I Hate Fairyland, Volume 4: Sadly Never After by Skottie Young Review

Once upon a time…

… a mad little girl tried to destroy the wondrous Fairyland! But she failed and was banished to where all naughty children go: HELL! Except now that Fairyland faces destruction once more at the hands of something else, Gertie must somehow escape the Devil’s tortures and return to her most hated place to become its saviour. How will the story end? Sadly never after…

So after four books we’ve come to the end of Skottie Young’s subversive comic on children’s fairytales. And, like most of this series, Volume 4: Sadly Never After is just ok.

The art is, as always, the main attraction. Young’s art style is glorious and beautifully complemented by colourist Jean-Francois Beaulieu - as a huge fan of Young’s art, I was transfixed by the visuals the whole time.

The story though… eh. It was interesting to see Gertie’s parents at last as well as what Gertie would look like if she were her actual age of thirtysomething. I also liked Duncan Dragon as a Fairyland Postal Service worker and that the final words of the book were the series’ original title.

But Young chose to drearily fall back on superhero tropes for the main story. The Big Bad is a dark version of a once-good character while anti-hero Gert is forced into the role of hero, given temporary superpowers by a council of elders and fights the baddie in a stereotypically OTT loud bit of nonsense. It’s cliched, uninspired and boring.

I’m glad Young’s putting Fairyland on ice for the moment. It’s a fun concept that worked really well for the first book because it was fresh and new but became very clear almost immediately that the simplistic story couldn’t sustain an ongoing monthly. Not that the series is bad but it’s not been great either. Still, it is a rich world so I look forward to whenever Young decides to revisit it, as he’s said he will, for one-off done-in-one stories sometime in the future, hopefully with new characters and stories, though it might also be amusing to see how Gertie adapts to life post-Fairyland (“I Hated Fairyland”?).

‘Til next time, Gertie, you fluffin’ crazy muffin hugger!