I Hate Fairyland, also known as Fuck Fairyland, is a black comedy fantasy comic written and illustrated by Skottie Young, and published by Image Comics, which started publication in October 2015. The comic follows Gertrude "Gert", who was transported to a mystical world called Fairyland as a six-year-old girl. Twenty-seven years later, Gert is an un-aging, violent misanthrope who, alongside her reluctant guide and friend Larry Wentsworth III, constantly tries and fails to return to Earth, across the storylines Madly Ever After, Fluff My Life, Good Girl, I Hate Image, Sadly Never After, Fluff This World, Gert's Inferno, Last Gert Standing, In the Mean Time, Happy End Game, Back On My Bull Ship, and Monsters Gonna Monster.
While the comic went on hiatus after the release of Issue #20 in July 2018, a revival series written by Young and illustrated by Brett Bean began in November 2022, still under the name I Hate Fairyland but starting with a new #1 issue. The series initially focuses on Gertrude, now an adult going back to Fairyland under William Wiggan's orders to turn it into an amusement park, before turning its focus back to the original Gert. A spin-off anthology series, The Unbelievable Unfortunately Mostly Unreadable and Nearly Unpublishable Untold Tales of I Hate Fairyland!, with stories written and illustrated by an alternating lineup of creators, has also been published since 2021.
Contents
Publication history
According to a Paste interview, Skottie Young first developed the concept while working on 2009's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz limited series at Marvel Comics, with the idea that Dorothy would eventually "be super annoyed by all these characters." Gertrude being an adult stuck in a child's body came from Young's experiences as a new father, finding himself repeatedly reading and watching the same picture books and preschool shows with his child. Young claims Mad Magazine, the DC Comics character Lobo and Tank Girl as other significant influences. The first issue was released on October 14, 2015. It sold an estimated 50,300 copies and was the 42nd best selling issue of the month by units.
The comic went on hiatus after the release of Issue #20 in July 2018, until Young announced in August 2021 that it would be returning. The revived series will still be published by Image Comics and written by Young, and was initially set to feature Brett Parson as the new primary artist. Since the announcement, short side stories illustrated by other artists, collected as The Unbelievable Unfortunately Mostly Unreadable and Nearly Unpublishable Untold Tales of I Hate Fairyland!, have been released as timed exclusives for subscribers of Young's Substack newsletter. These stories, which are separate from the main series, will later receive wider publication.
The first issue of the revival series, which restarted its numbering at #1 and started out by featuring Brett Bean as the primary artist, was released on November 16, 2022.
In June 2025, the series returned to legacy numbering, jumping from issue #20 of the revival series to issue #41 of the combined series as a whole, and featuring new artist Derek Laufman.
Characters
Gertrude: Also known as Gert, she is the main protagonist of the series.
Larry (Larrigon Wentsworth III): A fly sidekick to Gert in the original series
Queen Cloudia: The main villain of the original series
Slug Lord: Ruler of Las Fungus
Brudd the Brutal: A Huntsman that Cloudia hires to kill Gertrude
Horribella: A witch that Cloudia hires to get rid of Gertrude
Darketh Deaddeath: One of the dark lords in the farthest reaches of Fairyland
Pervis Peddlesteal: A packrat that collects items from children that visit Fairyland
Nickey Nines: The feline leader of the Tower of Battle
Purty Pretty Princess: The champion fighter of the Tower of Battle
Maddie: A follower of Gert
Loveth Lovelord: Ruler of a maze that holds the Balls of Redemption
"Bill", Devil of Fairyland: The Ruler of Fairyland's hell
Fairyland Council: The ones who dictate the rules of the land and convene when any threat should befall it.
Happy: Another human child invited to Fairyland by Cloudia
Plot
Original run
The plot starts with Gertrude "Gert" falling into Fairyland as a six-year-old. She spends 27 years looking for a key to escape with her assigned insect guide Larrigton Wentsworth III, or Larry for short, but never ages, resulting in her becoming a violent sociopath. After terrorizing Fairyland, Queen Cloudia, the secretly evil ruler of Fairyland, sends after Gert many 'villains', such as a witch named Horribella. With each attempt ending in failure, Queen Cloudia then decides to kill her personally. She consults the Fairyland Council and they devise a plan to rid of Gert. As the Queen cannot directly harm any guests, Cloudia invites another child, Happy, into Fairyland, to make Gert a citizen of Fairyland. Gert confronts Happy and shortly tries to kill her, but is easily defeated by Happy. After Gert recovers, she visits Queen Cloudia and asks her what is going on. Cloudia tells her she's too late, and admits she helped Happy on her quest to find the key. Sometime after, Happy does find the key. Annoyed by this, Gert finds Darketh Deaddeath, who she asks to help her defeat Happy. He agrees to help her, only if she proves herself. She survives his dungeon, and insults him. He then decides to help her and gives her his dark magic powers. Happy almost uses the key to exit Fairyland, but then a super-powered Gert stops her in her tracks. After a brief battle, Gert defeats Happy and then kills Cloudia. Before Gert can return home, Larry informs her that killing the Queen makes her the Queen herself, resulting in her unhappily taking the throne.
After a disastrous year as Fairyland's "evil queen", Gert is impeached and resumes looking for a way home. While meeting with Pervis Peddlesteal, an anthropomorphic rat who collects artefacts from Earth, she encounters Duncan, a human boy dressed in a dragon Halloween costume recently arrived in Fairyland. Duncan joins Gert on her travels, however, she willingly abandons him in the Tower of Battle, a gigantic arcade machine populated by powerful fighters. One hundred years later, Duncan has become an actual giant dragon and lays waste to Fairyland, killing all but a small handful of survivors, including Gert and Larry. Using the last remaining magic in Fairyland, Larry transports Gertrude back in time to the present of the series to warn her younger self away from the decisions that lead to the destruction of Fairyland. The older Gert gives her younger self step-by-step instructions to avert the apocalypse, but wearily notes that she has not listened to any of them, fading from existence as her younger self rushes into the first of many disasters.
After beating up Kamau Kogo on Bitch Planet and learning how to traverse the Image Universe to return home, Gert kills versions of Rick Grimes and Coach Euless Boss before following the Paper Girls into Image City. After being led to the god-run nightclub Wic + Div by Tony Chu, Gert sets off a battle royale between the various superheroes and villains within, stealing their weaponry in the process, before seeking out the aid of Spawn to give her access to the Image Central building. After killing everyone in the building and confronting the founders of Image Comics, Gert demands to be allowed to go home, killing them all as a show of force before realising she needed one of them alive to return home. Dejected, Gert returns to Fairyland with Larry.
Fluff This World
In The Unbelievable Unfortunately Mostly Unreadable and Nearly Unpublishable Untold Tales of I Hate Fairyland! storyline Fluff This World, exclusive to the Substack edition of the series, and not physically published by Image Comics, the adult Gert recounts to her therapist a dream of tracking down Skottie Young and returning to Fairyland to wreak havoc as an adult, only to find herself stuck as a child again.
2022 revival
The now adult Gert is unable to keep a job, as she lacks any education or skills applicable to the real world, and misses Fairyland where she was notorious and feared. After she is beaten up in a bar and dumped in an alley, a tech billionaire named William Wiggins hires her to find his missing son, who he believes has been taken to Fairyland. Gert agrees, in exchange for half the profits from the planet-wide theme park that Wiggins intends to build on Fairyland once the expedition is complete. He sends Gert and Rotwald Rat, a talking rat from Fairyland who his scientists accidentally brought to Earth, through a portal to Fairyland. They emerge at the gates of the Inferno, a hell-like dimension created to prevent previous visitors to Fairyland re-entering. They meet a demon named Virgil, who agrees to guide them through the Inferno and into Fairyland, promising the journey will last a few days. However, Gert eats Virgil's map and they are lost in the Inferno for years. Along the way they inadvertently create additional dangers for themselves, including a ravenous "gertling" known as "Cutey Pukey", and a golem created from a monster's stomach contents which lusts after Gertrude.
Gert, Rotwald and Virgil are finally able to complete a series of fetch quests to reach the end of the Inferno and obtain a ticket into Fairyland. Gert tearfully bids farewell to Virgil and re-enters Fairyland. As soon as they cross through the portal, Rotwald receives a call from Wiggins, who tells Gert that his son has shown up on Earth and that he has no intention of extracting Gert due to legal issues, leaving her once again trapped in Fairyland permanently. Gert kicks Rotwald in a rage, declaring "I hate Fairyland!". Rotwald lands some distance away in front of the latest "guest" of Fairyland, and Larry who is shocked at hearing Gert had returned.
As Gert reunites with Larry, Larry explains that he got a successful career as guide since she left and that he guided Wiggins' son. Meanwhile, Fairyland's new ruler and Cloudia's brother, King Cloudius, gets enraged to learn about Gert's return. After rejecting suggestions from the new council, Cloudius decides to bring the original Gert and several different counterparts to his timeline to kill current Gert. As Gert goes with Larry and the kid to the door upon finding the key, Cloudius sees through Gert's cheap ghost costume, starting a bloody battle between Gertrude and her counterparts until only the original Gert survives. However, to Cloudius' anger, Gert lets the kid to use the door unaware of it was the way home Cloudius promised her to if she killed adult Gert.
Collected editions
Reception
According to the review aggregation website Comic Book Roundup, the first issue of I Hate Fairyland received an average score of 8.6/10 from critics, based on 21 reviews. National Public Radio's Etelka Lehocky described it as "a great palate cleanser for anyone who's recoiled from pink-princess politics" and praised "Young's clever storytelling". IGN included it as one of the "Top Comics to read this week".
In popular culture
On May 1, 2018, a Fortnite Battle Royale character skin inspired by I Hate Fairyland's Gert, "Zoey", was made available as an Epic Outfit, obtainable as a reward from Tier 47 of Season 4's Battle Pass, part of the "Sweet Tooth" set.
I Hate Fairyland has been cited by French cartoonist François Locufier as the inspiration for his webtoon series Geraldine & Mona, which began development as a fan-fiction sequel to Sadly Never After, featuring Gert having a daughter.