Signal to Noise

by Neil Gaiman

Other authorsDave McKean

Hardcover, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

741

Genres

Graphic Novels

Comics

Graphic Novels and Comics

Collection

Your library

Publication

Dark Horse (2007), Hardcover, 96 pages

Description

Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean present their masterpiece, Signal to Noise Somewhere in London, a film director is dying of cancer. His life's crowning achievement, his greatest film, would have told the story of a European village as the last hour of 999 AD approached - the midnight that the villagers were convinced would bring with it Armageddon. Now that story will never be told. But he's still working it out in his head, making a film that no one will ever see. No one but us.

User reviews

LibraryThing member francomega

I read everything by Gaiman (especially look forward to his work with Dave McKean). Short, suprisingly deep story ("The world is always ending for someone."), but it's really a showcase for McKean's art.

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LibraryThing member verenka

Dark. A graphic novel made from a collage published in a magazine, reworked and republished and changed again. The art is unlike anything I have seen. Hypnotic, almost. The story is sad, a film director finds out he has cancer and works on his last film before he dies, which becomes this great

metaphor for life, mortality and of course immortality of yourself or your ideas. It was dark, enigmatic, intense and as I said, unlike anything I read before.

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LibraryThing member -Eva-

A must read if you're interested in communications theory or film (or just read the original version in The Face), but also if the words and pictures of a graphic novel mezmerizes you and makes you want to draw and write and mess with your own mind. Gaiman is a genious writer, and his words in this

novel, coupled with McKean's haunting drawings, will make you seriously think about the small Armageddons of your life, of everyone's life. It's a very Neil Gaiman-trip this, with one world ending while others go on, possibly forever.

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LibraryThing member trueneutral

This is not your run of the mill comic book. It's a graphic novel with some very strange and trippy art and a very sad topic: a movie maker's last weeks of life after he gets diagnosed with cancer. He refuses any treatment and innevitably starts writing the script for his last movie, one he'd been

having dreams and visions about.
It doesn't get too personal though, so even if the setting is very dark, you don't connect too much with the main character. It's a short story in the end and it is good at what it tries to be - illustrating the difference between the meaningful signal and the meaningless noise all around it.

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LibraryThing member .Monkey.

I liked the ...moral? to this, but something in it just didn't work for me. For agreeing with the story being told so much I found myself oddly unmoved by it. McKean's art is amazing, as always. But this one just doesn't resonate with me even though I want it to.

LibraryThing member lostinalibrary

Signal to noise

noun
• the ratio of the strength of an electrical or other signal carrying information to that of unwanted interference.
• informal a measure of how much useful information there is in a system, such as the Internet, as a proportion of the entire contents.
- Oxford Dictionary

A

film director has just learned that he is dying of some unnamed disease. As he contemplates his own fate, he imagines a new movie which he knows he will never have the time to make. The movie takes place somewhere in Europe in 999AD. As the millenium approaches, people gather together convinced that it is the end of the world. Their reactions may be different, some happy, some terrified, but they all stand transfixed, staring at the clock, waiting for the hands to reach midnight.

The narrative shifts between the director’s thoughts, his talks with his doctor and his assistant, and his lonely moments trying to lose himself in TV. As he works out his new script, his ideas and plans are laid out for us, the audience, to see.

Neil Gaiman’s brilliant story telling is enhanced by the beautiful collage artwork of Dave McKean. His art adds layers and nuances to the already layered and nuanced story.

Written originally in 1989 as the world was contemplating a new millennium and apocalyptical stories were becoming more and more common and popular, Gaiman and McKean brought one of the most beautiful and thoughtful additions to the genre in this short graphic novel. The story is, perhaps, a bit slow (everything takes place inside the director’s apartment and mind) but it is intelligent and beautiful both in the tale and in the artwork. It is a perfect portrayal both in voice and sight how we can become so distracted by noise that we cannot hear the signal. I keep using the same word for this tale and I know that that is normally a bad thing but, really there is only one word to describe Signal to Noise – brilliant!

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LibraryThing member mamzel

An author struggling to write a book in 1999 finds out he has only 6 months to live unless he takes chemo and radiation treatment.

I read this on an iPad and strained my eyes to read it, even using the enlargement ability. White letters on red background is no fun for older eyes.

LibraryThing member Glennis.LeBlanc

This is a book I think everyone needs to read as an adult. Dealing with death and mortality it is a gloomy read but still an excellent one. Dave McKean's art really elevates the story here. I'm surprised that I hadn't read this sooner but I also have to say it is a bit of a down read. I think this

one will take a while to process but in the end it will be worth it.

Digital copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

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LibraryThing member nonesuch42

Well, that was really weird. I don't know. It wasn't *bad*, and it had quite a few really excellent lines about death and the purpose of life. But sometimes the words were a little blurry (the "noise"), and it made me blink and squint too much. The artwork was great, especially when it was the

"signal" part. I don't think I understood all the "noise" parts. Maybe I need to get a little more art-literate to enjoy this fully, but I think I'll stick with normal print books and easier to understand graphic novels for now.

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LibraryThing member haloedrain

I might have liked this more as a printed book--the pdf was supposed to be "high-res" but actually had a lot of compression artifacts that made some of the text difficult to read, especially the pages where the art style already made it hard. But I didn't especially care for the art--perhaps it

isn't fair to judge something 20 years old this way, but the noise and jumbled word art seemed dated and cliche, and the story didn't really resonate with me.

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LibraryThing member tldegray

Had a electronic review copy from Netgalley. The type was so small and dense I couldn't read it, and the resolution wasn't good enough to enlarge it.

LibraryThing member tjl

I found this to be a very interesting graphic novel. It's about a writer/director who gets diagnosed with cancer and decides to forgo treatment and finish the film in his head instead. It's about the turn of the first millennium (999 AD) and a village that expects the end of the world. Both the

story about him and the story of the villagers are very interesting. Since this is so short, I'd highly recommend that people read it.

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LibraryThing member JulesGDSide

Dark and thought-provoking.

LibraryThing member nosborm

Weird but good. I don't think I grasped everything, it's probably better not as an ebook.

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