Hot on the heels of the announcement that Starz is finally moving forward with the production of a TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s award-winning novel ‘American Gods,’ Bryan Fuller, one of the announced showrunners, has released two pieces of concept art on his Twitter account, most likely as a way to show people the kind of visual aesthetic they’re aiming for, as well as to get people excited for the upcoming series.
The first one shows a dark, swampy-looking area where the trees are made of bones and their “fruit” is severed heads. A white bison stands in the background, seemingly looking at you looking at it. Creepy stuff. Seriously, it practically looks like it could be the cover art for its own horror novel. Fuller said in the tweet, “FIND US IN THE BONEORCHARD.” Gaiman himself retweeted this picture saying, “I love this painting.”

The second picture looks more like a movie poster. It shows a classic car speeding off toward the American horizon while the Norse god Odin looks down from a cloudy sky while riding his eight-legged steed, Sleipnir. Fuller comments, “ON YOUR KNEES (with your prayers).”

Fans of the novel will probably get the references immediately while anyone who hasn’t read the book yet will probably be intrigued. If nothing else, both pieces are very striking works of art and to me they capture Gaiman’s imagination pretty well. They’re somewhat visually reminiscent of the movie ‘Coraline,’ which was an animated movie based on another book by Gaiman.

‘American Gods’ is the story of ex-con Shadow and his employer, Mr. Wednesday and they travel across America and interact with all sorts of old gods and magical beings from various religions and mythologies and eventually come into conflict with the new “American gods”.

What do you think about this released concept art? Cool, creepy, or boring?