Back in September of 2006, the Books section of Blogcritics shone its spotlight on the British author and fantasist Neil Gaiman. In a period of about two weeks I ended up reading four novels, a couple of collections of short stories, and one movie script. While I appreciated each individual title at the time, I have to admit that I was probably suffering from sensory overload before I was halfway through the pile of books resting beside my computer.

Neil Gaiman's writing is so vivid it's impossible to read his books without having your imagination stimulated to the extent that your mind's eye is flooded with imagery. Anything from pictures of characters to panoramic vistas of strange landscapes could pop into your mind unbidden as you read through his work. It's no wonder that so many of his stories have either been created, or adapted by others, for graphic novels and film. If there was ever an author whose work cried out to be illustrated, it's Neil Gaiman.

What's wonderful about Gaiman's work is that it ranges stylistically from the brooding urban fantasy of Neverwhere and Mirrormask to the near pastoral atmosphere of Stardust. As a result there has been room for so much diversity in the pictorial representations of his work that no two works are have had the exact same look. Unlike some of his contemporaries whose work has the same feel pretty much all the time and becomes predictable after a while, you can never be sure what you're going to "see" when you begin reading a Neil Gaiman story.

The first time I read Stardust a couple of years ago it was in a standard paperback edition that had line drawings and ornamentation scattered throughout the text, but it wasn't what you would call illustrated by any means. When the DVD version of the film was released I was impressed by their interpretation of the story and how they visualized it, but I felt there was still something lacking in the experience.

So when I found out that DC's graphic novel imprint Vertigo had released a new, fully illustrated version of Stardust last fall, I was intrigued. Somehow, perhaps because it was published by Vertigo, I had assumed it was a graphic novel adaptation of the story, but it is a true illustrated version of the original text. Originally published as softcover, this version is a deluxe, oversized, hardcover that not only reproduces all of Charlie Vess's original artwork, but comes with additional pieces that he created specifically for this publication.