Review: “Neverwhere” 15th Anniversary Edition
Imagine the BBC fifteen years ago, before the current explosion of science fiction and fantasy fare. It was a dowdy set of channels, working on the cheap, and not being necessarily accommodating to the needs of its shows. Instead, they often said we have a hole for X, please take your concept and make it fit.
While their schedules were not entirely devoid of genre fare, it came few and far between with offerings like [[[Neverwhere]]], which aired on BBC Two and was written by Neil Gaiman, in the flush of his success in America with Sandman. He met with producer Lenny Henry during England’s annual Comic Relief event and they began talking about a story. Lenny imagined a society below London and that was enough of a spark to get Gaiman going.
He conjured up a fully realized fantasy world and used the character of Richard Mayhew, a thoroughly typical citizen, who does a good deed and is rewarded with being plunged into this realm. The story of Neverwhere has been told and retold, first as a BBC miniseries, complete with 1996 novelization by Gaiman, and then, years later, a comic book adaptation from Vertigo. There’s been a steady stream of talk of a film version but it remains trapped in a realm of its own called Development Hell.
The BBC at the time treated it like any of its other broadcasts, giving the fantasy a budget fit for a situation comedy and then insisting it be produced in thirty-minute installments coupled with the even odder demand that it be shot on video not film. The result was an unsatisfactory event that has left Gaiman and fans demanding a Redo.
Instead, the BBC is releasing a fifteenth anniversary DVD edition of the miniseries on Tuesday. They had a Region 2 edition around for some time now but this is a first official release in the States. (more…)
In the continuing saga of comic book writers appearing anywhere they can, author Neil Gaiman has been animated as part of the PBS series Arthur. Gaiman, whose illustrious career includes the acclaimed Sandman series and Marvel’s 1602, as well as the Newbery Award-winning The Graveyard Book and a number of picture books, is lending his proto-goth façade to the popular kids’ show. His episode is set to debut on October 25. Gaiman isn’t the first comic creator to get himself animated into a popular cartoon, however. We here at ComicMix enjoyed the Simpsons episode where Alan Moore, Daniel Clowes, and Art Spiegelman do a signing at the new Springfield comic shop, Coolsville, and later fly away (literally) as the League of Independent Comic Creators. We wanted to embed that clip here so you could relive it, but sadly Hulu skipped seasons 11–19 in their listings. 
Well, that went by quickly.
* Sandman, of course, is not to be confused in any way with 
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