Saturday, October 25, 2008

Illustration and Choices Thereof

A little bird tells me that Neil Gaiman's newest, The Graveyard Book, is being offered with your choice of illustrators in the UK. Dave McKean, who illustrated Coraline to deliciously creepifying effect, has the "adult" version and Chris Riddell the kids'. A quick Amazon check tells me that the US seems to be sticking to McKean for both.

I got a cover image (over to your right) of Riddell's work, enough to see that although it's not the angular creepiness of Dave McKean, it's not fluffy bunnies.

I read an ARC without any illustrations (sigh), but it was a great yarn nonetheless. Has anybody seen either or both of the versions? Can you weigh in?

ETA: Betsy Bird over at Fuse #8 has a much more thorough gathering of the various covers. Take a look!

1 comment:

Misrule said...

I really like Dave Mckean's work, but I have to tell you—you cannot beat Chris Riddell. I have always, always loved his illustrations, and the only problem with his work in The Graveyard Book is that there are not very many of them. I wanted to see Miss Lupescu and Mr and Mrs Owens and Nehemiah Trot. More importantly, I want Mr Riddell to shape my eyebrows! (He does great eyebrows, does CR.)