Well, I'm on board for this one.  Carey comes home to Vertigo, where he wrote such great stories for Constantine and Lucifer, and it's clear to me that this is where he belongs.  This book sold itself to me when I read the previews solicit, it's just one of those great hooks.  It's not entirely original to write about a fictional character who somehow finds his way into the real world, but Carey does it with such ease and with such a sense of mystery that you can overlook that fact.  Besides, the script acknowledges the debt it owes to Potter and to Tim Hunter in the first few pages, and then moves on.  Without those creations the book would not exist, but this is the next stage.

The aforementioned script is a joy.  It zips along without drawing attention to itself.  The story is quite dense, in that you get pages from the fiction within the fiction along with all kinds of strands of the main mystery.  However, it's never too much, it just means that there's plenty to sink your teeth into.

 The characters are interesting right from the off (except for the lead, strangely, who's going to need some fleshing out).  The character of Lizzie Hexam is cute and seems to have a mystery of her own, in that she knows a lot more about what's happening than she lets on.  Tommy's agent is another compelling character who at this stage is hard to pin down as either friend or foe.

Artwise, I'm often guilty of finding artists like Peter Gross a little plain for my tastes, but that's possibly because I'm not paying enough attention.  In this book the pencils are detailed and tell the story fantastically well.  The characters are distinct and convey emotion nicely.  It's a great complement to the story.

And it's the story that's really got me excited about Unwritten.  I've read a few Vertigo number 1's in the past year as I always like to give them a go.  I liked House of Mystery and Madame Xanadu enough to buy the trades and really wasn't grabbed by Air. This is another matter altogether, I'm dying for issue two.  There's the hint of a great little conspiracy married to a bigger, more fantastical storyline.  Reading Carey's blurb on the editorial page seems to indicate that he's got a lot to say about some big ideas and it all sounds fascinating.  There's plenty going on here to tell a great story for at least the next couple of years and I can't wait for it to unfold.