Creatures of the Night

Graphic novelization of two Neil Gaiman short stories about animals. Pretty art! ( )

A very quick, but great read!
'The Daughter of Owls' was a nice story, more like a traditional fairy tale. But the one that I liked best was 'The Price'. I liked it because of the open ending. Not knowing what is going to happen afterwards can be irritating, but it suited the story here. I also liked it because we used to have cats, and somehow it is always the black ones that end up fighting a lot. I wonder what our Beurnie had to fight ... ( )

Warning: May contain spoilers...

Creatures of the Night has two stories, “The Price” and “The Daughter of Owls”. I wonder if these stories have also appeared in short story anthologies? One can never be sure with Gaiman; I know that many of his books, from Neverwhere to Coraline have appeared as both novel and comic book, so it would not be the least bit surprising if these tales come in both forms, too.

In “The Price”, an unnamed author takes in stray cats at his country home. One cat in particular, a midnight-colored creature called only the Black Cat, showed up about a month ago. As the days go by, the author notices that this cat is fighting something, because it's covered in injuries. He resolves to watch one night with a pair of night-vision binoculars, and he's shocked to see that the adversary of the Black Cat is none other than the Devil itself...
This story bothered me, a little bit, because it is so very short and is utterly lacking in resolution. The cat fights the Devil, and it appears the Devil is winning because the cat's taking more and more damage every day, and...? And?? C'mon, the story's not done. I want to know what happens next!!!

“The Daughter of Owls” is a folk tale, supposedly written down in an exchange between two Victorian gentleman called Wyld and Aubrey. (Named for Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, I presume.) The narrative, supposedly an old story passed orally between many tellers, involves a foundling child who was left on the steps of a church in post-Reformation England. The only identifier on the babe was a small owl pellet, for which the villagers ostracized her. She grew up locked behind the high walls of an abandoned convent, so isolated that she never even learned to speak. Unfortunately for the poor creature, she was beautiful, and the men of the town decide to pay her a visit and find out just how far you can go with a lovely, voiceless young maiden.
I liked this short story more than the first. It was a very traditional sort of fairy tale, but with an especially dark and twisted ending. The painterly style with which the panels were colored used a very dusky, twilight color scheme that matched the tone of the story perfectly. ( )

Two short stories told in graphic novel format. The first one, "The Price," about cats, was intriguing. The second, "The Daughter of Owls" wasn't much of a story. It's worth checking out if you're a Gaiman fan, but I recommend you borrow it instead of buying it. ( )

Gaimen's book, as illustrated by Michael Zulli, was composed of two short stories: The Price and The Daughter of Owls.

In the first, a slinky black cat adopts itself to the home of a writer and his family. Night after night, the cat turns up battered, bloody, and near death. The man thinks it is a typical predator or even another cat and so sits one night to watch. What he discovers staring through his window with a pair of night vision goggles is something distinctly NOT a typical predator. It is the battle between the most classic evil vs. the most classic good. Angels vs Devils.

Daughter of Owls touches upon the same sort of shapeshifter idea as the first but this one takes place in a setting many many years earlier. An infant shows up on the steps of a local Church in the town of Dymton and the women in the town immediately condemn her, saying she is the daughter of owls and should be burned at the steak. The local priest, however, merely sends her to a convent where she lives on her own with a crabby old woman who wants nothing to do with her. Nevertheless, the girl grows into a lovely young woman (aren't all good stories that way?) and word of her loveliness spreads to the town. Being a village of suspicious women and apparently evil men, the gentlemen lie to their wives, claiming a hunting trip, and go to pay the girl a decidedly ungentlemanly visit. Her payback is their folly and the only thing found of these dastardly men are some watch bits and buttons and the girl is never seen again.

Having both good stories, and lovely illustrations, I surprisingly didn't love this book that much. The stories were typical Gaimen and good in their own right. And Zulli's illustrations are lovely and intricate. And yet... they don't seem to mesh for me. I would have preferred simpler illustrations for Gaimen's work. And I would have much rather seen Zulli's work in a book of fairy tales. But what do I know? This was my first ever graphic novel. ( )