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Update: That time I thought 'Coraline' ripped off 'MirrorMask' but actually I was wrong
So I was convinced for years that Neil Gaiman's Coraline was just a polished version of Dave McKean's MirrorMask from 2005. Both have a girl in a dreary home who goes through a portal into a bizarre alternate world with button-eyed versions of her parents. But I finally sat down and read the Coraline book from 2002 last month and realized it came out 3 years before MirrorMask even hit theaters. Turns out Gaiman wrote the book first and Dave McKean actually illustrated the original edition. Now I'm just curious if MirrorMask borrowed from some other older story or if they both just tapped into the same creepy fairy tale vibe. Has anyone else mixed up release dates on these two?
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max_brown2mo ago
Man Ive definitely been there with mixing up release dates on similar movies. The button eye thing is such a specific creepy detail that its wild they both landed on it. Gaiman and McKean worked together on the book so it makes sense MirrorMask shares that vibe. Honestly I think both of them are tapping into that whole dark fairy tale tradition where scary stuff hides behind normal things. Stories about kids dealing with weird mirror worlds go way back to stuff like Alice in Wonderland or even older folklore. MirrorMask probably took some inspiration from Coraline but also had its own artistic spin because McKean is such a unique visual guy. Either way they both nail that unsettling feeling of home not being quite right.
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