Q&A with Neil Gaiman: Famed storyteller finds joy in 'people breathing, laughing, smiling'

British fantasy writer Neil Gaiman reaches readers across a wide swath of literary mediums. 

The 61-year-old writer built his reputation by writing comic books aimed at a grown-up readership, including “The Sandman,” featuring an elusive central character also known as Dream, and its multitude of spinoffs. Other Gaiman-penned comic books include “The Book of Magic,” “The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch” and works featuring established characters such as Superman, the Green Lantern and Batman.

Concurrent with his comics work, Gaiman also authors novels intended both for adults, including “American Gods,” and for young adults, such as “Coraline” and “The Graveyard Book.” “Coraline” was turned into a 2009 movie featuring the voice of Dakota Fanning.

Fans of all of Gaiman’s work, or just particular portions of it, will have a chance to chat with the writer during “An Evening with Neil Gaiman” at the Palace Theatre next Wednesday. Ahead of his appearance in Columbus, Gaiman spoke by phone with The Dispatch. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Question: Growing up, were you an avid reader?

Gaiman: I was a reader, but I was a reader of everything. I loved comics; I loved books. I’d get my parents to take me to the local library on their way to work, drop me off there and I’d come home in time for dinner. That, for me, was the best thing. It was an absolute delight to just read everything, read anything.

Festivals:From Pride to the fair and Red, White and Boom, festival season packed with favorites

Q: How did you fall into writing comics?

Gaiman: I very much wanted to write comics. I remember as a kid, I was 15, and I had a meeting with an outside careers adviser. I was asked, “OK, well, what do you want to be?” And I said, “Well, I really want to write American comics.” There was a long pause, and then the outside careers adviser said, “Well, how do you go about doing that then?” I said, “You’re the careers adviser. You tell me.” And then there was another seriously long pause, and the adviser said, “Have you ever thought about accountancy?” I said, “No, I have never thought about accountancy.” And then we just sat and stared at each other.

Q: What was your first big break?

Gaiman: Well, I sort of started out as a journalist. I wrote a couple of nonfiction books, and I guess I’d been doing it for about five years before I (began) getting a lot of big breaks in a lot of different directions. On the one hand, I wrote a book about Douglas Adams and (Adams’ book) “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” that was picked up by a major U.S. publisher. On the other hand, at the same time, (there was) the work in comics I was doing. I’d written an original graphic novel called “Violent Cases,” and that got noticed and suddenly I was being snapped up by DC Comics.

Q: Is part of the fun of writing comics seeing your words interpreted visually by the artists?

Gaiman: Oh, absolutely. The fun of doing anything is taking your ideas and then seeing how people translate those ideas into images: Whether you’re working on it in comics, where I’ll doodle what I think a character looks like or whatever, or whether I’m going to be doing it in television, where I’m going to cast an actor and then go and talk to the makeup department and talk to the costume department to get them to look like something.

Outdoor music:The Guess Who, Tame Impala and Tim McGraw among the performers coming to Ohio in May

Q: What can we expect from this event in Columbus?

Gaiman: I’ve been doing these now for almost very nearly 30 years — I think the first one was 1993 — and I’ve never done two that were the same. Things will get read: some stories, some poems, some longer things, some shorter things. Questions will be answered. I long ago learned the best way to get questions answered was to have the people coming in just write down what they want to know on cards and hand them up.

Q: Do you get a charge out of interacting with people who admire your work? 

Gaiman: That’s enormously fun. But it’s no more fun than dealing with the people who have no idea who I am and got dragged along by their loved ones. The fun of it for me is just the idea that you’re in a room with a whole load of people breathing and laughing and smiling, all at the same time. I love telling stories. I love reading stories.

Q: Columbus takes comics very seriously. Ohio State University is home to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.

Gaiman: I was very aware of that. I love that it exists; I love how seriously it’s taken. Honestly, even the idea of a university taking these things seriously is so huge. (In the) mid-1990s, I did my first-ever paid, come-in-and-talk-to-a-university in St. Louis. Halfway through the afternoon, I’d already talked to one class, I was on my way to talk to another, and I was told, “Oh, by the way, the English Department is boycotting this. You’ve been brought in exclusively by the Art Department, and you’re being boycotted by the English Department who’s actually advised people not to come because you write comics.” . . . It boggles the mind. At least it boggles my mind.

tonguetteauthor2@aol.com

At a glance

“An Evening with Neil Gaiman” will take place at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdayin the Palace Theatre, 34 W. Broad St. Tickets cost $45 to $65. For more information, visit www.capa.com.