Review – I Hate Fairyland #4 (Image Comics)

Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Skottie Young
Artwork: Skottie Young, Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Release Date: 20th January, 2016

With yet another would-be narrator biting the dust in truly hilarious fashion, we are launched headlong the latest issue of Skottie Young’s I HATE FAIRYLAND, as Gertrude recovers following her rather unsuccessful showdown with new kid on the block, Happy. Y’see, Queen Cloudia has had just enough enough of waiting for Gert to complete here quest, and after twenty-seven painfully long years of bumbling ineptitude, has decided to bring a fresh-faced, impossibly perky ringer into the mix to get the job done right.

Honestly, I don’t see how anyone could possibly pick this book up and not love it. Skottie Young has created an absolutely inspired blend of fairytale excess and shockingly brutal violence, with note-perfect humour and brilliantly realised characters aplenty. While there’s definitely an aspect of poking fun at the cliched world of fairytales here, I HATE FAIRYLAND is far more than that, with a gloriously irreverent edge and some of the most eye-pleasing artwork you’re likely to find anywhere.

This issue sees Gertrude and Cloudia finally come face to face in an absolutely inspired back-and-forth filled with blistering put-downs and some more of Skottie’s hilariously censored profanity, before the story is sent careering off in a whole new direction as Gertrude and Larry hatch a plan to thwart newcomer Happy once and for all by acquiring the Seven Evil Dooms. Well, one of them, anyway.

The artwork is fantastic – as you’d probably come to expect from Young at this point in his career – and the comically over-the-top violence and retina-scorching colours combine for an aesthetic that’s like absolutely nothing else on the shelves right now. Seriously. Gorgeous book, folks.

Honestly, while I wish I could be more balanced, there simply isn’t anything negative I can say about this book. You’d think that the “belligerent, pissed-off woman in a little girl’s body” thing would be wearing a little thin by now, but IT’S STILL ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Maybe I’m being as naive as Gert herself when she first entered Fairyland, but I honestly don’t see this ever getting old, and solemnly swear right now that I will continue to buy this comic every month for as long as Skottie Young feels like cranking it out.

Without a doubt one of the most deliciously twisted, yet unrelentingly fun, books on the shelves today, I HATE FAIRYLAND remains an abso-fluffin-lutely essential purchase.

Rating: 5/5.

PREVIEW ARTWORK
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