Product Description

Before The Sandman, there was Violent Cases, the first teaming of multi award-winning writer Neil Gaiman and innovative artist Dave McKean. A sensitive and ingenious work, Violent Cases reveals the often murky nexus between memory and imagination through the narrator's cloudy childhood remembrance of a visit to Al Capone's osteopath -- and the impact of his seedy stories on a impressionable youth. Now Violent Cases is available with a stunning new cover by McKean and revised interior colour to accurately reflect the artist's vision. Contains adult themes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45745 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-29
• Format: Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Customer Reviews

Impressive imagery
I stumbled upon Gaiman's earlier work through his novel "Coraline", which I really liked. But wow, this book really blew my mind and stuck with me.

It starts as an account by someone who recalls early childhood memories: birthday parties, his father, a doctor visit... But, just like memories, once you think about them, it all becomes blurred, fragmented, distorted, and yet some details are very clear. Dave McKean draws this brilliantly. His imagery for this tale fits the meaning perfectly.

Read it slowly, take it in, the colours, the words, the atmosphere... and beware of the last page.

What do Gangsters do?
This is the first time Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean worked together - and looking back at the story now (and please remember it was initially released in 1987 and the 10th Anniversary Editon is now several years old) you can see the genisis of something very special starting to germinate.

McKean's artwork is instantly recognisable, the use of colour is very muted, which mimics the black and white film making of the time some of the story is set in (the 30s in Chicago). Gaiman's use of story in comics hasn't quite become what we know from Sandman, but a youthful Gaiman finding his feet in the comic writing world is still a match for most.

As to the story it is really quite strange - a young man, looking just like Neil Gaiman, looks back at some half remembered moments in his past. The major moment in his life being an accident (or was it an accident?) in which his father twists his shoulder out of joint and he then gets taken to see a chiropracter who treated Al Capone. We get to see childs parties, gangsters, magicians and the 30s as they surely never were.

All in all it's a good book and I give it 8/10.

A curio
Well, I don't know much about literary landmarks, I only bought it because it had Gaiman's name on it, but this _felt_ important. It reads like a conversation at a dinner party, ethralling upon the first read, but then the moment passes. The art is fantistic, subtley mixing many genres - you wouldn't be able to tell that some of the pages came from the same book if you saw them separately. 'Sophisticated' is the word that I'd choose to describe this tale.