Looking for the perfect book to get your friends and loved ones? Check out these holiday gift guide recommendations:

USA TODAY’s Gift Ideas for the Comic Book Fan includes 100 BULLETS Deluxe Edition and Graphic Novels To Get You in the Holiday Spirit includes A FLIGHT OF ANGELS.

CNN/Geek Out includes AMERICAN VAMPIRE in their Holiday Gift Guide.

And CAMPUS CIRCLE’s Holiday Gift Ideas include A FLIGHT OF ANGELS, MARZI, JOE THE BARBARIAN, NEW YORK FIVE, RETURN TO PERDITION and THE UNWRITTEN Vol. 4.

Mike Carey, writer of THE UNWRITTEN, and I talk about Halloween and who he'd be if he were to dress up as a Vertigo character today.

PM: Pumpkin seeds, pumpkin ice cream or pumpkin pie?

MC: Any of the above, so long as they're certified pumpkin-free.

Corn maze or haunted house?

MC: Haunted house.

Trick or treat?

MC: Treat. Is that a trick question?

What’s your favorite Halloween tradition?

MC: When I was a kid, it was bobbing for apples. These days, it's making jack-o-lanterns with my kids - who, now that they're all grown up, would rather be doing serious drugs.

What’s your least favorite trick-or-treating memory?

MC: Trick-or-treating didn't exist when I were a lad. Not on this side of the Atlantic. So probably my least favorite memory dates from the year when I had to shepherd my eight-year-old daughter and her eight-year-old friends around the neighbourhood in their costumes, at a time when trick-or-treating was still a recent import and most of the people whose doors we knocked on thought we were either crazy people or burglars.

What creature scares you the most vampire, werewolf, zombie, or ghost?

MC: I guess I'd go for vampire. You can keep werewolves and zombies out by locking the door, but vampires will always find a way in. In my experience, anyway.

If you were to dress up as a character from a Vertigo comic book this Halloween, who would you be?

MC: John Constantine. I already own a grubby trenchcoat, so the initial outlay would be very small - couple of quid for a pack of Silk Cut, and I'd be all set.

What would you claim is the scariest inspiration for your current Vertigo comic book?

MC: Josef Goebbels. He only came into two issues, but his theories of propaganda are sort of in the mix. On the other hand, so is Winnie the Pooh. It's a tough call.

Thanks Mike!

In 1930s New York, Wilson Taylor confronts the true enormity of his betrayals, while in the present day, Tom comes face-to-face with the Tinker.

Read the finale of "On to Genesis” in THE UNWRITTEN #30 this Wednesday!

And here’s a look at a couple gorgeous covers by Yuko Shimizu for THE UNWRITTEN #33 and #33.5!

With THE UNWRITTEN, Mike Carey and Peter Gross continue to innovate and push the limits of comic books. Issue #28 is no exception.

Below are Vince Locke's finishes on a two page spread from the 1930s sequence in the main story. These are then combined with Peter Gross' rendering of the Tinker comic.

Below is the Tinker comic in its beginning stages "as drawn by Miriam" from the two page spread illustrated by Peter Gross. Doesn't that staircase look familiar?

And here is the script for pages 7 and 8 written by Mike Carey. Please note that some things have changed from script to final page.

PAGES 7 & 8

Structure is kind of weird here. The centre of the spread is a page from a Tinker comic – not finished inks but pencils, rough but full of vibrancy and potential. To either side of it, we’re seeing Miriam and Wilson interacting both while the page is being created and after it’s done. I’ve done the panels in reader-experience below, dividing the page into three sections: area to the left of the Tinker page, page itself, area to the right of the page.

LEFT-HAND BIT

PANEL 1
Miriam’s studio. She’s at the drawing board, sketching with furious concentration. In background, Wilson watches. He’s in shirt-sleeves, jacket over his arm. He looks slightly irritated.

1 WILSON: The Thin Man starts in thirty minutes.

2 MIRIAM: Shut up, Will.

3 MIRIAM: I’m onto something here.

PANEL 2
Tight on Miriam. She carefully traces a line.

4 MIRIAM: It’s what we were talking about. Plugging your own story into
what’s already there.

5 MIRIAM: Making your one voice be part of a symphony.

PANEL 3
Close-up on what she’s drawing – the Tinker kneeling beside a woman’s dead body.

6 MIRIAM: God, I wish I was better.

7 MIRIAM: I wish I could do what Herriman does with a straight line.

THE TINKER PAGE

PANEL 1
A street in Tomorrow City: a lady is being held up by a gangster. The lady is young, beautiful and glamorous, but we’re not seeing her at her best because the gangster is shooting her through the heart. She staggers and falls. In background, the Tinker is running or seven-league-striding in to the attack.

1 GANGSTER: Sorry, lady.

SFX: BLAM

2 GANGSTER: The boss don’t want you on that witness stand!

3 LADY: Ohh!

PANEL 2
Two-shot. The Tinker punches out the gangster.

4 TINKER: You cowardly rat! You’ll get the chair for this!

5 GANGSTER: Oof!

6 TINKER: Justice never sleeps!

PANEL 3
Out wide. The Tinker kneels beside the body, gently touches the woman’s forearm. A uniformed cop – a sergeant, comic relief, probably overweight – watches anxiously.

7 TINKER: But that won’t bring back an innocent life!

8 COP: I don’t like that gleam I’m after seeing in your eye, Tinker!

9 COP: Begorrah, and you lost this one, so you did.

PANEL 4
Tight on the Tinker. He takes a piece of chalk from his pocket.

10 TINKER: Maybe not. This chalk is from the shores of Lake Avernus.

11 TINKER: The ancient gateway to the land of the dead.

PANEL 5
Out wide. The Tinker draws out a stairway in perspective on the ground. The cop pleads with him.

12 COP: Faith, you can’t do this, Tinker! What’ll I tell the lieutenant, at all at all?

13 TINKER: Tell him what you like, O’Malley. I’m going to Hades.

14 TINKER: And I’m bringing Lucy Cabot’s soul back with me!

PANEL 6
Tight on the Tinker. His drawn staircase has become a real staircase, from which flames and steam billow up. He walks down fearlessly into them.

15 TINKER: I spend a lot of time dealing with the criminal underworld.

16 TINKER: The underworld of the dead probably isn’t too different!

RIGHT-HAND BIT

PANEL 1
Back in the studio, out wide. Wilson stares at the finished page, which he’s lifted from the drawing board. He’s amazed. Miriam stands by, a little bashful and awkward but full of excitement at what she’s achieved.

8 WILSON: This is - -

9 MIRIAM: It’s Orpheus and Eurydice.

10 WILSON: I know, Miri. I got that.

PANEL 2
Tight on Wilson. He lowers the page, stares at her, very serious.

11 WILSON: It’s brilliant. You’re telling stories with real resonance, now.

12 WILSON: Real depth.

PANEL 3
Close-up on Miriam’s face, ardent and passionate.

13 MIRIAM: I’m making myths.

14 MIRIAM: For an age that doesn’t have any of its own yet.

It's a complicated process, but the end result is totally worth it when you see the finished pages colored, lettered and ready to be read.