Customer Reviews

Hanging Out With the Dream King: Interviews with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
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For anyone who has ever peeked into Neil Gaiman's quirky, funny, deeply philosophical and richly imagined worlds, this book has incredible insights into the ways in which he thinks, creates, works and interacts with the many writers, artists, editors and others who have helped advance his vision. McCabe gives us one side of the coin with bookend interviews with Gaiman himself. The meat of the collection, however, is a series of conversations with the editors, pencilers, inkers and other creative forces that helped bring Sandman from obscurity to the level of cult icon, as well as other collaborators who have helped define and develop Gaiman's body of work. Sometimes, they talk about Gaiman -- what it's like to work with him, to shape vague ideas into full-blown graphic novels, to stay at his house and drink with him down at the pub -- and sometimes they discuss their own creative processes and the thoughts that go into their work.

I'm sure Gaiman would agree the best way to know him is to read from the vast library he has created: novels, short stories, comics, scripts, poetry and song lyrics, one and all. But to dig a little deeper and know Neil Gaiman as others see him, Hanging Out with the Dream King provides an unusual degree of insight into the mechanics of one man's creative mind.

Great book, although more geared to fans. full of inside stories by the people who actually had a hand in creating all the beautiful characters of the endless series.

I wanted to know more about Neil so I ordered this book; it was a pleasant surprise to find that it wasn't only a book about him but features all the artists and other people he had worked with I knew from the comicbooks I have from him.

Although this is a wonderful book, I can't help but put it away after about 10 minutes because of the smell. Am I the only one who has noticed the unusual smell of the print in this book? To be sure that I wasn't imagining things, I had my wife smell the book, and she too found it to be unpleasant. As a matter of fact, after handling it for a while, we both had to rinse our palates because of an unusual taste we had begun to experience. Did the publishers use an different type of inking process or glue for the binding? I look forward to hearing from anyone else who is experiencing this phenomenon.