Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century: Essays on the Novels, Children's Stories, Online Writings, Comics and Other Works

273 Pages·2015·9.782 MB·English

by  Prescott, Tara (Editor)

Neil Gaiman in the
21st Century
ALSOOFINTEREST
Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman:
Essays on the Comics, Poetry and Prose,
edited by Tara Prescott and Aaron Drucker (McFarland, 2012)
Neil Gaiman in the
21st Century
Essays on the Novels, Children’s
Stories, Online Writings,
Comics and Other Works
Edited by
Tara Prescott
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Neil Gaiman in the 21st century : essays on the novels,
children’s stories, online writings, comics and other works /
edited by Tara Prescott.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-9477-4 (softcover : acid free paper) ♾
ISBN 978-1-4766-1994-1 (ebook)
1. Gaiman, Neil—Criticism and interpretation. I. Prescott,
Tara, 1976– editor.
PR6057.A319Z785 2015
823'.914—dc23 2015001172
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2015 Tara Prescott. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: Neil Gaiman at the 2007 Scream Awards in
Los Angeles (Photograph by Pinguino Kolb)
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For Sheila Jayne and Gary Michael,
Fortunately, the Parents
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
American Gods
(2001)
The American Odyssey Jenn Anya Prosser 9
The Anxiety of Disappearance Michael B. Key 19
The Wolves in the Walls Blueberry Girl
(2003) and (2009)
Towards a Feminist Reading of Gaiman’s Picture Books
Renata Lucena Dalmaso 29
Anansi Boys
(2005)
“The old man was gone”: The Problematic Unity of Tricksters,
Gods and Fathers in Anansi Boys and American Gods
Laura-Marie von Czarnowsky 39
“You heard her, you ain’t blind”: The “Haunting” Presence
of Their Eyes Were Watching God Danielle Russell 52
The Graveyard Book
(2008)
The Jungle, the Graveyard and the Feral Child: Imitating and
Transforming Kipling Beyond Pastiche Jennifer McStotts 65
Wisdom, Strength and Courtesy: G raveyard-F avor Go with Thee
Margaret Seyford Hrezo 83
“Nightmare in Silver” (2013)
“We’ve upgraded ourselves”: Gaiman’s Resurrection of the
Cybermen Emily Capettini 97
vii
viii Table of Contents
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
(2013)
What Neil Gaiman Teaches Us About Survival: Making Good
Art and Diving into the Ocean Monica Miller 113
Remembering the Dead: Narratives of Childhood
Rebecca Long 123
Augustinian Memory and Place Andrew Eichel 137
Not at Home: Examining the Uncanny Yaeri Kim 152
“The essence of grandmotherliness”: Ideal Motherhood and
Threatening Female Sexuality Courtney M. Landis 164
A Calendar of Tales
(2013)
Remixing Time and Space Merideth Garcia 179
Sandman: Overture
(2014)
Aperture for a Storyteller: An Interview with JH Williams III
John Bultena 195
Warming Up the Strings Tara Prescott 216
Issue #1 Through a New Reader’s Eyes Nadia Eshraghi 232
Listening to the Endless: Music and Musicians in the Extended
Sandman Universe Tom Zlabinger 238
Beginnings and E ndless-i ngs Judd Winick 252
About the Contributors 255
Index 259
Acknowledgments
I recently met a struggling artist who was driving for Uber in his spare
time to help make ends meet. I asked him if he had ever read Neil Gaiman’s
“Make Good Art” speech, and when he said he had not, I began to read it
aloud to him. “That describes my life,” he said simply. For those of us who
love Gaiman’s work, who feel he describes us, and who struggle to keep up
with where he’s going and what he’s doing next, this book is for you.
I want to thank my contributors, who wrote assiduously through vaca-
tions and divorces and moves and graduations and births (congratulations,
Tom Zlabinger). “Life is sometimes hard,” as Gaiman says in “Make Good
Art.” “Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship
and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things
get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.” The contributors in
this collection each devoted their energies and minds towards a small slice of
Gaiman’s recent oeuvre, and they all did it as a labor of literary love. They
also made good art in the process.
Writing, editing, and making art are all endeavors that I love—but I could
not have finished this book without a lot of support as well. I would like to
thank Seth Anderson and Aaron Drucker, who both helped me refine ideas
and acted as the behind-t he-s cenes barbers who cut the barber’s hair. I would
also like to thank Samuel Bird, a Microsoft Word wrangler I met via Task Rab-
bit (my forays into the newly emerging online sharing economy seem appropri -
ate for writing about an author who so heartily embraces online communities).
Special thanks to the photographer Amy Dunton, who spent six hours with
me one day on the UCLA campus, lighting my visual work (and my person)
to create some of the incredible images you will see here. The incomparable
Catharine McGraw and Yulduz Ismatullaeva moved heaven and earth (or at
least many, many boxes of books and kitchen supplies) in order to help me
settle into my new home during the final stages of editing this collection. I
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