Newly rewritten by Gaiman for this graphic novel, these two ominous stories from the author's award-winning prose, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction...
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Jan 17, 2012
Anthony
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Creatures of the Night is two short stories by Neil Gaiman in a hardcover volume from Dark Horse Books, lavishly illustrated by the phenomenal Michael Zulli.
"The Price" is about a black cat who adopts a family but turns up more injured every day. The father decides to find out what goes on in his front yard every night...
"Daughter of Owls" takes the form of a fireside story told by one collector of stories to another; a cautionary tale of the Grimms' v More...
"The Price" is about a black cat who adopts a family but turns up more injured every day. The father decides to find out what goes on in his front yard every night...
"Daughter of Owls" takes the form of a fireside story told by one collector of stories to another; a cautionary tale of the Grimms' v More...
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Jun 20, 2011
Airiz
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This graphic novel includes two of Gaiman's short stories from Smoke and Mirrors, and I'll provide separate reviews for them.
DAUGHTER OF OWLS:
Neil Gaiman penned "The Daughter of Owls" in style of one of his favorite authors, John Aubrey. I enjoyed it enormously; the prose set the mood of the tale quite right, for it felt as if it was really written a long time ago. The story is about a girl left on the steps of a Church, holding Owl pellets that when crushed would rev More...
DAUGHTER OF OWLS:
Neil Gaiman penned "The Daughter of Owls" in style of one of his favorite authors, John Aubrey. I enjoyed it enormously; the prose set the mood of the tale quite right, for it felt as if it was really written a long time ago. The story is about a girl left on the steps of a Church, holding Owl pellets that when crushed would rev More...
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Feb 17, 2010
BarkLessWagMore
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Gaiman's work, be it these almost fairy-tale like tales, his Sandman series or his children's work, is almost always peppered with some very dark edges, which is what makes them so appealing to me. These two stories were no exception.
As a cat lover, I really enjoyed "The Price". As a child, we had outdoor cats who would come home with horrible wounds but I always assumed they were from other common beasties. This story was an imaginative look at the source of one brave kitt More...
As a cat lover, I really enjoyed "The Price". As a child, we had outdoor cats who would come home with horrible wounds but I always assumed they were from other common beasties. This story was an imaginative look at the source of one brave kitt More...
Apr 24, 2009
Purplycookie
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This graphic novel reprints two short stories from Gaiman's collection of short stories in "Smoke and Mirrors" with illustrations provided by artist Michael Zulli.
In "The Price" a middle aged writer (echoes of Gaiman here) living with his family in rural England adopts a stray black cat which serves as an addition to the growing number of pets in his home. The newly adopted cat shows signs of desperate combat resulting in serious wounds every night. When the writ More...
In "The Price" a middle aged writer (echoes of Gaiman here) living with his family in rural England adopts a stray black cat which serves as an addition to the growing number of pets in his home. The newly adopted cat shows signs of desperate combat resulting in serious wounds every night. When the writ More...
May 10, 2011
D'face
rated it:
Two haunting short stories from Neil Gaiman translated beautifully into graphic novel format by Michael Zulli. This is a very thin book which the whole family read individually in an evening with dark delight. The ominous story telling of Gaiman is wonderfully paired with the artwork of Zulli to create the characters of the stories. In the first each cat and the shape shifting devil are beautifully rendered and in the second the many owls and their perspective overlooking the ruined convent brin
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Jan 04, 2012
Corey
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Creatures of the Night is a short graphic novel written by the popular fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, with lush artwork provided by Michael Zulli. It’s printed in a handsome hardcover by Dark Horse Books.* It contains two short stories. One is about a mysterious group of stray cats that seem to migrate to the front door of a writer who greatly resembles Gaiman himself, and the second is a fantasy/horror tale about a small superstitious town that believes a foundling child is cursed by owls.
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Sep 19, 2009
CB
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An interesting, quick graphic novel. There are only two stories, both of which have a traditional fairy tale feel about them. I was over the moon for the first one, "The Price," but felt "The Daughter of Owls" was a little ho-hum. In "Owls" I wasn't convinced of the need for the frame story, and I thought the end just sort of petered out. "The Price," by contrast, was a much better paced story with that fine blend of fantasy and reality which seems to
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Feb 18, 2009
Laura
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2 short stories - the first ("The Price") was about a cat who visits a man's home. goes out at night and comes back with unexplained injuries. the man waits up one night to find out where these injuries come from to find the cat as a protector. very cool. though short, the story flowed well and i really got into the story.
second story was good too - "The Daughter of Owls" is about a baby of "darkness" confined to live behind walls and the 'legend' of her ea More...
second story was good too - "The Daughter of Owls" is about a baby of "darkness" confined to live behind walls and the 'legend' of her ea More...
Dec 08, 2010
David
rated it:
Contains two tales: The Price & The Daughter of Owls.
The Price I liked, a tale about a stray black cat come to stay and why it gets so beat up. . . very spooky!
The Daughter of Owls is good, too, and it was told in the style of nineteenth-century, second-hand tales, ala Edgar Allen Poe. Very cool. . .
These are two stories found in other books, namely Smoke and Mirrors for one, that have been nicely illustrated by Michael Zulli. . . --From A Reader's Journal, by d r m More...
The Price I liked, a tale about a stray black cat come to stay and why it gets so beat up. . . very spooky!
The Daughter of Owls is good, too, and it was told in the style of nineteenth-century, second-hand tales, ala Edgar Allen Poe. Very cool. . .
These are two stories found in other books, namely Smoke and Mirrors for one, that have been nicely illustrated by Michael Zulli. . . --From A Reader's Journal, by d r m More...
Jun 17, 2011
trina
rated it:
two of neil gaiman's older short stories, illustrated loosely but lushly by a fanboy painter. i love the first story, about a black cat and the devil, and found it delightfully creepy the first time i read it in a collection of gaiman's stories ('night and magic' or something like that?). interestingly, i found that having it illustrated- while the illustrations are well done and the artist has an interesting style- detracts from the story's creepiness and power. as for the other story, i did no
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Apr 30, 2008
Trebro
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After suffering through the horrible pain that was Beowulf, I almost wasn't sure I ever wanted to read Gaiman again. But I did, and I'm glad I did. This two-part graphic novel, painted brilliantly by Zulli, is the Gaiman we know and love--a teller of a good story, that takes an old idea and gives it a good modern twist. That's what I've always liked about his writing--it's kind of like something you know, but not. Beowulf just felt like he put in things to purposefully make it different.
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Jan 10, 2011
H. Anne
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Neil Gaiman has a knack, it seems, for pulling awfully talented artists to him. Michael Zulli's style is just lovely and always hits an art nouveau chord for me. (I think Mucha in particular with all the poppies that tend to be in Zulli's pieces, roses too, I believe.) For that alone it's worth paging through.
I've liked The Price since first reading it in Smoke and Mirrors (thank you again Sci-Fi/Fantasy book club of the 90s). As a cat owner, really owned by the cat would be more More...
I've liked The Price since first reading it in Smoke and Mirrors (thank you again Sci-Fi/Fantasy book club of the 90s). As a cat owner, really owned by the cat would be more More...
Jan 23, 2009
Kate
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I came across this book in my library collection and thought the woman on the cover looked a bit like an art nouveau drawing I copied from a book of Alphonse Mucha. The two stories in it are short and interesting. I liked the cat story "The Price" despite hating cats--really, my cat (not really "mine" but my family's) drives me crazy, and I hated our last cat too. This story felt sort of like a memoir whereas the second story felt more like a fairy tale.
Sep 07, 2011
Darnia
rated it:
Another e-book from Neil Gaiman that I've got.
This graphic novel included two stories in it, The Price and The Daughter of Owls.
As usual, Neil has extraordinary talent to mixed fairy tales, ghosts and devils into a great plot. But, if I compared with other Neil's graphic novel, this one has predictable ending.
Michael Zulli as the illustrator also showed his awesome artwork. Anyway, this graphic novel is a good one for collected :)
This graphic novel included two stories in it, The Price and The Daughter of Owls.
As usual, Neil has extraordinary talent to mixed fairy tales, ghosts and devils into a great plot. But, if I compared with other Neil's graphic novel, this one has predictable ending.
Michael Zulli as the illustrator also showed his awesome artwork. Anyway, this graphic novel is a good one for collected :)
Nov 06, 2010
Dorothy
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
May 03, 2011
Scott (sdk71)
rated it:
“Creatures of The Night” is a quick graphic novel containing two short stories from Neil Gaiman’s “Smoke and Mirrors”. Being a cat lover, I really enjoyed the first story, “The Price”. The second story, “Daughter of Owls” was pretty good, too. Michael Zulli’s illustrations were a nice accompaniment to Gaiman’s stories.
Nov 20, 2008
matt
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I feel like I've heard these stories before - wasn't the Stephen King story "Cat's Eye" essentially the same as this book's tale called : "The Price"?
Disappointing that an author as talented as Gaiman would put out such uninspired work.
Excellent images of cats, but the artist seemed clunky when dealing with most other subjects.
Disappointing that an author as talented as Gaiman would put out such uninspired work.
Excellent images of cats, but the artist seemed clunky when dealing with most other subjects.
Jan 15, 2009
April
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This book only rates three stars because both of it's tales end suddenly and fairly anticlimaticly. I really think only Neil Gaiman could get away with setting up such amazing ambience and immersing the reader so completely and then plunging them back into reality so suddenly. The artwork of the cats is particularly good.
Dec 18, 2007
Travis
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I always thought Gaiman could write a good dark fairy tale in his sleep. Apparently for the two tales in this book he was in a full-on coma. Neither of the stories has a character with a distinct personality, and neither story is resolved in a satisfactory manner. Plus, the narrator of the first tale is a writer living in a country house who bares witness to something sinister, a setup that bugs me enough as it is when Stephen King does it.
Michael Zulli's illustrations are nice en More...
Michael Zulli's illustrations are nice en More...
Nov 28, 2011
Leah
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Biased because I liked the short story this was adapted from so much. The art is beautiful but didn't add much to the story, I thought--actually took away a sense of mystery because you were given a completed image of a character/entity that I rather thought was better as a terrifying amorphous thing.
And the other story was just ok.
And the other story was just ok.
Jul 31, 2011
Maria
rated it:
Neil Gaiman writes and his stories are beautifully illustrated. Both stories are rather haunting. "The Price" is about a mysterious black cat who is more than he seems. "The Daughter of Owls" is an eerie tale about, well, the daughter of owls. If you like Neil Gaiman, read!
Sep 19, 2011
Sam
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"Creatures of the NIght" takes two short stories Gaiman wrote for his collection "Smoke and Mirrors" and reconstitutes them into comic book form by artist Michael Zulli. "The Price" is about a black cat that protects a family from the Devil night after night without the family realising and "The Daughter of Owls" is about a beautiful girl locked away who defends herself one night against possible rapists, using magic means.
I've read "Smok More...
I've read "Smok More...
Aug 10, 2011
Pretty small, but the stories are excellent and the pastel-like art is amazing.
Short read for people that wants to get in touch with Neil Gaiman writing, easy way to become a fan.
Short read for people that wants to get in touch with Neil Gaiman writing, easy way to become a fan.
Apr 20, 2011
Michele
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Great, great book!!! I love how the reader has to infer the meaning of the text to conclude what the creatures represented. Very thought provoking and great graphics to accompany the text.
Dec 27, 2007
Ako
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This book isn't the kind of book to start when you've heard Neil Gaiman's buzz (maybe after watching his Stardust or Beowulf) and want to start buying his books. Sandman series, American Gods, Neverwhere, or Good Omens are perhaps better choices to start. But, if you want to collect all of his books (like what this very cute guy's doing here :)), this surely will impress your Neil Gaiman's circle of friends.
It's a collection of illustrated adaptations of two stories from Smoke and Mi More...
It's a collection of illustrated adaptations of two stories from Smoke and Mi More...
Apr 14, 2010
Toy
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Although well written, which is to be expected from Neil Gaiman, I found the two stories included in the graphic novel to be entirely too short. Not worth carrying home from the library, I could have read it standing up in the stacks.
Jun 08, 2011
Gina
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Super quick read. I thought both of the tales were really interesting. I was unsure of what to expect for each story, but I thought they were really original.
Oct 25, 2011
Gonzalo
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Dos relatos sobrecogedores en su sencillez. Cuentos de horror y amor a partes iguales que marcan la ruta al futuro relato de fantasía.
Dec 11, 2010
Jennifer
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The stories are haunting and the artwork is gorgeous. I have to read the first story outloud to someone soon....
Dec 26, 2008
Cameron
rated it:
Beautiful paintings by Zulli in his interpretation of Neil Gaiman's delightfully freaky stories.
