Unleash The Sprinkles Of War — Reviewing ‘I Hate Fairyland’ #43

Ah yes, the age-old battle between what is best, appetizers or dessert. A war waged across many a dinner tables. What’s that?

An actual war between anthropomorphized foods you, say? Huh, ain’t that something?

Time to grab a plate and prepare a leftover box as Skottie Young, Derek Laufman, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos takes us to war in I Hate Fairyland #43.

War is hell, especially when Gert is on the other side of the line. While good (wrong word there really) old Gert is still a lot of the same, these new issues show growth. I know, it’s wild to say, but there has been a kind of subtleness to what Young has done with the character in this new volume.

Just as violent and crass as ever, her reasons for doing things and her self-awareness are higher than they ever were. We see that here as she calls herself and idiot for getting into a war to kill and nothing else. She stands on a principle (even if it means leaving war prisoners behind) for her own logical loyal to the cause reason. Sure, she’s still awful, but this isn’t the mindless just ‘out for chaos’ Gert that began this story.

A taste of heroism and fandom, as well as a whole fluffing mess of stuff, has had an effect. Young really plays it well because the over-the-topness of this book masks such things. You have to look under the shiny fun wild surface to see more.

Speaking of the shiny fun surface, Laufman is really taking to this book.

The art style evokes a lot of the same feeling as Young and Brett Bean in the before times. Yet, it’s still Laufman’s own unique style that has little flairs here and there to stand apart. There’s a lightness that really helps bring a solid foundation to the harsher elements on the page.

Filled with vivid denseness, the elements at play have a hardness to them even as they are whimsical in scale. We see the fluffier elements as we also witness desserts and appetizer foods being ripped apart, blood and fillings everywhere, meeting that space where this comic rests comfortably in showcasing cartoonish but still brutal violence, without it becoming too gorish.

As always, the color palette stylings of Beaulieu bring so much of this energy to the forefront. Smooth as can be with tons of vibrant powerful tones befitting the candy-colored world that the book inhabits. Get it? Candy colored? ‘Cause the desserts? Anyways, back to what I was saying.

This consistency that Beaulieu (as well as Young and Piekos) brings to the plate really helps a lot. Because it means this book has looked very close to itself, no matter who holds the artist pen.

That’s a pretty natural segue into the lettering if I do say so myself. Grand and spectacular, the lettering stands as tall as everything else. It’s visually dynamic at every opportunity, keeping the voices as colorful as everything around them. Precisely targeting each word to maximize the volume, tone, impact, emotional quality, and much more. There is fun baked into every word, no matter the intent behind them.

I Hate Fairyland #43 is now available from Image Comics.