Required Reading: Neverwhere

I was introduced to Neil Gaiman years ago when I read American Gods and Anansi Boys, but it’s taken me awhile to get around to reading his other iconic novel: Neverwhere.

Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew, your average London office drone with an awful fiancé and boring life until he makes the choice to stop and offer aid to a young woman he finds injured in the street. The young woman is the Lady Door, and she comes from the magical world of London Below. Soon Richard finds himself unwillingly sucked into her world of places and people time forgot. There he joins Door on a journey to find out who killed her family, always one step ahead of sinister mercenaries sent to finish her off.

I actually started Neverwhere by reading the graphic novel version back in December. While it wasn’t my favorite graphic novel (not an art style I love), it was enough to pique my interest and convince me to pick up the full book. It was an interesting experience to read the book not so much for plot as for depth. In true Gaiman style, there is plenty of depth. The world of London Below is imaginative, surprising, and a delight to explore. It’s a mix of the magical and the truly creepy that was fun to spend time in.

The very idea that a city is full of places and people that have been forgotten is engaging. And it’s fun to see imaginative twists on how those worlds keep going without us. It’s also clear that Gaiman knows and loves London, and that gives the book charming depth that may have gone over my head. As someone who’s only been to London once as a child, I’m sure there were many jokes and references I didn’t get. I never felt lost in London Below though, unlike our poor protagonist.

Richard Mayhew isn’t the most exciting narrator. I can’t tell if he’s supposed to be a blank slate or something special. To me he was just another white boy we’re told is special for plot reasons. Fine. I’ll go with it. I also never got a clear picture of Lady Door. Was she childish or strong? A leader or lost? I know you can be both, but her character seemed unclear.

On the flip side, the novel is full of side characters that are crystal clear and likely to stick with you. The standout characters for me were Hunter, Mr. Croup, and Mr. Vandemar. Hunter is fascinating as the legendary fighter and bodyguard with an addiction to hunting. It can be hard to write stoic characters that don’t get boring or feel flat, but Hunter succeeds where others fail. The tireless and sadistic henchmen for hire Croup and Vandemar are deeply terrifying. Part of the magic of the story is that we never delve into their details, but these two appear eternal and love to cause pain. Their cold, formal, calculated brutality is chilling and fascinating. I expect they will stick with me long after hundreds of other characters have sunk like London Below into the bogs of memory.

2015 Year in Review: Classic Comic Books

The stated purpose of this blog was to teach myself about nerdy things I might not have encountered before, and comic books are a huge part of that for me. I wasn’t raised on comic books. I read my first graphic novel in college and really only started regularly reading comics in the last year and a half. I’ve become a big fan of several comic series that are currently running (more on that later this week) but I’ve also tried to go back and read some of the classics of the genre.

I’ve ranged around a bit. I read Red Son to get a little Superman in my life. I read Allison Bechdel’s beautiful Fun Home to see the depths of artistry that this genre is capable of. I’ve dabbled in Wonder Woman, Captain America, Batgirl, and Deadpool. I’ve tried some classic indie titles like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man. And there’s many more on my list to read next year.

But my favorite comic not published this year that I read this year was: Marvel 1602.

Marvel 1602 was the Neil Gaiman comic book I’ve always wanted. I tried Sandman and found it too graphic, too disturbing, too disjointed for me. I enjoyed Neverwhere, but found that it felt like a comic adaptation of a novel (which it is). I wanted more depth and felt like something was missing. But Marvel 1602 is the perfect compromise.

The premise is simple: take many of Marvel’s most iconic characters and drop them 400 years in the past in the year 1602. So we have Sir Nicholas Fury, spymaster to Queen Elizabeth. We have Matthew Murdoch, blind balladeer. The list goes on and on as the X Men, Fantastic Four, Stephen Strange, Black Widow, Peter Parker, Thor, and Captain America all play their parts.

The story ranges far and wide across the European continent, England, and the New World. It is a time of turmoil with Queen Elizabeth at the end of her life and succession not crystal clear. There is strange weather that might be fortelling the end of the world. The Spanish Inquisition is persecuting the strange “witchbreed” of mutants and sorcerers. And a long forgotten weapon is set to reappear. That’s a lot going on, and there are a lot of heroes to help it all happen.

The whole series is a delightful game as we get to speculate and see who shows up and in what form. It’s fun to think about how superhero powers would be perceived in a much more superstitious and much less scientifically-advanced age. The premise is exciting and the execution is clever, not to mention beautiful. The old-fashioned art by Andy Kubert is truly spectacular. Some of the surprises made me laugh out loud in shock and delight. This is the kind of creativity, artistry, and unusual storytelling I have loved in others of Neil Gaiman’s works. It was a joy to watch him unleash his talent and take a romp with characters as rich and beloved as the Marvel crew. If, like me, you weren’t aware this existed, I recommend checking it out.

 

Honorable mention: Y: The Last Man. Brian K. Vaughan is a talented storyteller with a sense of humor close to my own. His epic story about the disappearance of every male animal on earth except for a boy named Yorrick and his monkey Ampersand is a fascinating thought experiment loaded with ladies who kick butt. I found a few of the storylines problematic, but overall enjoyed the word play, geekery, and apocalyptic mayhem.