Author Appreciation Week: Neil Gaiman
Last week on twitter, Heidi (author of up-coming novel Sea, 2010) had a terrific idea! She thought that this week we should all pay tribute to the authors that have inspired us to greatness. Anyone can play. All you have to do is post and link your posts on twitter with #AAW and @HeidiRKling. Mon-Fri you can post one or two authors a day.
My Wednesday author is someone who I've been reading almost all my life. A short (I hope!) backstory to my life as a child. My family used to visit both my mom's parents (Iowa) and my dad's parents (New Jersey) every summer. It was the long road trip that I looked forward to after school was over. My dad's father would call us every morning we were in Jersey. We'd sit in his bed as he red us the comics of the day. My love for Sunday comics and graphic novels is so intertwined with family and nostalgia.
Neil Gaiman
My dad collected comics as a kid. When his first-born daughter (me) came along, he wanted to share his love for this art form. He'd take me to the comic shops with him. He taught me about line artists and inkers, writers and colorists, etc. He would passionately follow an artist from book to book. I began to do this, but then noticed that while I loved the artists, I was beginning to notice and appreciate the writers as well.
This lead to my first introduction to The Sandman series. Vertigo (publisher who also prints Fables) was a new imprint at the time, and I, being young and ready for independence, wanted to see what they had to offer. I fell in love with Dream and his sister Death (mostly Death because that chick was BADASS!). I bought the comics and took them out of their plastic (!!). I'd gently read them while wearing white cotton gloves (I still have the gloves -- ha ha!). I bought trading cards.
The thing that really broadened my horizons was all the other legends and myths that were worked and reworked into these books. People like Shakespeare were showing up in the panels. Lucifer had been a kind of central character from the start. And I sometimes wonder if this comic isn't one of the trailblazing issues where Greek gods and Christian lore come together. You see it so much more often now but not then. Much like the X-Men, these characters had depth and weight. They had issues to deal with between and within themselves.
During this time, Gaiman also collaborated with Todd McFarlane (one of my dad's fav artists) on Spawn. Since it was new, I bought them. One of the characters that Neil created, Angela, had Death's badass quality x100. She was an angel assassin. The very idea, to this day, excites me -- even though it's been done a lot recently. I bought her spin-off series as well. The heyday of comics in my life was coming to a head.
When the Sandman series was over and I heard that there wouldn't be any more books, I was a little heartbroken. One of my friends gave me a copy of Good Omens for my birthday. Honestly, it wasn't the same as the Sandman books. (Well, how could it be? It was a novel. It was co-written with Terry Pratchett.) It's quite possible that I couldn't appreciate the book because I was sort of jaded by the comics.
I continued to look for Gaiman's name as a comic writer, but some of the books I couldn't have cared less about. I was never a Batman girl (sorry Batman *sadface*). Then I read Stardust and was in love again. From the outside, it seems like a simple fairy-tale. The back cover even said so. Then I read it. It had heart and style. There were those interpersonal relationships that I'd loved so much.
Much more recently, Coraline and The Graveyard Book were published. The first reminded me a lot of The Wolves in the Walls because of the horror element. The second one I read in a single sitting. I could not put it down. There was more play between the ghosts and Bod that felt so very authentic. Gaiman draws on so many different sources, spins them upside down, adds heart and realism, and creates characters you want to be friends with. Maybe not the Sleer or those wolves, but I'd be friends with the ghosts, Tristan, Bod, or Yvain any day!
You can visit Neil at his website, or follow him on twitter.
My Wednesday author is someone who I've been reading almost all my life. A short (I hope!) backstory to my life as a child. My family used to visit both my mom's parents (Iowa) and my dad's parents (New Jersey) every summer. It was the long road trip that I looked forward to after school was over. My dad's father would call us every morning we were in Jersey. We'd sit in his bed as he red us the comics of the day. My love for Sunday comics and graphic novels is so intertwined with family and nostalgia.
Neil Gaiman
My dad collected comics as a kid. When his first-born daughter (me) came along, he wanted to share his love for this art form. He'd take me to the comic shops with him. He taught me about line artists and inkers, writers and colorists, etc. He would passionately follow an artist from book to book. I began to do this, but then noticed that while I loved the artists, I was beginning to notice and appreciate the writers as well.
This lead to my first introduction to The Sandman series. Vertigo (publisher who also prints Fables) was a new imprint at the time, and I, being young and ready for independence, wanted to see what they had to offer. I fell in love with Dream and his sister Death (mostly Death because that chick was BADASS!). I bought the comics and took them out of their plastic (!!). I'd gently read them while wearing white cotton gloves (I still have the gloves -- ha ha!). I bought trading cards.
The thing that really broadened my horizons was all the other legends and myths that were worked and reworked into these books. People like Shakespeare were showing up in the panels. Lucifer had been a kind of central character from the start. And I sometimes wonder if this comic isn't one of the trailblazing issues where Greek gods and Christian lore come together. You see it so much more often now but not then. Much like the X-Men, these characters had depth and weight. They had issues to deal with between and within themselves.
During this time, Gaiman also collaborated with Todd McFarlane (one of my dad's fav artists) on Spawn. Since it was new, I bought them. One of the characters that Neil created, Angela, had Death's badass quality x100. She was an angel assassin. The very idea, to this day, excites me -- even though it's been done a lot recently. I bought her spin-off series as well. The heyday of comics in my life was coming to a head.
When the Sandman series was over and I heard that there wouldn't be any more books, I was a little heartbroken. One of my friends gave me a copy of Good Omens for my birthday. Honestly, it wasn't the same as the Sandman books. (Well, how could it be? It was a novel. It was co-written with Terry Pratchett.) It's quite possible that I couldn't appreciate the book because I was sort of jaded by the comics.
I continued to look for Gaiman's name as a comic writer, but some of the books I couldn't have cared less about. I was never a Batman girl (sorry Batman *sadface*). Then I read Stardust and was in love again. From the outside, it seems like a simple fairy-tale. The back cover even said so. Then I read it. It had heart and style. There were those interpersonal relationships that I'd loved so much.
Much more recently, Coraline and The Graveyard Book were published. The first reminded me a lot of The Wolves in the Walls because of the horror element. The second one I read in a single sitting. I could not put it down. There was more play between the ghosts and Bod that felt so very authentic. Gaiman draws on so many different sources, spins them upside down, adds heart and realism, and creates characters you want to be friends with. Maybe not the Sleer or those wolves, but I'd be friends with the ghosts, Tristan, Bod, or Yvain any day!
You can visit Neil at his website, or follow him on twitter.