Dead Man’s Knock is the third book (issues 13-18) in The Unwritten series of comics, written by Mike Carey, art by Peter Gross and cover art by Yuko Shimizu. [Here are my Unwritten reviews so far.]
Finished on: 27.4.2015

Plot:
The world is in uproar as a new Tommy Taylor book is announced by the long missing author Wilson Taylor who remains out of sight. But rumors are floating around that he will put in a personal appearance at the book’s launch. Even Tom, Wilson’s son and the inspiration for Tommy, starts to believe those rumors and is dead set on finally being able to confront his father about all the shit that has been going on around him. But it is the cabal who has written the book to try to coax Wilson out of hiding. And if they manage to get Tommy, Savoy and Lizzie in the process, it will be even better.

The Unwritten continues to be a smart examination of fiction and storytelling, and it continues to be an engaging, entertaining comic with great art. There is practically no fault at all that I can find with it.

Having said that there is practically nothing that I can barely find anything wrong with the book/this series at all, I of course have to point out what is at times a little difficult: the comic is extremely dense: plenty of references and characters and happenings. It is partly what it makes it so incredibly awesome, but it also makes it a little difficult for people like me whose brain is more a sieve than a sponge and who try to make the series last longer by leaving rather big gaps between reading its installments. More than once I found myself thinking, “oh yes, there was something like that, I vaguely remember”.

But even that fault is mostly positive. I like that the series asks a lot of its readers. It makes it possible to have a theoretically pretty charged discussion about the nature of fiction in an accessible, entertaining way that doesn’t sacrifice content for fun but instead features both. Like in one of the most depressing Choose Your Own Adventure-stories that provides Lizzie’s back story not only as a gimmick, but that further proves the power of storytelling.

That it’s all done in Gross’ impeccable style and with Shimizu’s beautiful covers is an added bonus to the great stories and the even better characters. I can’t wait to see what they’ll all get to experience next.

Summarizing: Awesomeness.