I Hate Fairyland #41 // Review
Gert and Larry are walking through the forest having some sort of a conversation about sauces and toppings and things. There’s some small question of whether or not the gravy in “biscuits and gravy” is actually a sauce or just...a part of the entree or whatever. That’s when a little bearded thing suddenly chimes-in on the conversation quite uninvited. Typically Gert would get quite upset about this, but she’s probably going to have to let it pass in I Hate Fairyland #41. Writer Skottie Young continues a fun adventure with artist Derek Laufman and colorist Jean-François Beaulieu.
The little bearded gentleman tells Gert and Larry about this dungeon pub crawl thing that’s going on. They might be persuaded to be interested about it, but actually going through with it? That’s going to involve a hell of a lot of drinking and a hell of a lot of danger and more than a little bit of discovering weird solutions to stragne traps. Is it going to be something that they’re going to be able to make it through? Probably. Will it matter? Not necessarily. Everything in Fairyland is more than a little strange and there’s no telling how it’s going to end.
Young has fun with a few fantasy role-playing tropes in a story that has more than a bit of clever wit. The contracts that are signed by drinking martinis are a clever bit of comedy that works quite well as well as some of the more disgusting bits of solution to various puzzles. Above and beyond all else, Young does a really good job of coming-up with a way of fusing the classic pub crawl with the concept of a dungeon crawl. Honestly...there’s a lot of potential in the concept that really could have been explored in greater detail. Young treats it like a throwaway joke, though.
The visual mixture of fantasy pubs and fantasy dungeons is a clever idea that Laufman does an admirable job of rendering for the page. The crazy nature of the mash-up isn’t quite living up to its potential under Laufman’s pen, but it remains a fun visual world with all of the weird, rubbery exaggeration that readers have come to love from the artist. Beaulieu’s colors have a fun time of selling the visuals with plenty of depth and texture. Gert isn’t given a huge emotional range the way that she has been in previous issues, but Laufman and Beaulieu keep her quite engaging throughout the issue.
Young’s one-shot throwaway joke is fun, but there’s a great deal of potential in it that could be explored in greater detail in some other format. The idea for a first-person RPG video game of this sort might be fun. Or maybe just some sort of adventure module for a paper-and-dice RPG. It’s a fun idea that gets really, really weird really, really quickly. It’s fun stuff, but it really could hav been developed into something more substantial. Too bad.
