Neverwhere #1 Review

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Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: Neverwhere: Chapter One

Writer: Mike Carey
Art/Cover: Glenn Fabry
Letters: Todd Klein
Colors: Tanya & Richard Horie
Consultant & Based on a novel by: Neil Gaiman
Editor: Jonathan Vankin
Publisher: DC/Vertigo

I’m a Gaimanophile. I have the trades. I have the novels. I have so many of the stupid little statues and bits of fluff that I really should be embarrassed to be a man. I really should be an adorable goth girl with no understanding that these books are deeper than my succulent little vinyl pants.

Oh, to be a goth girl… wait.. that’s not my point…

My point is that for as much as I’m a huge fan of Gaiman, and think he is probably one of the greatest writers of non-standard comics – I never read/watched Neverwhere.

I have the BBC show on VCD… I probably have the book in a pile that resides beneath laundry – it’s there, just not ingested. I’m sure this comic will bring me around, but I have heard questionable things about this story. The BBC show is badly acted – the book is much lighter than his later fair, and when compared to something like American Gods is almost HARD to get through. If these opinions are wrong, I’ll learn.

Either way, it allows me to read the comic without having expectations.

STORY!

Richard Mayhew is a weakling. A mental midget. He deserves no pity from you people, as he is just an invertebrate living the life of the weak. On his way to a corporate dinner, he runs across a girl unconcious in the middle of the street. He tells his girlfriend to go blow, and he saves Door from sleeping in the middle of the street, and probably her life in the process.

Slowly the magical players of this contemporary fantasy tale make their appearances. Door, of course, who can speak with animals and needs Richard’s help. Mr. Vandemar and Mr. Croup, two thuggish men who eat the hearts of the dead and are hunting Door. Finally, the Marquis De Carabas, who in exchange for a treasure of Door’s has promised to give her safe passage from her troubles.

How do all of these characters fit together? We won’t know for awhile, as that is the way Gaiman’s stories work. We do know that by the end, we have passed the first Gate Guardian, and we are moving into a world beneath London that few know about.

We pass the wall of darkness – and there lies another world that looks very much like the world we just left… we won’t know what’s different until the next issue.

The only thing I can’t comment on is how the translation from show to book to comic this is, as it isn’t written by Gaiman at all, but Mike Carey who is no slouch having turned Gaiman’s creation of Lucifer into a Vertigo staple. In Neverwhere he makes us sink easily into this version of London, and following the horribly self-concious steps of Richard Mayhew… I have faith his journey will be as true as Gaiman ever wanted them to be.

ART!

Todd Klein is a comic artist. Easy, no? He is quite honestly one of the faces that appears in your mind when you hear about a Vertigo title given his long work on Preacher, Hellblazer, Sandman, and darker titles from Marvel such as Deadline and Daredevil. The man is everywhere that a story needs to have an edge.

His faces are picture perfect, and his ability to handle graphic depictions of violence without seeming extreme are great. Yeah, I like Todd Klein.

OVERALL!

I know I speak highly of Gaiman, Carey, and Klein in this review – and they deserve it, but there is something that is retread in Neverwhere. Man ejected and put into a new world, a classic story staple, and one of the standard stories told. This is obviously a fleshed out version of a standard ‘heroes journey’, and the only thing that ties you to it is to find out what all the mumbo jumbo is about.

So… good, yes. New, not at all. I do expect the twists to pull it away from that opinion as the story goes on though.