Book Review: The Art of Neil Gaiman

Only now, after finishing reading it cover to cover, do I realize that this was a coffee table book. It's full of bright pictures and reproductions of Gaiman's nearly illegible scrawl. It goes through his productions, comics, stories, novels, movies, etc., about 3/4 of which I've experienced, and focuses on the one question you're never supposed to ask an author: "Where did you get the idea for this?" Well, that question gets answered once in a while, but with Gaiman the question is often more "How did you hook up with these people to collaborate with after you got the idea for this?" The book is a bit uneven, but I don't really care, I enjoyed finding out about Gaiman's life and artistic processes. I did feel like many things were left out, but that's the nature of this book -- the true place where the ideas come from would require a full biography. If and when that comes, I'll read it, but in the meanwhile, reading this was worthwhile, both to jog my memory of all the great things that Gaiman's done and to introduce me to some new things, especially, especially his "Writer's Prayer."