The UK’s own Titan have secured the world-wide rights for the Stardust Visual Companion, which will accompany next year’s movie, based on the illustrated fairy tale for adults written by Neil Gaiman, with luscious artwork from Charles Vess. World Fantasy Award winner Stephen Jones (a name quite familiar to fans of the fantastical genres) is writing the Visual Companion, which will include the complete film script (written by Jane Goodman, another name familiar to fans of cult shows and also a friend of Neil’s), production artwork, previously unseen photographs and interviews with the cast and crew (and quite a cast it is too, from Sienna Miller and Charlie Cox to Hollywood heavyweight talent like Michelle Pfieffer and Robert De Niro).
Neil has posted regular updates on the movie’s progress on his online journal and it looks like he and Charles have been well pleased with what they have seen on the sets and the locations (largely in Iceland and Scotland) so it bodes well for fanboys like myself. DC is publishing a fetching new edition of Stardust early in the New Year, which I would highly recommend to anyone who missed it first time around. It isn’t really a graphic novel, more a prose novel with one-page illustrations spread throughout, much as you would find in a book of fairy tales. It is actually a (deceptively) simple tale by Neil’s normal standards, not as deeply layered as he often does; I recall at an author event for the novel someone asked Neil why this was so and he replied that he wanted to read a straight fairy tale for adults and finding nothing to hand he decided to write the tale he wanted to read himself. Although it may lack the many levels of the sophisticated Sandman tales or American Gods, Stardust is still a delightfully enchanting tale and the sound of Titan’s Visual Companion and the new edition from DC, combined with what Neil has posted on his blog has got me all fired up to see the film. On a related topic, Neil posted a link to Star Trek’s Whil Wheaton’s blog, where he explains the ruelty of teen geek-fans and how he discovered the Sandman.
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