Neverwhere: 4 Reviews

Where to begin. Ok, so have you ever read a great book and then found it was also made into a TV mini-series? Then later learned it was turned into a comic book? No, well I did with Neil Gaiman’s Neverwehere.

Considered a legend in the comic world, Gaiman is one of those writers who is easily liked because his work is both unique and entertaining. He has this uncanny ability to easily blend fantasy into reality in a way that almost seems like it could actually happen - no matter how strange his stories may seem. This is definitely the case with Neverwhere. I would go into describing the plot for you, but I’ll just post this explanation from Wiki instead…

Richard Mayhew, a Scot living in London, encounters an injured girl named Door on the street one night. Despite his fiancée's protests he decides to help her, but that unfortunately also means that he suddenly ceases to exist for regular people and becomes real only to the denizens of 'London Below', whose inhabitants are generally invisible and non-existent to the people of 'London Above'. He loses his house, his job and nearly his mind as he travels London Below in an attempt to make sense out of it all, find a way back, and helps Door survive as she is hunted down by hired assassins.

Got all that? After finishing the novel I searched around online for more info and found out that it was adapted into a TV mini-series and later into a comic book.

My initial thought was, “How much of the book are they going to cut out and make up for the mini-series?” (Something I really hate. Especially when the source material is so good.) I was surprised to find out just the opposite. Gaiman originally wrote the story for TV and later developed it into a novel. The comic came along later probably because of Gaiman’s ties to comic community. Anyway, after having really enjoyed the novel I decided to check out the mini-series.

Unlike most movies/TV shows that are developed from books Neverwhere the mini-series is very faithful to the original material – a little too faithful. Even though it follows the text exactly (word for word in fact) I felt it lacked the heart & personality that came across to me in the novel. It’s a hit or miss with these things I guess. I found myself really bored with the TV series and wishing the episodes would just hurry up and end so I could get the whole thing over with. It didn’t help that the production for the show was really low budget and now looks very dated – it has this bad 90’s music video vibe to it. After the second episode I didn’t see how it could improve, but finished it anyway because I enjoyed the book so much. I honestly feel that if I hadn’t read the book then I would probably have stopped watching the TV series after its second episode, but I’m a Neil Gaiman fan and felt it my duty to honor his work with my attention.

The comic book is another story. Seeing as how they’re almost the same medium, the comic runs pretty closel to the novel, but adds a few twists to the story and takes different paths with the order of how it’s told - something I didn’t mind and actually felt right to me. It was a good read and visually the artwork is pretty solid, but it still didn’t stick with me like the novel did. Of course, this is why books are so appealing in the first place. They allow you (the reader) to be a sort of all-in-one set designer, casting agent, and sound engineer to the movie that plays in your mind.

The interesting thing with all of this is how the characters were visually represented each time I went through the story. I mean of course you can’t argue with how something looks in a film or comic book, but with a book you’re the one in charge. You get to decide how the characters and environment should look. So as I went through Neverwhere for the third time I began to realize just how differently people perceive the same thing. Take a look at the four main characters for an example of this.

Richard

Ok, not bad. Pretty similar, mildly different. Acceptable. Let’s see the next characther...


Door

Here's where things start to get different. The TV version looks like my sister circa 1989 and the comic book version looks like some kind of Goth reject. She’s described as being pixie-like. To me, Kristen Bell has that going for her naturally. Why paint her face up or give her huge bangs? (Then again, there’s always an image of K. Bell stuck in head so I’m kind of biased.) Whatever I’ll go with it. Now check this out...


Hunter

What? In the TV show she looks like a dude! At least my version makes her out to be woman. Finally, the comic book version... I don’t know. You’re guess is as good as mine. Now onto the biggest WTF...


The Marquis de Cabras

Is that Theo from The Cobsy Show? I always wondered what happened to him. My version isn’t all that cool, but the comic book took it a step further and literally made him black.


Overall Review: Read the book, check out the comic if you want, but skip the mini-series.