Now I work in marketing, so I know not to trust marketing copy. (Don’t ask me how many times I’ve gotten something subtle wrong – or something obvious wrong.) But I have to look askance at the insistence of Raptor ‘s descriptive copy of being “Dave McKean’s first creator-owned character.” I mean, this is still a world…
To me, the core Neil Gaiman stories are about young people, encountering things they don’t understand. The Ocean at the End of the Lane. “How to Talk to Girls at Parties.” Violent Cases. Coraline, something of an edge case – since the core set of stories are all about a young person like Gaiman. And,…
You know what’s weird? Reading a book about an artist with no examples of that artist’s work – but pages filled with art by somebody else. It might be inherent in the form – a graphic novel about an artist who’s been dead about seventy years – but it’s still weird. It would be fine…
It’s a cliché now: the superhero story that makes a startling new origin or explanation for a character. But there was a time when it was new. There was even a time when it was reserved for minor, unimportant characters – it was too much of a risk to radically change anyone important. We’re very…
Dave McKean is a deeply classy cartoonist, the kind whose work is as likely to be first shown on the walls of a gallery as in a publication somewhere. And even his comics that do appear alongside other comical funnies are more serious and elevated than their peers — aiming to be Works of Art and…
Some books are “about” something obvious and clear — maybe because they’re genre entertainments, maybe because the author has Something To Say and is going to say it loudly. Maybe because the author is all about clarity, maybe because it’s a screed. Maybe maybe maybe. But some books are about everything and nothing. They don’t…
Forgive me, Constant Reader, but I am still somewhat hungover from my Eisner Awards weekend. As evidence, I tell you that I have the new issue of one of my favorite titles, Bitch Planet, in my apartment, but I have not yet read it. (I may read it during the course of writing this, because I…
From worst to best of what I bought. Sandman Overture: Special Edition #5 The quality of the bonus material in this is really, amazingly, egregiously shit. I think my favorite this time is once again the Neil Gaiman interview, which is five questions long and consists of questions like “What’s on The Sandman ‘s iPod,”…
NBM reminds readers what the First Time was like, in an erotic hardcover anthology that will feature the works of Dave McKean. The collection of ten tales comes from writer Sybilline, a French woman with decidedly spicy ideas. The art is handled by a variety of talents including McKean, Cyril Pedrosa (Three Shadows), and Olivier…
