Again, not a big fan of this one. I'm giving it 3 ( )

Gaiman's short stories turned to graphic versions. Effective, especially "Looking for the Girl" ( )

I got bored after the third story and didn’t feel like finishing the fourth one. I don’t know if it’s because they are provided in a comic book form or what, but I didn’t enjoy the stories much. The artwork was nice, though....
This is all COMPLETELY UNHEARD OF, where Neil GAIMAN is concerned... with me.
3 stars. ( )

Most people headed to the after-hours bar called the Diogenes to concentrate on the serious business of drinking, but some chose to talk and tell each other stories. Men who are on the fringes of society telling each other unexpected strange tales. And they are slightly strange too, there is a girl Charlotte who appears in a soft porn magazine and who never seems to age as a photographer follows her career with interest. There is a man who is neighbours with an old lady who needs to feed on raw meat and a man who has somehow acquired an embarrassing disease and finally there is the ghost story with the suitably creepy house.

Somehow Gaiman manages to take what looks like a normal situation and with some of his magic turns it into something that just isn't quite normal and it is the same with these four interlinked stories, Foreign Parts, Feeders and Eaters Looking for the Girl and Closing Time. The stories aren't that dark compared to some of Gaiman's that I have read, but they are reassuringly disturbing. It is very much an adult graphic novel too… I loved the art from Mark Buckingham, it lifts the book to another level. However, I would have liked to have seen nine panels per page for the stories rather than sixteen as it felt a little cramped. Definitely one for the NG aficionado, but if you have never read one of his graphic novels then you may just enjoy this as first. ( )

There are a couple of intriguing ideas floated in here, but the cramped 16-panel page grid Buckingham has chosen to employ makes for a lot of nearly static images that can barely be seen between captions or balloons consuming half or more of the available space. I should just spend more time reading Neil Gaiman's original prose works instead of these ho-hum graphic novel adaptations Dark Horse is releasing. ( )