4 out of 5 stars
Most people headed to the after-hours bar called the Diogenes to concentrate on the serious business of drinking, but some chose to talk and tell each other stories. Men who are on the fringes of society telling each other unexpected strange tales. And they are slightly strange too, there is a girl Charlotte who appears in a soft porn magazine and who never seems to age as a photographer follows her career with interest. There is a man who is neighbours with an old lady who needs to feed on raw meat and a man who has somehow acquired an embarrassing disease and finally there is the ghost story with the suitably creepy house.
Somehow Gaiman manages to take what looks like a normal situation and with some of his magic turns it into something that just isn’t quite normal and it is the same with these four interlinked stories, Foreign Parts, Feeders and Eaters Looking for the Girl and Closing Time. The stories aren’t that dark compared to some of Gaiman’s that I have read, but they are reassuringly disturbing. It is very much an adult graphic novel too… I loved the art from Mark Buckingham, it lifts the book to another level. However, I would have liked to have seen nine panels per page for the stories rather than sixteen as it felt a little cramped. Definitely one for the NG aficionado, but if you have never read one of his graphic novels then you may just enjoy this as first.
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