writer or artist to make a cameo appearance in his or her own comic book, it rarely feels all that inspired. Young makes reference to Grant Morrison doing as much from time to time. Morrison only occasionally managed a truly inspired creator cameo. Young’s work here feels much more in the spirit of a conversation writer/artist Dave Sim once had with Cerebus the Aardvark in the pages of his comic book. As with Sim, Young has a deep need to express something directly on the comics page without speaking through any other character. He does a pretty good job of it.
