Gaiman's Endless Inspiration

By: Cindy White
Date: Monday, May 27, 2002

Most writers spend their entire careers honing their talents in just one medium, be it novels or screenplays or comic books. Neil Gaiman is not like most writers. After achieving rare critical and commercial success with his DC comic book series SANDMAN, Gaiman radically changed course to venture into the world of traditional prose. The transition was surprisingly smooth for the multi-talented author. His most recent novel, AMERICAN GODS, has received numerous award nominations, including the Hugo. The mass market paperback edition, which was just released last month, continues to climb bestseller lists. Gaiman, however, modestly downplays his success.

"It may well mean that I'm Jack of all trades and master of none," he says. "I've met people who are novelists. That's what they do. And I've met people who are comic writers, script writers or whatever, and that's not what I am. I'm a storyteller. I'm somebody who loves telling stories."

Gaiman's next story, a haunting illustrated children's book called CORALINE, is once again a departure from anything he's done before.

"CORALINE was this little book that I started for one daughter and finished for another. Took me 11 years to write. And it was just my little thing that I was doing in my own time to entertain my family."


The book tells the tale of a young girl who discovers a hidden door in her bedroom closet and becomes trapped in a dark parallel world. Though the themes and situations may seem slightly more disturbing than the usual children's subject matter, Gaiman doesn't feel it's inappropriate.

"The thing about CORALINE which is really, really odd is that kids tend to read it as an adventure; adults tend to read it as horror. Adults get scared from reading it. Adults get worried. Adults get nightmares. And part of that is just because they know how much trouble Coraline is in, which kids don't. And kids have a lot of faith in her ability to get through the story and survive, which she does just fine. I don't think I'm giving anything huge away by saying that. But I think kids and adults read a slightly different book."

The response to the book so far has been nearly universally positive. In fact, one major book chain convinced publisher Harper Collins to move up the release date so they could feature it more prominently in their stores. While Gaiman appreciates the compliment, the move disrupted his original concept of releasing the audio book version many months in advance of the hardback edition.

"I had this whole brilliant plan to try and get a book out in audio three or four months before the book came out. And the original plan was CORALINE was going to come out in September and the audio would come out in May, which worked absolutely fine until Barnes and Noble came to us and said that they'd read Coraline and loved it and wanted to make it a sort of book-of-the-month thing for July. As long as it was published in July... So Harper's moved it up. So we actually now only have a month window when the audio is out before the book. But even so, I like that."

With each new novel, children's book or short story collection, Gaiman's work has been steadily reaching a wider audience, many of whom are unfamiliar with his previous work in the world of comic books. Far from being ashamed of his roots, Gaiman sees this as an opportunity to reach new readers.

"If anything, what I'm trying to do right now is figure out a way to push some of the people who've discovered me through the prose over to read the comics, because they'd like them. If only they knew that was what they'd like. So we'll keep moving on that."

Considering his increasing notoriety as a novelist, one wouldn't necessarily expect Gaiman to return to writing comics right away, but that's exactly what he intends to do. One of his many current projects is a new series of comics for DC based on The Endless, a family of god-like characters created for the SANDMAN series.

"It's seven short stories," Gaiman explains. "So far I've written a Death story set on a little island off of Venice for P. Craig Russell. ... Milo Manara is doing the Desire story, which is set in about third century Britain in Cornwall. I've got a story set right now, I think it's in Manhattan... which is the Delirium story, which Bill Sienkiewicz is painting."

Gaiman is also forthcoming about the details of the story featuring Dream, the Sandman himself, which will be illustrated by acclaimed artist Miguelanxo Prado.

"It's set about three billion years ago. We actually get to meet Delight and we get to spend a little time with her... It's pretty much the Morpheus incarnation. But it's set back in the dawn of time so we get to meet the original Despair. It's back when Sandman and Desire were still good friends, and you sort of get to learn a little of why they are no longer friends. We meet Death back when she was still the grumpy bitch she talks about herself as being in the little Jeff Jones "Winter's Edge" story. And we meet Sandman's first girlfriend as well."

Returning to the characters of SANDMAN was like a homecoming of sorts for Gaiman, who stopped writing the series in 1996 because he feared creative burnout.

"By the end of SANDMAN I was getting really, really tired," he admits. "And I decided it was time to stop writing comics while I still enjoyed writing comics. So I did."

Now that time has passed, Gaiman is enjoying writing comics again.

"What's fun now is that it's five years later and I'm having a ball writing some comics," he says. "It's really fun. I'm enjoying sitting down and making my little doodles... I love the fact that I have control. And I happen to love the fact that I'm getting these wonderful artists. So it makes me very happy."

The one medium Gaiman has left to master, it seems, is film. Although, with several movie projects based on his works currently in development, that conquest may not be far off. Filmmakers as diverse as Terry Gilliam, Henry Selick and Harvey Weinstein have lined up to option Gaiman's work, while he himself is currently working on several scripts, including one based on his comic miniseries DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING and an adaptation of THE FIRMATA by Nicholas Baker. So is it difficult to move back and forth from one means of storytelling to another? Not for the prolific Gaiman, who thrives on change and diversity.

"I love the fact that I don't have to do one thing forever," he says. "I can just keep going, moving. Keep telling stories. Keep making stuff up. Keep learning. That for me is the magic."