Rick Retro’s Realm, Project #3: 50 Dark Whimsy Favorites in 80 Days, 2005-2022, featuring four fantasy settings, and a fantastic follow-up for our finale.
W: S, Jim corroborates that Stardust was a book before Gaiman's graphic novel. He's a fan of Neil Gaiman's work. Speaking of which, for Dark Whimsy, the TV serial Neverwhere by Gaiman and the episode The Doctor's Wife in the Dr. Who series also fit the bill pretty well!
Rick Retro: You're both wrong. It was a "graphic novel" first.. But it stretched the definition of a graphic novel, thus the confusion.
Really it was a text story with more than a normal amount of illustrations, published by a comic book publisher (DC), first in 4 comic book issues, and then collected in hardback and trade paperback, so people called it a graphic novel, because everyone knows that's the only kind of novel DC publishes. 😉
To increase the confusion, Gaiman, who had the copyright to all the text then sold that to a traditional book publisher a year later and it was released as a novel without illustrations.
Rick Retro: The date is for the film. 4 comic books were published in 1997 and the collected 4 in graphic novel form were published in 1998. Then in 1999 it was published without the illustrations.
I wrote that paragraph poorly, creating confusion about the date. My bad. I'll correct it for posting on Substack.
I have the trade paperback... I never really considered it a graphic novel in the strict sense of the term.
I watched Neverwhere. Low production values, good, but not great. Probably Dark Whimsy, but Whimsy maybe on the low side.
Rick Retro: Bride and Prejudice is a UK/US/India/France co-production. I only credit one country per movie... Most significant one representing primary language of the film, so UK in this case. But it is considered to be a rare Bollywood-style English-language film.
Text Group Comment:
S: Hey Rick, looks like Stardust was a novel first. https://sonderbooks.com/Fiction/stardust.html I actually liked the movie better. But both are wonderful.
W: S, Jim corroborates that Stardust was a book before Gaiman's graphic novel. He's a fan of Neil Gaiman's work. Speaking of which, for Dark Whimsy, the TV serial Neverwhere by Gaiman and the episode The Doctor's Wife in the Dr. Who series also fit the bill pretty well!
Rick Retro: You're both wrong. It was a "graphic novel" first.. But it stretched the definition of a graphic novel, thus the confusion.
Really it was a text story with more than a normal amount of illustrations, published by a comic book publisher (DC), first in 4 comic book issues, and then collected in hardback and trade paperback, so people called it a graphic novel, because everyone knows that's the only kind of novel DC publishes. 😉
To increase the confusion, Gaiman, who had the copyright to all the text then sold that to a traditional book publisher a year later and it was released as a novel without illustrations.
S: Okay well then the date is wrong. My review says the novel was first published in 1999, before the date you listed for the graphic novel.
Rick Retro: The date is for the film. 4 comic books were published in 1997 and the collected 4 in graphic novel form were published in 1998. Then in 1999 it was published without the illustrations.
I wrote that paragraph poorly, creating confusion about the date. My bad. I'll correct it for posting on Substack.
I have the trade paperback... I never really considered it a graphic novel in the strict sense of the term.
I watched Neverwhere. Low production values, good, but not great. Probably Dark Whimsy, but Whimsy maybe on the low side.
Text Group Comment:
W: Was Bride and Predjudice Bollywood?
Rick Retro: Bride and Prejudice is a UK/US/India/France co-production. I only credit one country per movie... Most significant one representing primary language of the film, so UK in this case. But it is considered to be a rare Bollywood-style English-language film.