Neil Gaiman to Guest-Star on 'The Simpsons'

By Tara Ariano, The Set | Thursday, January 13, 2011, 11:29 AM

It's Neil himself (with non-yellow skin).

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

Last year, Neil Gaiman's children's book "Coraline" became a critically acclaimed stop-motion-animated feature film. Now the British author is being exposed to a new animation medium: He'll voice himself on "The Simpsons."

Earlier this week, Gaiman tweeted, "Went to the Marge Simpson Studios. Recorded my part as 'Neil Gaiman,' a British author. The accent was the hardest bit to get right." He later posted a photo of himself on the lawn outside the studio. (That is, I assume it's outside the studio, and not just a random building in Los Angeles, where a "Simpsons" superfan has installed a sculpture of a gigantic Homer hand.

Gaiman joins a long tradition of literary voice talent on the Fox sitcom. Other famed authors who have played themselves on "The Simpsons" include Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Amy Tan, and even the reclusive Thomas Pynchon. If the show's producers are looking to line up authors who tweet, it just makes sense that the next one should be Snooki.