Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire

Neil Gaiman — 2017

A celebrated send-up of gothic literature, beautifully adapted into a dark, brooding, and oddly comical graphic novel. Somewhere in the night, a raven caws, an author's pen scratches, and thunder claps. The author wants to write fiction: stories about frail women in white nightgowns, mysterious bumps in the night, and the undead rising to collect old debts. But he keeps getting interrupted by the everyday annoyances of talking ravens, duels to the death, and his sinister butler. Shane Oakley beautifully illustrates New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman's satirical tale.

Reviews

Maggie Gordon@maggieg

Aug 13, 2022

Forbidden Brides is another one of Gaiman's short stories that has been turned into a graphic novel. Unfortunately, this was probably not the best one to turn into a graphic narrative. The story is about an author trying to write a "realistic" story, but the catch is that he lives in a fantastical world and just wants to write about an imaginary suburbia. In text, the reveal is much more drawn out, with readers second guessing themselves as to what is actually going on. Illustrations make the whole thing a bit too clear right off the bat. Also, while I was fond of the illustrations, they were also quite muddy and hard to make out at times. Definitely not the strongest of Gaiman's adaptations. Alas!