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The film of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Coraline’, which follows a lonely child as she ventures into an eerily distorted version of her own universe, tells kids terrible truths about death, decay and human impotence. They love it, the newly respectable author tells DONALD CLARKE

RESPECTABILITY doesn’t appear to have changed Neil Gaiman. For the past quarter of a century the English writer has been among the most lauded figures in the world of fantasy fiction. With lavish, baroque comics such as Sandmanand agreeably crazy novels such as American Godsand Stardust, he established a strong cult following with a specialist audience. And he looks the part. Wearing shaggy black hair and a battered leather jacket, Gaiman is never likely to be confused with EM Forster or Henry James.