Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire by Neil GaimanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a graphic novel adaptation of the Neil Gaiman story of the same title, first appearing in a short story collection in 2004. I remember reading the short story, and thinking it was quite clever, and kind of a cute idea. I didn’t really think about it being adapted into graphic novel format, but it lends itself nicely to a visual medium.
The story is about a writer, working away at his desk. We “see” what he is writing, depicted in monochrome panels with a script font. His story is what we would consider a classic “gothic” tale, with a young woman arriving alone in the dead of night (in the middle of a storm, of course) at a creepy house. Our writer keeps getting interrupted, however, with his own rather gothic bits of life instances: a dark and brooding butler, a talking raven, etc. The author is convinced his story is rubbish, but he wants to write about “real life” and be a “serious” author. He is finally convinced to go with his heart, and write a fantasy story, and the results are not what one expects, and give us a humorous ending.
The style of the images work very well with the story, giving us creepy ghouls, scary castles, etc. The trick of using monochrome vs. full color, and script font vs. block print is a convenient way to let readers know when we are in the world of the author’s story vs. the “real world.” This is a stellar example of how a graphic novel is not just an illustrated story - a good graphic artist is able to actually tell the story utilizing visual constructs. (A note on the letterer - it is the excellent Todd Klein, who does many of Gaiman’s graphic novels.) In this one volume, we have a trifecta of artists - illustrator, author, letterer - all at the top of their game. The result is a book that both Gaiman fans and graphic novel fans will want to read over and over again.
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