neil gainman book launch review

10/11/2005

Book Review

Neil Gainman – Dancehouse Theatre, 08/11/05

Finishing off another busy week and reviews for Setting Sun, I also went out to see Neil Gainman.

I’d first heard of Mr. Gainman through his now legend like work on The Sandman back in 1992 or 1993 when I first got back into comics after a 10 to 12 year break after accidentally buying a few back issues of a comic called Swamp Thing, mistaking it for a comic called Man Thing which also focused on a swamp creature, however Swamp Thing was always much more fun for at its best, it talked about a Nature God which despite the fact it had the powers of a god frequently behaved more like a man.

Within these issues, I also picked up on a character called John Constantine and his series called Hellblazer (more on that another day) but also in another cameo Dream aka Morpheus aka The Sandman – The Lord of Dfreams and through that picked up on Neil Gainman’s stories of The Sandman, which at their best had a poetry and a cleverness that is all too rarely seen in comics nowadays.

In 1996 (?) Gainman finished off The Sandman and despite the occasional flurry back to comic (with the more prose based “The Dream Hunters” drawn by the creator of Final Fantasy and last year’s “Endless Nights” drawn by a whole host of artists( has mostly stuck to novels since “Neverwhere”, “Stardust” and the epic “American Gods” among others.

He was here tonight to read extracts from his new book, which I bought and then had my mother to put aside for Christmas and therefore sadly cannot remember the name off of the top of my head.

On first impressions I actually thought it was going to be one of his twisted children’s books but as his extract developed, it became apparent this was going to be a reading from a book which was a lot, lot darker.

And it was.

He read with a clarity which surprised me that without starting reading, he had the audience in the palm of his hand and he could have read out his shopping list for a half a hour and they would have loved it.

However, even better than that he spent about a hour answering all manners of questions about both past and present and future, which covered all kinds of projects, some of which I knew about – the forthcoming “Mirror Mask” film co-created with long term artist friendm, Dace McKean and funded by the Henson Company, at least three other films including a film version about Death (Dream’s sister) among others, all answered with clarity and charm you couldn’t help but smile.

An excellent night.

I can’t wait to start the book.