From the library: The Unwritten tpb. vol. 1

Tom Taylor is kind of a loser. The son of a famous writer who disappeared when Tom was a child, Tom tried such routes as acting, writing and music, but never amounted to anything. He makes his living as Tom Taylor, son of the famous writer who wrote a huge YA series about a young wizard named Tommy Taylor (a sort of Harry Potter-esque thing), by appearing at book signings and promotional events.

Except now Tom has questions about whether he really might not be the son of Wilson Taylor, increasing numbers of people think he's either a fraud or actually Tommy Taylor made flesh, and his life is taking on weird parallels to the Tommy Taylor series.
That's the basic premise of The Unwritten, a Vertigo series written and arted by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. The monthly series launched in July 2009. The first trade paperback ($9.99, 144 pages) collects issues 1-5.
This series has gotten a lot of love in critical circles. And the premise - about the importance and power of stories - is intriguing. The highpoint is issue 5, which takes a slight digression from the main Tommy Taylor story to give us some background on the shadowy conspiracy/supernatural group that tries to control storytelling, focusing on Rudyard Kipling's interactions with them and manipulation by them. It's a smart series, with references to everything from Milton to Frankenstein, with Carey obviously being well read and doing his homework and this putting him perhaps on the same level as Neil Gaiman in terms of sheer amount of intellectual content.
The main storyline, with Tom Taylor, is not disappointing. But it's obviously a slow build. After four issues, a lot has happened, seemingly, but you don't quite know what yet.
Am looking to seeing the second and third trades of this, as it builds and as you get a better sense of what exactly is going on.