Second Response to Gaiman's Coraline (by Hailey Wansick)

1.  Coraline is illustrated in a very cartoony way, which makes it even more creepy at times.  The other mother is drawn so that she looks even more grotesque than when you just read the book.  The artwork creates a tone that is supposed to scare the reader, and it gets darker as the book progresses. 

2.  This story was probably remade into a graphic novel to help the reader imagine everything that Coraline goes through better.  When reading the book, everything is so strange and hard to imagine, and seeing everything laid out in a graphic novel makes it seem a little more realistic.  Since this story was translated from a book, into a movie, and then into a graphic novel, we can see what it lost or gained.  In my opinion, Coraline was a better book than graphic novel, and it didn’t seem as complex as the other graphic novels we’ve read.  I haven’t seen the movie, but if it’s anything like the book or graphic novel it would probably scare younger children.  Being made into a Tim Burton-like movie makes it seem childish and like it’s for young kids, when in reality it is kind of scary.

3.  Coraline narrates the story with her thoughts, actions, and dialogue with other characters.  It is easier to follow what is happening in comic book format than it was as a novel because you can tell just by the shape of the bubbles if they are thoughts or something that is spoken.  And with the comic book format we are also able to see things that aren’t in Coraline’s field of vision but are drawn in the background.

4.  The scene that stood out to me is when Coraline’s other parents tell her that she can stay with them forever and always, if only she does on tiny little thing: let them sew buttons into her eyes.  They promise her that it won’t even hurt, that they want what’s best for her.  This scene shows that her other parents don’t really love her, mostly that they want to collect her like a doll, and that they don’t care if she has to go through pain.  This is the point when Coraline realizes that her other parents want something from her, and that it probably isn’t good.  I like the way the artwork in this scene focuses around the buttons so much, and how the other parents ignore what Coraline wants.