Coraline is a stop-motion, 3-D experience unlike any ever brought to the big screen. Adapted from Neil Gaiman's dark fairy tale, it offers up a world where a lonely child like the titular character (voiced by Dakota Fanning) can crawl through a hidden doorway and find herself confronted by perfect replicas of her inattentive parents, perfect replicas that offer joy and fun and family dinners. Except, of course, these "other parents" have button eyes and might have sinister intentions Coraline is too young to recognize yet. Gaiman took the time recently to talk to me about the origins of the book, the wonder of stop-motion, and how he's managed to maintain the integrity of his creations over the years.

Cole Haddon: Is it true Coraline was a bedtime story you told your kids before it was ever a book?

Neil Gaiman: It was never a bedtime story in that sense. My daughter Holly -- who was, at the time, four or five -- was the kind of little Wednesday Addams sort of kid who would climb on your lap and tell stories about little girls coming home and finding their parents impersonated by witches, then being locked up and having to escape to find their real mothers. So I thought, I'll write her a story she'd like, a story that would be scary enough for her because she was the kind of kid who liked things that were scary. That was what kind of five, six-year-old we had. So I started writing it, the first 10,000 words. Then we moved to America and I ran out of time. I just didn't have time with work. Eventually, I thought, this is not going to get written unless someone's waiting for it. The kids were getting too old for it by then. So I sent those first 10,000 words to my editor, and she phoned up and said, "This is great. What happens next?" and I said, "Send me a contract, and we'll both find out."

CH: What was the book about for you then? Were you trying to impart anything to your kids, besides just maybe scaring the hell out of them?

NG: At the end of the day, Coraline for me is very simple. It's somebody up against a bad thing. It's something that tells kids you can be brave and you can be smart, and you can win. You can fight bad things, and you don't have to be special. You don't have to be Harry Potter and have special powers. You can go up against something and win. It's also something that says, "Look, the people who love you might not get to pay you as much attention as you like, and, by the same token, those that do pay attention to you might not have your best interests at heart."

CH: I've been enamored with stop-motion since the first time I saw the original King Kong, which must have been 26 or 27 years ago now. Why was it right for Coraline?

CH: It would be too scary for them, you mean.

NG: It would be too scary for me. These things aren't quite real, which allows everything to be toned down.

CH: You seem to have navigated the Hollywood system fairly well, maintaining a lot more control over your creations than most artists usually manage. How have you managed that?

NG: One of the best things for me in this business is getting to watch people walking through the fields ahead of you, and sometimes they let you know where the landmines are by treading on one and getting their leg blown off. "Oh, okay, don't do that." For example: Alan Moore's experience with movies. [Legendary comic-book writer/creator] Alan Moore, a dear friend of mine for 25 years, and his attitude was always [perfect impersonation here], "The book is the comic book. What I say to them is 'It's fine, give me the check. The movie has nothing to do with me.'" That was his attitude, and it was a fine attitude, but by the third movie made of his work he'd gotten to the point where he didn't even want the money. It no longer matters to Alan if the Watchmen movie is good or bad. He's been burned too many times. He hated From Hell; League of Extraordinary Gentleman was an embarrassment. I didn't want to go that route. That seemed to me a path through the landmines. What I wanted to do was find a good babysitter for my stuff. You do not want to go at the end of the day, "You know, when I left you with her, she did not have a tattoo on her cheek." You have to find somebody you would trust with your baby, and [Coraline director] Henry Selick was somebody I could trust [considering his work on The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach].

CH: Then you've said no to offers for your work?

NG: There are things I just say no to, yes. [Thinks, as he digs up an old memory] ... twelve years ago, maybe eleven years ago, I got an offer from Miramax, and the offer was basically, "We want to buy the rights to all your short stories, and we will give you $3 million. We can make them into whatever, but here's cash. What could be better than that?" I thought about it for about a week. Three million dollars then as now, is a lot of money and then -- unlike now -- would have been a life-changing amount. But I said, "No," because, from that moment I would have no control. I need that control.