This was totally unexpected, another Vertigo single issue on a par with the Scalped story from a couple of months ago.  As he did with the Kipling tale last year, Carey deviates from the main storyline to give us something that looks at some of the background and ideas behind the Unwritten universe.  Our focal point is a fictional rabbit character who is surrounded by fellow talking animals, but who knows he was once a man.  A swears (lots) at his fellow animals, while they are all blissfully unaware of his true origin or their existence as fictional characters.  The rabbit, Mr Bun, sets out with a gun to kill their creator, a kind of Beatrix Potter/Enid Blyton (I guess) who has turned herself into a young girl in the books.

First off it's the kind of story that reminds you just how much is going on in the Unwritten universe.  If the excursion to Nazi Germany didn't prove how much depth there is to this world, this will certainly make it clear.  Carey's playground appears to be the entirety of written fiction throughout history, and his plot seems to be about how it all forms part of a giant conspiracy.  It's an incredible undertaking.  Then the story within this single issue is supremely entertaining.  The foul mouthed Mr Bun is a hilarious creation, yet there's more to this than novelty value.  It's funny to see a swearing rabbit injected into this old fashioned child's story milieu, but it's clearly still an important story about what's going on in the bigger picture.

The art is still by Peter Gross, but he's has some help with the finishes and colours to give it a look closer to those old picture books.  It was totally unexpected but unexpectedly gorgeous just the same.  I had to look at the credits twice just to be sure of what I was seeing.

So in the end, a real surprise, but without doubt another one to add to the list of contenders for best single issue of the year.