Bigger Than Angelina Jolie

Dana Goodyear profiles writer Neil Gaiman, the author of Coraline:

Gaiman’s books are genre pieces that refuse to remain true to their genres, and his audience is broader than any purist’s: he defines his readership as “bipeds.” His mode is syncretic, with sources ranging from English folktales to glam rock and the Midrash, and enchantment is his major theme: life as we know it, only prone to visitations by Norse gods, trolls, Arthurian knights, and kindergarten-age zombies.

“Neil’s writing is kind of fey in the best sense of the word,” the comic-book writer Alan Moore told me. “His best effects come out of people or characters or situations in the real world being starkly juxtaposed with this misty fantasy world.” The model for Gaiman’s eclecticism is G. K. Chesterton; his work, Gaiman says, “left me with an idea of London as this wonderful, mythical, magical place, which became the way I saw the world.” Chesterton’s career also serves as a warning. “He would have been a better writer if he’d written less,” Gaiman says. “There’s always that fear of writing too much if you’re a reasonably facile writer, and I’m a reasonably facile writer.”

From later in the article:

Comics, science fiction, and fantasy conventions are nowadays something of a hardship for Gaiman“like being a maggoty log at a woodpecker convention,” he says. A few years ago, he was at a convention with Angelina Jolie, who played Grendel’s mother in the movie “Beowulf,” for which Gaiman co-wrote the screenplay. “When I try to explain that I attracted more attention than she did, people say, ‘Oh, ho, he’s being funny.’ I’m not.”