MirrorMask (children's edition)

It's Gaiman and McKean, so it's a gorgeous object, and it reads well, but after a strong opening set around Helena's father's slapdash circus, halted in its tracks by the illness of Helena's mother, leaving them stuck in her Nan's apartment in Brighton, it takes off into a surreal quest through a sort of dreamworld that feels sketchy and rushed, with characters, ideas and settings that are woefully underdeveloped and a story that feels like a particularly shallow paint-by-numbers fairy-tale, and you tend to wish you were back in the apartment with the stranded circus, which was much more interesting. Thematically, the whole thing feels like an early draft of Coraline. Possibly it all works better in the film?

MirrorMask is an Alice-in-Wonderland-style tale about a girl who works in her family circus and wishes to escape to real life. Instead, she dreams that she becomes part of the elaborate, nonsensical world she has drawn on her walls. There, she finds that her life has been taken over by another, and her only way of escape is bared by beautiful and grotesque figures like floating giants, rainbow-winged sphinxes with human faces, and a selfish juggler named Valentine.

In part, it’s a coming-of-age story, but sparkling or shadowed by the fantastical, twisted, and lovely incomprehensibility of a dark dream. It is also charming to adults and children alike because it is a picture book, in which the lines of words themselves grow or shrink, show more twist and entwine with the illustrations, or change colors from light to dark. Simple, unexpected – everything one who loves Neil Gaiman has come to appreciate about his work. show less

MirrorMask was my first work introduction to Neil Gaiman and has a very special place in my heart. It's one of my favorite movies and this book has plenty of original art by Dave McKean and screenshots from the movie as well. I was utterly captivated by this book and movie when I first encountered it in High school. The aesthetic and look is very dynamic and unique- there isn't really much else like it as it stands well on its own. The art, typography, and layout of the book all feel like some sort of art project and reminiscent of an artist cruising through their own sketchbook or journal. The story is compelling and at times nonsensical, but all the dark charm is there. Fans of surreal art and imaginative dream-like material will show more totally dig this book and movie.

Definitely give the movie a go after or before reading this book. Either way works! show less

Mirrormask is the story of Helena Campbell, a young girl who works at her family’s circus. After a fight with her mother, her mom collapses and has to be rushed to the hospital. On the night of her mother’s operation, Helena wakes up in a new world. A princess in this new world, who looks just like Helena, has used the Mirrormask to switch places with Helena – with dire results to both worlds. Now Helena has to go on a quest to find the Mirrormask herself in order to set everything right again and get back to her own world.

From a reader’s perspective, I did not enjoy this particular Neil Gaiman story as much as I did Coraline or Stardust. From a Graphic Designer’s perspective, it was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read show more since Lane Smith’s John, Paul, George & Ben. It was positively a delight! It looks like the designer had so much fun. How the font, the size and weight of the type, the baseline all are necessary parts of the telling of the story…

I love how the text is constrasted with each other – black text on a light background to describe the city of light, and the white text on black background for the land of shadows. Look at how oppressive the white on black is – which is exactly what the land of shadows is like. I love how this was continued in the book too. Once Helena and Valentine enter the land of shadows, everything is white text on the black background.

This was my favourite… how the spaces between each word doubles, and so the sentence seems to drag on. It displays perfectly what the sentence is saying. Love it.

I’m in the mood for rewatching the movie at some point now… show less

This is basically one long dream sequence. It had some nice imagery and cool characters, but ultimately it felt a lot like other dream-as-metaphor stories I've read: everything the girl does in the dream, no matter how bizarre, has some kind of impact on the real world. In short: decent but not my favorite Gaiman tale.

Finished reading my signed (!) copy of "MirrorMask" the movie tie-in. The story itself wasn't too terribly gripping compared to Gaiman's other works but I'm happy to have a chance to read it from Helena's point of view.

Imagine that you grew up in a family of circus performers, drifting from place to place, would you be contented with that life or would you crave normalcy at the other side of the fence?

Knowing that this is another great collaboration between Gaiman & McKean, expect spectacular visual presentation as well as movie stills.

Fave lines from the book:

"Let them. I want to run away and join Real Life."

"It's letting the apology change things. But an apology is where it has to begin."

This is supposedly the children's edition (I show more also have the film script version) but I personally think that this is better suited to the young adult level.

Book Details:

Title MirrorMask (Children's Edition)
Author Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean
Reviewed By Purplycookie show less

3.5 stars. STRANGE! I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan but this book is very odd and disjointed. It's intended to have a dreamlike quality and certainly does, but I'm not quite sure what I think of it.