Review: Back to Fairtaylia #1

STORY

Back to Fairtaylia is equal parts The Neverending, Story, and Hook. It concerns a group of friends who as children are able to enter a land that is all the Disney tropes. A lot of the anthropomorphic creatures inhabiting the world bear some intentional resemblances to cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck. There are definitely things you will recognize here.

It’s everything you would expect it to be initially, all sweet, syrupy kinda fantasy lite fun one might expect. There is fun, adventure and spooky elements, but by page three things are already shifting away from G to PG13 as we see one of the cute critters graphically bitten in half.

Still these are kids in a world where they suffer no consequences while for the inhabitants they are quite severe. The lead protagonis, Tommy, seems to revel in the excitement and violence in a way his friends aren’t and even drops an MF bomb as he slays a troll in a way that I just can’t spoil.

The interesting shift happens when Tommy wants to tell folks outside of the fantasy world which leads to some dire consequences for himself, his friends, and the amusement park that served as the entryway to Fairtaylia. Its quite interesting to see the sort of person Tommy has become after being convinced that his former adventures where flights of fancy taken to delusional extremes and what a shift this caused in not only his outlook but personality, not at all unlike the paradigm shift experienced by the adult Peter Pan living outside of Never Never Land in Hook.

Llike the Robin Williams character, the question becomes what will Tommy do when confronted with the reality of the fantasy world he left behind. Given the appearance of the squirrel who reaches out to him for help things have gone horribly wrong in the absence of Tommy and his friends.

Its an interesting concept to explore, what happens when the chosen saviors of a fantasy land are barred from returning to said land for a decade or more? What becomes of Oz without Dorthy to slay the Witch? What if the children fled Narnia? What indeed. The authors lay out a grand foundation to build upon in this first issue. The elements are in place with the main focus being on Tommy with his companions being little more than extras but we do see that at least one of them keeps the flame of imagination alive and that I suspect will be a key plot point going forward once the companions are brought back together.

ART

The art is for the most part kept light and has that whimsical quality one would want from a child’s cartoon. There are no proper angles anywhere to be seen, nothing is technically drawn, its all very freehand in feel to add to the aesthetic of the world created here. Dedelis is quite adept creating the funny animals, clearly distinctive characters and his expressions are terrific. I particularly liked the scene when Tommy interrupts his parents having a lets say, moment to themselves and being completely unaware of whats going on while they are trying to pretend everything is cool. Nothing to see, here, move along.

The colors are bright and vivid as one would expect of this sort of material with excellent separation of the elements at play. Leizl knows when and what to emphasize at the proper moments and how to use color to express mood or emotion within the story.

LETTERING

Stock’s lettering is easy to follow and unobtrusive, letting the art be the star while adding the needed dialogue and exposition the story requires. There is a well thought out flow to his work and I enjoyed seeing effects on the singing word balloons and bless my soul there were even thought balloons! You just don’t see that much anymore.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This comic starts off cute and to some degree stays cute but it ramp things up to an interesting mashup between the perspectives of a child and an adult. Like Roger Rabbit its gonna be entertaining but you can see that it’s also gonna get dark. I can’t wait to see how that works out.

SCORE: 5 out of 5

By: Jorg Alberts , P.R. Dedelis
Writer Roland Heep
Colorist: Liezl Buenaventura
Letterer: Mike Stock
Published by Invader Comics