It doesn't surprise me that the first translated edition of Sandman:Endless Nights is the Brazilian edition, mostly because the Brazilians are pretty much always first, whenever they can be, and always the most enthusiastic. They did the very first translations of Sandman, before anyone else was translating it. I did an interview today for Epoca today, about it.
Details on "Noites Sem Fim" here (in Portuguese)
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A seven-year old in Louisiana's classmate asked him about his mother and father. He responded that he didn�t have a mother and father; instead he has two mothers. When the other child asked why, Marcus told him that it was because his mother is gay. The other child then asked what that meant, and Marcus explained, �Gay is when a girl likes another girl." As a result of which, he was sent to the principal, and to a 6:45 am "behavioural clinic" where he had to write out that he would never use the word gay in school, over and over, because, as he admitted when he promised in writing never to do it again, he "sed bad wurds". I keep finding this disturbing in a variety of different ways. Details at the ACLU page...
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The second part of Arie Kaplan's excellent Jews in Comics series is now up at http://www.uahc.org/rjmag/03winter/comics.shtml.
Not sure if I ever linked to Peter Sanderson's article on the Neverwhere DVD, Wolves in the Walls and a bit on 1602 or not, but it's at http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/458/458312p1.html.
There's an enthusiastic review of Endless Nights in Memphis.
The LiveJournal "Gaimanblog" feed seems to be officially dead; the "OfficialGaiman" at http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=officialgaiman version of the feed is the one to sign up, for Livejournal people.
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And over at Bookslut, Jessa writes a cheerful and funny fuckoffanddie message to the Austin Chronicle, which finishes Last I checked, calling someone a drunken slut, whether or not she is one, was frowned upon. Which made me, whether I wanted to or not, Google to find the offending article, which Google also turned up a much more effusive and interesting portrait of Jessa, by the same author, written somewhat earlier, in which she is not painted as a louche and dangerous literary figure, prone to waking "crusty with sleep and saliva" and, I think we are meant to gather, deeply shamed by the dreadful waking experience of "seeing a book collection far better than hers".
To tell the truth, I've always rather enjoyed waking up, crustily or otherwise, and seeing a book collection far better than mine. Whenever I've been lucky enough over the years to stay at John and Judith Clute's place in Camden, it's a magnificent feeling to wake up, remove the encrusted spittle, and see a book collection far better than mine, and know that that's just some bit of the book overflow that happened to creep into their spare room; I knew (as all book people know) that somewhere under Camden Town there are strange cellar-like rooms too low for full-sized men to walk through with their heads unbowed, filled with shelves and more shelves and only with shelves, and on those shelves is stored John Clute's Oh My God You have That I Thought It Was Only A Legend And It's a Signed First Edition God Almighty John Real Book Collection (as opposed to the book collection in his house, which is merely unimaginably impressive).
Tee shirt suggestions tomorrow. Sleep now.