By Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 1-84023-521-7
Adapted from a radio play script, this is an intriguing, if slow, introspective parable. A British guy in Los Angeles, reeling from culture shock, meets a bum who tells him a story. As the bum speaks the man is mesmerised by the eerie echoes of his own existence. The bum is actually an ex-angel and recounts a tale of the Silver City…
After God created the Angels, but before he made us or the world, the sexless winged paragons – each with their own appointed role – were still finishing up the details of Creation. The bum was once Raguel: The Vengeance of the Lord, and he spent his life waiting. Eventually Lucifer came to him. A new thing had happened, something unique. An Angel had been killed. Deliberately.
This engrossing tale-within-a-tale, a murder-mystery, detective tale and supernatural fantasy, has a languid lyrical quality devoid of tension or drama, but nonetheless is an engrossing diversion, technically perfect, gently compelling. The clean, lovely art by P. Craig Russell is some of the best he has ever created.
If you can appreciate beauty for its own sake and suspend your need for drama and angst, this is a fascinating example of the power of style over content.
Text © 2002 Neil Gaiman.
Adaptation & illustrations © 2002 P. Craig Russell All Rights Reserved.