Product Description: One of the most celebrated writers in the history of comics teams up once again with one of the industry's most accomplished artists! For the first time in nine years, since the award-winning 50th issue of Sandman, Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell once again venture into the world of myth and angels. Constructing and maintaining all of heaven and earth is an immense task, which God has divided up amongst the various ranks and stations of angels. As with any such huge effort, there are bound to be casualties. This unique passion play sheds light on the hands behind creation, as well as one lonely man in Los Angeles who gets to hear the whole story of a most unspeakable crime: a murder in paradise! P. Craig Russell adapts Neil Gaiman's poignant short story with the subtlety and grace which earned him two Eisner Awards last year for his work on Dark Horse's Ring of the Nibelung series. The reunion of these two legendary comics creators is a guaranteed masterpiece.
Nice book. ^ Nice story by Gaiman, not a master piece but close enought.
Kept me hooked to the book until the end (not too hard since the book is short).
Nice idea of a murder in heaven, even more interesting the ending; not that surprising though, but still a good reading.
Short but rich - marvelous story! ^ This is a short graphic novel, so I finished it in less than an hour. However, the story is a wondrous tale of a murder in Paradise and Raguel, the angel made to be the Lord's vengeance, is awoken to find the murderer. It involves the construction of the Universe by various angels and Raguel meeting them and Lucifer. Contrary to what people might expect, Lucifer *didn't* commit this murder.
It's wonderfully drawn and written, and told by an old man. A Brit stuck in L.A. from an unexpected stop over visits an old friend of his, then goes for a walk and offers two cigarettes and a matchbook for an old man. When he won't take money, the old man offers this tale as his payment, a tale of *his* past.
It's really short, but so rich. I kind of wished it was longer, just so I had more to read and get absorbed in, but at the same time I wouldn't want it to peter out and kind of lose its greatness.
I definitely recommend this book to Neil Gaiman fans and people who have an open mind about God and his plans.
A mystery not solved, but resolved ^ Two of the best things that can happen to a comic are to have Gaiman write it and Russell illustrate it. The combination emerges as a wonderful, haunting story. It imagines Lucifer's fall from heaven - a baffling rebellion, unless some specific needs to be rebelled against. And, with an all-powerful god, even Lucifer's rejection of heaven must itself have been divinely ordained. This story posits wholly sufficient reason, a real theological thorn that irritates many mere mortals, and a Macchiavellian orchestration of Lucifer's departure.
This isn't bible-thumping, though. It's story-telling, the kind where elegant images set off a thoughtful, thought-provoking myth. Along the way, it reminds us that the age of myths isn't over. Our own age needs to understand itself through fiction as much as any other ever did, and Gaiman and Russell contribute to that understanding.
-- wiredweird
Even better than Neil Gaiman's original short story! ^ It's hard to improve on something as good as the original Neil Gaiman short story this graphic novel is based upon, yet Russell does it. An amazing work, one of the best graphic novels of the decade. Easily!
Love and death and guilt and debts owed . . . ^ Well, the artwork in this graphic novel isn't much, but you can depend on Gaiman for a first-rate, thoughtful, intriguing story. The narrator (presumably Gaiman) was in Los Angeles a decade ago, still young, less innocent than now, when he got together very briefly with a woman named Tinkerbell whom he had met in London. After they part, he meets an old man, a semi-bum, on the street who cadges a smoke and pays him back by telling a story, . . . about the Creation and angels and the murder of one of them, and the investigation into the case by Raguel (who is the old man, of course). But it's not as simple as that. If God made everything and controls everything, then He was ultimately responsible for the victim's death, right? And why? The recursive nature of the story is fascinating and the ending is just vague enough to make you rethink the first part of the story. A terrific piece of work. (10/18/05)
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