The Facts In The Case Of The Departure Of Miss Finch (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Michael Zulli (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gaiman reenlists the remarkable artist who made Creatures of the Night (2004) so staggeringly beautiful. Here Michael Zulli visualizes a much better story from Smoke and Mirrors (1998), which was excluded from its American edition. In it, a fantasy writer much like Gaiman recalls a strange night in London. Prodded out by an old pal and his wife, he meets their biogeologist acquaintance, Miss Finch, at dinner and goes with them to an odd, animal-free circus performing in the cellars underneath the train tracks near Southwark Cathedral. The audience is ambulatory, passing from one chamber to another to see various ostensibly spooky acts; scientifically skeptical Miss Finch is not amused. In the next-to-last room, Miss Finch is pulled away, stoutly protesting, by a performer who says her most ardent wish will be granted in the ninth room. It is. In his characteristic crisp pen-and-ink and watercolor, Zulli has a field day with the garish, freakish, ultimately animal (after all) circus denizens, and he renders regular London interiors and exteriors as gorgeously fore and aft of the circus sequence. --Ray Olson

Product Description

Come, come and hear of the strange and terrible tale of Miss Finch, an exacting woman befallen by mystery and abduction deep under the streets of London! New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman delivers another stunning hardcover graphic novel with longtime collaborator Michael Zulli (Creatures of the Night, The Sandman). This is the first comics adaptation of his popular story "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch," which saw print only in the U.K. edition of Gaiman's award-winning work Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions and was recently interpreted for his Speaking in Tongues CD. The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch is a "mostly true story" that combines the author's trademark magic realism with Zulli's sumptuous paintings, and has been newly rewritten for this hardcover. Join a group of friends, with the stern Miss Finch in tow, as they enter musty caverns for a subterranean circus spectacle called "The Theatre of Night's Dreaming." Come inside, get out of the pounding rain, and witness this strange world of vampires, ringmasters, illusions and the Cabinet of Wishes Fulfill'd.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 56 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (October 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593076673
• ISBN-13: 978-1593076672
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 6.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,484 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars He shivered at the memory..., July 18, 2008

By	E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The world of Neil Gaiman looks pretty normal -- until you see the dark, eerie, bizarre things that swim just under the surface.

So expect nothing less from the primly-titled "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch," a graphic novel adaptation of Gaiman's short story. Michael Zulli's matter-of-fact artwork serves as a solid complement to Gaiman's eerie story of an ordinary, innocent outing for three friends and one biogeologist -- and the strange disappearance that came from it.

The narrator and his pals Jonathan and Jane are planning to go out for sushi and a circus, but are "lumbered" with a prissy, stuffy acquaintance named Miss Finch. While Miss Finch tortures the others with descriptions of the parasites in sushi, the little group arrives at the circus. But this is no child-friendly funfest -- instead they're taken into an underground labyrinth by a vampiress.

Devils, freaks, monsters and an Alice Cooper ringmaster are all down there, but the four visitors are very unimpressed. Then a strange apelike creature offers to give someone in the audience a wish, and pulls Miss Finch into the darkness. And when the remaining three friends venture into the next room, what they find is not what they expected of Miss Finch...

"The Facts In The Case Of The Departure Of Miss Finch" sounds like a Victorian-era mystery, perhaps something by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in which a spinster is kidnapped or murdered. In the hands of most authors, it wouldn't be much more than that, even if it were a fantasy story. But in the hands of Neil Gaiman, that story becomes something much more.

Instead this story dips down into a darker area, and gives readers a glimpse into a strange world that defies the everyday, where you're not sure what is illusion and what is supernatural. In fact, the Theatre of Night's Dreaming is the real star, as Gaiman devotes plenty of time to showing us the perverse, the weird, and the outright ghastly -- and the climactic encounter with Miss Finch ("which, as I have mentioned, was not her name") is a silent masterpiece of graceful intensity.

With, of course, tongue in cheek, such as the ringmaster's warnings ("... on pain of DOOM, bodily injury, and the loss of your immortal soul! Also I must stress that the use of flash photography or of any recording devices is strictly forbidden"), Miss Finch's ghastly fluke conversation, or the wry observations of the three writers.

Michael Zalli's artwork has graced other Gaiman works, such as "Sandman." So it's not surprising that his slightly faded, striking artwork is an excellent complement to Gaiman's detailed prose. And he's excellent at the subtle stuff, such as the close-ups of Miss Finch's face that show how pretty she is... right before a wide shot that makes her look like a frumpy spinster.

Despite its dull name, "The Facts In The Case Of The Departure Of Miss Finch" is an eerie little nugget brought to colorful life, and it's definitely one of Gaiman's more intriguing short stories.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!, September 12, 2009

By	Patricia O. Ferreira "fiction maven" (Mongagua,SP, Brazil) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Well, I don't know why, but Neil Gaiman always surprises me. I know he is a genius, and I love his work, and everytime I read something of his I am surprised by his witicism and inteligence. All I can say is that this book was no exception! I really loved it, an amazingly well told story of a woman who gets her wishes fulfilled in a most peculiar way. Really escellent and I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Neil Gaiman Classic, August 23, 2009

By	Roy Cowing (Springdale, AR United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been a fan of Mr. Gaiman's work for years and I love that he continues to provide me entertainment across the media spectrum in Prose Books, Film, TV shows, Illustrated Stories and of course, comics. While he has certainly branched out quite a bit since Sandman, he still shows us the love in the occasional comic gem. I first read The Facts In The Case Of The Departure Of Miss Finch in his Fragile Things collection of short stories. It was a great little story that was very fun to read. I really felt that it was a story told by a close friend over for dinner, who always spins a great yarn. (I have no pretenses that Mr. Gaiman knows me, or I him, from a hole in the wall (are there wolves in there??), but the writing really draws me in) When I saw that he and Michael Zulli were adapting this for Dark Horse, I was thrilled. His other adaptations with Craig P. Russell (Murder Mysteries and Coraline) are also not to be missed. The story really suits the small hardcover format Dark Horse has been beginning to use. Miss Finch was beautifully scripted and rendered by this duo and really is a delight to read. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! A+