Written by & Art by: Scottie Young
Colors by: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Publisher: Image
*SPOILER WARNING sort of. Because this is a comedy comic, talking about the plot means talking about some jokes. So if you don’t want to know any of that, then just go buy it already*
I’ve never considered myself someone that was too old for children’s stories. One of my favorite books of all time is The Golden Compass, and I still make an effort to reread various Redwall novels from time to time. There can be great value and imagination in stories meant for children. However, as it turns out, there can also be great value in taking a children’s-story setting, reaching down its throat, and ripping its heart out. I Hate Fairyland proves that nothing truly is sacred, and hot damn that’s a good thing.
Here is a comic where the title drew me in, the cover art sold me, and by page four I was laughing like an idiot yet appalled at the same time. It’s one of those!
I Hate Fairlyand opens up with a cute little girl named Gertrude wishing to go on a magical adventure, though she regrets that almost instantly when a portal opens up beneath her feat and she begins to plummet downwards towards Fairyland. Unlike your typical children’s story, there’s no soft cushion or lapse in physics to stop Gertrude’s fall. She hits the concrete hard, and things don’t exactly get better.
Realizing her wish wasn’t exactly well thought out, Gertrude makes it her mission to leave at once; however, leaving Fairyland isn’t exactly easy. 27 years later, she’s still stuck, only now she’s pissed off, a bit psychotic, and I believe has a gambling problem. Her cute, little, top-hat wearing guide has turned into a depressed cynic, and somewhere along the way, both found themselves a heaping pile of guns.
Oh god this comic book.
The way I Hate Fairyland presents itself isn’t new—coupling a cutesy art style with cute characters and contrasting them with raw, R-Rated humor—but it does this grouping very, very well. Here is a place where Ice Cream Island is brutally cold yet still delightfully covered in frosty treats. Even the blood, chunks, and corpses are cutely drawn!
What really sells it is Gertrude’s design. She’s been in Fairyland for almost three decades, but she never physically ages, so all of her adult outbursts are etched into the face of a small child wearing a cute pink dress. When she first pulls out a gun, it’s hilariously shocking, though when she pulls the trigger, it morphs into just straight hilarious.
To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve up sold this comic enough. It’s really, really, really good. I laughed from pretty much start to finish, marveled at the tropes it played with, and then laughed some more. It’s 30 pages of happiness, and certainly one of the most interesting things I’ve read in a very long time.
I’ll be heading down to my local comic book store to buy this one. I need it.
