2011-10-22
Neil Gaiman: A Man To Watch
If Neil Gaiman was three random words lumped together, say, office furniture london , you can bet that he'd be the most interesting and dreamlike office furniture you have ever seen. Think a table that grows arms and legs and has a thirst for blood, or a sofa which has a gaping mouth and eats children, spitting them out into another plane of reality entirely. These are the things which haunt the waking nightmares that Gaiman has installed in readers of books and comics for a long time, and to think, if it hadn't have been for an encounter with a certain guidance counsellor at the age of fifteen it might never have happened...
...it’s something that we ought to treasure, because it just won’t be the same when the man stops writing...
OK, so that’s probably not true – somehow it would have to have happened. Neil Gaiman’s work just isn’t the kind of imagery that one can keep inside their head, and nor should they. The inspiration for countless movies and TV dramas, Gaiman’s rich take on fantasy and horror has reared its head in both children’s'and adult’s fiction.
At fifteen years of age, when speaking to a guidance counsellor about his move into the real world, he was advised to follow accountancy. Hardly surprising seeing that when he’d been asked what he wanted to do for the rest of his life he had blurted out that he wanted only to write American comic books. Yet over the years that is precisely what he has done, time and time again, bringing both joy and terror to a huge fan base in equal measure. A fan base that seemingly never gets tired of his work, and why should it? Nobody can deny that the man has made a firm imprint on contemporary fiction.
Of course, one particular book – a slim volume at just under 200 pages – has made Gaiman’s name more mainstream than he could have ever predicted: that of the bestselling novel Coraline. Concerning the perilous journey of a young and bored girl with nothing better to do than explore her new house, the book was made into a wonderful film which spawned a similarly creepy style as in the book’s illustrations which kept many children and adults awake at night.
The really captivating thing about Gaiman’s work, though, has to be his ability to appeal to both children and teenagers, as well as young and older adults. All his work seems to possess this timeless quality, and it’s something that we ought to treasure, because it just won’t be the same when the man stops writing his fiction.
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