This cartoon, titled “Charles Schulz’s Sandman,” by a deviantart user who goes by the name DocShaner, was posted on Neil Gaiman’s site, http://www.neilgaiman.com/ not too long ago, and I couldn’t resist posting it here:

Charles Schulz's Sandman

Here we have Peanuts characters Linus and Lucy done up Sandman-style, Linus playing the part of Dream with Lucy standing in for Dream’s  older sister Death, re-enacting a particularly memorable  moment from the conclusion of the very first Sandman story arc (Preludes And Nocturnes).

I just finished reading Odd And The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman (with illustrations by Mark Buckingham), a couple of days ago. 

The short novel was written for World Book Day (a bit of a misnomer, really, since it’s exclusively a UK-Ireland thing as far as I’m aware). 

Authors author for free, and publishers publish for free, and little kids get to buy the books on the cheap for 1 Pound Book Tokens.

Promotes childhood literacy, you see.

Guys like me over here stateside shell out the additional 7 Pounds for shipping to the U.S. and get to enjoy Neil’s contribution to World Book Day for something like $16 USD, not exactly cheap given the current exchange rate.

It’s 97 pages long (that’s with illustrations, I might add) so it’s a quick read to be sure. The story centers on a boy named Odd who finds himself rather unexpectedly on a heroic quest to save Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, from the Frost Giants, thereby bringing an end to the neverending winter that has settled upon his village.

I enjoyed it.  I’m a big fan of Norse mythology, and Odd’s a terrific name for a protaganist, really.  To be perfectly honest though, I don’t think it’s Neil Gaiman’s best work, but that’s alright; it’s for a good cause, and guys like me aren’t exactly the intended audience anyway. 

Thankfully, there’s another Neil Gaiman book in the pipeline, The Graveyard Book, coming out this fall (September 30th to be exact) – rather appropriately, just a few short weeks before Halloween.

Looking forward to it.  I love the concept.  It’s like The Jungle Book, except instead of being brought up by animals, the hero is raised in a cemetary by a bunch of ghosts.  Interesting premise.  We’ll see if it works.

Hopefully, it’s at least as good as Coraline, my favorite of Neil’s short novels for (mostly) younger readers.

The cover’s rather nice as well, don’t you think?

It just seemed like the sort of movie I’d really enjoy. 

With an impressive cast of actors lending their voice talents to the film (Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, to name a few), Robert Zemeckis directing, and a script written by New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite authors) and Roger Avary (who co-wrote and won an Academy Award for Pulp Fiction), Beowulf seemed to me a sure-thing.

I watched the movie with a friend on opening night, and I have to say I came away slightly disappointed. 

The acting was solid, as I had expected.  Angelina Jolie’s “accent” was a bit distracting, silly sounding even, and that’s with a semi-nude CG Angelina Jolie slinking around onscreen, but that’s a minor gripe.  Crispin Glover is perfect as the voice of Grendel – the creature is truly demented, terrifying when angered, and almost pitiable in defeat.  Anthony Hopkins is, as always, very good as the aging King Hrothgar, and Ray Winstone does a mighty fine job as the boisterous, overconfident Beowulf.

In regards to the animation, it was odd at first watching CG characters behaving badly - drinking excessively, cussing, making lewd comments and what not.  Audience members, myself included, are accustomed to well-behaved CG humans like the ones found in Shrek and The Incredibles.  The effect is unintentionally comedic, especially in the opening minutes of the film, before the viewer has a chance to get properly settled in to the reality of the movie world.

The CG models used in the film are still nowhere near photo-realistic, although I have to say the male characters do come across slightly better than the females.  The female characters all seem a bit too mannequin-like, with fare-skin and flawless complexions, whereas the men in the film have more of the minor imperfections – liver spots, stubble, and wrinkles – that add a touch of much-needed realism. 

I didn’t watch the film in 3-D, but one suspects that the 3-D experience might be less gimmicky and more palatable when watching animated humans, as opposed to those of the living, breathing variety.

I read a translation of Beowulf over the summer, so I was familiar with the basic plot, the major players, the relationships between them, and so forth.  Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary deviate from the source material a great deal, although the changes made are justifiable, as they make for a much more satisfying movie-going experience.  

From a story standpoint, the epic poem is little more than a series of loosely connected battles: Beowulf vs. Grendel, Beowulf vs. Grendel’s Mom, Beowulf vs. The Dragon!  The screenplay adds a couple of interesting twists here and there, playing with the relationships between characters, all for the sake of story.  The result is a bit more convoluted but fits more closely to American movie-going audiences’ expectations as far as character development, pacing, and structure.

My biggest gripe about the movie in general has to do with the movie’s uneven tone.  There’s a fairly abrupt shift tonally from the first half of the film to the second half that, to me at least, ruins the overall effect. 

The first half of the movie is a lot funnier than you would expect (at times, unintentionally so), especially after watching the 300-esque trailers being used to promote the film.  Just as in the source material, Beowulf fights Grendel in the nude, and Zemeckis and company have all sorts of fun finding clever ways to conceal Beowulf’s male member during the sprawling, knockdown fight.  Audience members will recall watching similar scenes in the first Austin Powers film and more recently The Simpsons Movie; it’s been done too often for movie-goers to laugh at this tired gag.  The people sitting next to me weren’t sure what to make of nude Beowulf’s epic nude battle with Grendel.  If the decision had been mine to make, I would’ve had Beowulf challenge Grendel unarmed and unarmored but at least partially clothed.

Later, when Grendel’s mother exacts vengeance upon Beowulf’s comrades-in-arms for the harm inflicted upon Grendel in the aforementioned battle, the gruesome violence and brutality of the act isn’t enough to erase the fact that Beowulf was prancing around in the nude minutes before, and that the battle between Beowulf and Grendel is a bit of a joke and played for laughs. 

The final act of Beowulf falls flat, with dramatic moments between characters failing to resonate with viewers who lack sufficient reason to care about the tragic events unfolding before them. 

My recommendation – wait until the movie comes out on home video.  It’s definitely worth a rental, and while the third act action sequence (Beowulf Vs. The Dragon!) is pretty well staged and a lot of fun on the big screen, watching at home won’t detract from the epic experience.

The movie, which premieres November 16th, features live actors whose motion-captured performances have been digitally enhanced post-production for a unique, almost photo-realistic look that is visually impressive.

Besides contributing to the production’s overall look and feel, the use of CG, or computer generated, special effects in the film will also allow for some fairly amazing action sequences (one hopes) aided by dynamic camera angles impossible to acheive using real-world techniques.

Directed by Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis, Beowulf features a star-studded cast of actors and actresses – Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, and Angelina Jolie are just a few of the big name stars contributing their talents. 

Oh, and the script was co-written by Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) and none other than Neil Gaiman, one of my all-time favorite authors.

If you haven’t seen the trailer, you can check it out here at the official movie site. 

Oh, and while you’re there (assuming you’re old enough), follow the Restricted Content link for a look at the “red band” trailer which contains additional footage and material, some of which may be inappropriate for younger viewers.  (The site requires you to verify your age.)  The “red band” trailer contains a bit more violence and bloodshed, and some nudity as well.

Here is a picture of a Giant Panda.

And here is a picture of Neil Gaiman with a Giant Panda sitting on his lap. 

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Neil posted an entry (dated August 29, 2007; click here for the post then scroll down until you see pandas) at http://www.neilgaiman.com/, his online journal, in which he describes a recent trip to the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Centre in the Sichuan province of China and has this to say about being a world-famous author, and about pandas:

you get shown all the cool stuff, get to see Pandas, red ones and giant ones, and then find yourself put in a blue disposable smock and gloves (to protect the pandas from you, asnd [sic] not the other way around) and you get a year-old Panda placed on your lap. Utter, utter happiness. Better than any number of awards. Makes being a writer completely worthwhile. I suspect that world peace and harmony would come about in weeks if people just got to put pandas on their laps every few months. Honest.

Simply put, pandas are great. 

And if I can somehow arrange affairs so that I too can one day travel the world - a successful and world-famous author - and have a Giant Panda sit on my lap, then I too would be a very happy camper indeed.