The Deal with Neil

One of the biggest comics-related announcements to come out of Comic-Con was Neil Gaiman writing a manga for TOKYOPOP that would expand upon “MirrorMask,” the upcoming Jim Henson Co. movie written by Gaiman and directed by his frequent comics collaborator Dave McKean.

Gaiman is best-known for his long relationship with DC Comics, which published Gaiman’s seminal series “The Sandman” and several of his graphic novels, including collaborations with McKean such as “Mr. Punch.” While he’s done work for other comics houses, most notably the recent “1602” for Marvel, Gaiman also has become a popular novelist with “American Gods” and is current on a tour of Asia and Australia promoting his new novel, “Anansi Boys.” That this unexpected return to comics form comes at TOKYOPOP and in manga turned the heads of those paying attention to the comics biz.

Gaiman says there are many reasons why the manga project appealed to him, starting with learning TOKYOPOP was working on a deal to publish prequels for popular Henson Co. fantasy pics “Labyrinth” and “Dark Crystal” and having a lot of background material that would make for a good story. “I thought, well, ‘MirrorMask,’ was made by us for Henson, with a brief of can we do something like ‘Labyrinth’ or ‘Dark Crystal,’” Gaiman says. “There’s an awful lot of backstory, some of which gets delivered in the movie in rather large, hasty lumps. And I thought telling that story would be really fun and it would be nice if I did it rather than somebody deciding to do it in 20 years time.”

The manga format also solved some problems Gaiman thought would crop up if he and McKean had done a graphic novel version of the film that was more like their previous work. “Dave doesn’t have time to do a graphic novel and if you hired someone to do a graphic novel trying to make it look the movie, which would would make it look like they’re trying to rip Dave off, visually it would be really weird because you’d get somebody imitating Dave McKean,” he says. “In addition to which, people would assume wrongly that the graphic novel came first and the film was an adaptation of that, and we wanted the film to be the thing that the attention was on.” 

The conventions of manga, however, eliminate those expectations and put the focus where Gaiman says it belongs. “We can emulate content — obviously there will be fish flying through the air and people with strange masks and so on and so forth — but you’re not going to try to make it look like Dave McKean, and it would be perceived accurately as what it is, which is part of a line of really cool Henson prequels.”

Gaiman says he’s fascinated by the audience for manga and the fact that it’s large, young and female. “What I love most about manga is they’re giving girls stories they want to read and they’re reading comics,” he says. “And also it’s the audience for ‘MirrorMask,’ which I think is more interesting and more important.

Gaiman will be collaborating on the series with another writer, providing plots and then getting as involved as he can beyond that. The other writer has been chosen, Gaiman says, but until the ink dries on the deal he can’t reveal who she is.

As for whether McKean will ever contribute to the series, as he did with covers for “Sandman,” is unknown at this point. “It’s a weird kind of balancing act because there’s a level on which you really really want this to be manga, and to look and taste and feel and smell like honest to goodness manga,” Gaiman says. “And I don’t want it looking, feeling, tasting and smelling like something else. I think it’s important that it really is manga.”