Cora-lines

At times when I thought about the movie Coraline, I also wondered about the source material. I thought it was a storybook, but when I looked once I found a graphic novel. Well, with Gaiman that makes sense, right?

Not exactly.

Once I committed to watching the movie it seemed like the right time to straighten that out. I learned that Gaiman's book would be classified more as YA, but there is a comic book adaptation, and the library also had Coraline: A Visual Companion by Stephen Jones, which documents a lot of the production process from the movie. 

I decided to check all of them out. I am not quite finished with the Visual Companion.

It also fills in some history, so in addition to telling more about the book, there is also information on the comic, a play, a puppet production, some music, and a short film made as an unofficial book trailer.

The background is helpful, though it kind of does not answer my biggest questions: what is the point of the comic book?

In a way it does, too. The writer, P. Craig Russell, is quoted about the challenge of having to trim parts from the book for length, and of his photo reference model growing older over the time of shooting. 

One, that kind of explained how little the characters resembled anything pictured from the book (the comic pre-dated the movie); his art style is more highly based-on photo-reference, and would be slow-moving. Okay, that's his method, if it works for him, great.

The other part of that method, though, was that he saw his role as illustrating the book as faithfully as possible, not adapting it.

My not understanding the point of the comic was that it was not a comic; it was an illustrated book.

Normally when you  change formats, that changes the material. Coraline the movie is far more visual than Coraline the book, but it's a movie; it should be. The creation that the Other Mother does to please Coraline is more spectacular, and things are faster-paced.

I suspect the creation of those set pieces (the garden, the mouse circus, and the theater) is why Coraline finding the Other Father in the basement does not happen in the movie; that action is not needed. The other seeking scenes are more exciting for happening in those set pieces. However, missing that moment of compassion and danger with the Other Father makes it more important that there is an Other Wybie.

That then necessitates a Real Wybie, which brings in the connections with the doll and his great aunt. I liked all of that, but they are not in the book and not needed in the book.

So it was weird to me that the comic did not feel like becoming a comic changed it; there were just more pictures. Some Goodreads reviewers hated it for that, and killing the imagination of picturing it in your head. It has plenty of positive ratings though, so obviously there is an audience for it.

That audience isn't really me, though, and that was a lot of time on something I am not a huge fan of.

I liked the movie best (which never happens). The book might have meant more to me if I'd read it younger. It was okay. A lot of people love it, and that is also okay.

For me, it just became a reason to think about adapting content to different media.