Snow, Glass, Apples
Neil Gaiman, stories & words; Colleen Doran, adaptation & art
Dark Horse Books, 2019
Dark Horse has published a number of graphic adaptations of Neil Gaiman's short stories, featuring artists like John Bolton, P. Craig Russell, Michael Zulli, Rafael Albuquerque, Fabio Moon, and Gabriel Ba. This one has art by veteran comics artist Colleen Doran, who is also a longtime Gaiman collaborator (including notable issues in The Sandman arcs "Dream Country" and "A Game of You"). Doran credits the Irish illustrator Harry Clarke (an early influence, but one she could not indulge in her comics work until now) as the major visual reference here. He was influenced by the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, which also factor into the look of this story. The results are lush and fantastical. Most of the time it is more of an illustrated book than a comic, a sequence of images which evoke the text rather than tell the story on their own. Gaiman's story is an imaginative inversion of the Snow White fairy tale: here Snow White is the evil one, with the queen as victim (she understands in the end, but too late to save herself). Doran's art comes off as the perfect accompaniment: beautiful on its own, but also a partner in the story telling.
Replies
I bought this when it first came out last year.
"The results are lush and fantastical. Most of the time it is more of an illustrated book than a comic, a sequence of images which evoke the text rather than tell the story on their own."
Agreed.