I was sent a copy of Neal Pollack's rock and roll novel to end all rock and roll novels, Never Mind the Pollacks, some months ago. The publisher wanted a blurb and they needed it immediately, and given the amount of time I had when they asked, it wasn't going to happen. But I finally read it a few weeks ago, thought it was hilarious, and promptly picked up The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature to read on the plane. It was wonderful fun, parodying attitudes and styles of self-obsessed essay-journalism (mostly) to (mostly) hilarious results. Neal Pollack's on tour at present -- he may be coming to your town. Tour schedule at
http://www.nealpollack.com/cgi-bin/blog/do.cgi/live Go and see him. Tell him I said hi.
And I'd write a whole proper honest to goodness journal entry here, but sleep beckons. It doesn't just beckon, actually. Right now it's more or less jumping up and down on the bed waving both arms, shouting my name through a loud-hailer, and it's clutching a home-made sign with "WILL YOU GO TO BED ALREADY?" lettered on it rather crudely.
So. Norway tomorrow. Then Sweden. Then Croatia. Then Germany. Details and a couple of new tour stops added over at Where's Neil: http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/where.asp
Neil. NeilNeilNeil. Saw the EW photo of you. Are you in fact wearing eyeliner in the photo? Your public needs to know.
Gregory from Middle Tenn
P.S. Thanks for signing our copy of Endless Nights (and for the wonderful Sandman sketch) at the Fort Lauderdale Barnes and Noble thing that was presented to you by our Stepson, Adam.
Nope. No eyeliner. Just lots of squinting and scowling and suchlike, while a huge fan blows my hair and coat about, and I have to keep my hands where the photographer put them. Also, in that photo, sucking an ice-cube, to cope with the bleeding tongue. And a lady who would nip in every couple of minutes and powder the shinier bits of my face.
As I explained to someone recently, I felt like they got exactly the photo they wanted. I just didn't quite understand why they wanted it.
...
Hey
I checked the Where's Neil page and I could find no mention of Scotland. Are you not touring here this year?? You gotta! I've introduced all these kids to your books, and they're like 'where's neil????' and it'd break their hearts if you couldn't come, leaving them bitter and gaiman-less forever... or something... Anyway! I hope you can make it this year, and I hope anansi boys is coming along ok.
Hamza Khan
While I don't think the list is complete yet, I also don't think they're actually sending me to Scotland, based mostly on the fact that they kept sending me to Scotland last year -- Glasgow, Dundee, and two weekends at the Edinburgh Festival, and things in all the Scottish papers, mean that the Bloomsbury Press office want to send me to places I've not been to for a long time, like Bristol. And I don't get a vote.
But you never know -- some Edinburgh bookshop could make a frenzied appeal that would melt Lucy Chapman at Bloomsbury's heart, and make her decide to send me to Scotland. But it probably won't.
(There should be at least one Irish signing to come, though.)
I posted this question elsewhere on the site and then it came up with this, so I may as well write it again. Right. For an aspiring author in high school who is currently writing a manuscript of her first novel, would you read and give literary critiques... or is that too much to ask? Many thanks for reading this- Jennifer
Afraid not. I don't have time (multiply your manuscript by everyone who'd like me to read their manuscript, and then try and figure out when I'd have time to eat and sleep). Your best bet is to find an encouraging writer's group, on-line or in the flesh.
If ever I get talked into teaching any kind of writing course I'll post it up here in plenty of time. So far I've succeeded in saying no.
I can't buy Good Omen in my country. Can I buy Good Omen in your shop?
Well, this website doesn't have a shop, and nor do I. There's www.neilgaiman.net which isn't my shop either -- I just gave them the website name because I owned it and it wasn't doing me any good, and it could help them. Really it's DreamHaven Books, my local SF, Fantasy, Cool, Comics and Everything Else Bookshop, and I support them through a sense of enlightened self-interest; if they close down, I won't have anywhere to go and buy weird books. Also, they order enough of my stuff that I can send people there with a clear conscience.
And I just checked, and they seem to have both editions of Good Omens available.
Hi Neil,
I don't know if you'd be interested in this but I remember that you were acquainted with Douglas Adams who wrote for the original version of this show. Dr Who is back! Daily Telegraph Link here.
Also, on a slightly different note, I'm making an Endless Dinner where all the parts of the meal are based in some way on one of those characters. When I am done, would you like pictures and/or the recipes?
Good news about the Doctor.
And that would be fun. (I believe the Deadly Nightshade Creme Brulee is de rigeur for the Death Course, although some prefer the Arsenic Surprise.)
I'm doing a thesis paper on Emperor Joshua Norton, and the first place I heard about him was in the Sandman series. Mind if I ask what kind of research you did on the man? Was it difficult to locate sources? Any advice about where I can begin would be appreciated.
I first ran across him in a book called THE EMPEROR OF THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER ENGLISH ECCENTRICS, but most of the information in the Sandman story was taken from his biography, NORTON I, by William Drury. (And I just found a whole Norton Bibliography online here.)
A review of Neverwhere DVD over at the Boston Globe. Bit puzzled by the bit where it says that:
Gaiman supplies an interview and commentary, but when he notes that, for instance, the series strove to make its sets look expansive, the argument isn't convincing. I can't remember saying that. What I said was that most of the sets aren't sets but locations, badly lit so they look like sets, and that the locations themselves looked amazing. You just never got much of a sense of that on the screen...
Are there any plans for releasing your reading of "15 Portraits of Despair"? I was at the New York reading and I really loved it. I would adore a recording and I'm sure other people would as well...
-Kate (that Bard girl who looked a bit deathish)
Er, I don't think it had occurred to anyone, no. I mean, that was the first time I'd ever read it out loud (and if I'd been warned about the large Irish contingent in the audience beforehand I might not have done Dermot's accent, either).
Being a budding writer, I naturally have a question for you on writing. But I must first confess that I'm actually an artist with a deep need to tell my own stories.
After reading a great deal of your own work, which really showcases the storytelling aspect of, well, telling a story, I want to really just concentrate on writing short fiction. I was born an artist, so I'm very comfortable with letting my art take a back seat to writing or, more specifically, I see art and writing as very much related, or even interchangeable in some instances, so concentrating on writing is like gaining a different perspective on art, and thus will only be benificial to me.
I know this is beginning to read like a loveletter but I'm getting to the point. My question to you is: When writing scripts for The Sandman or any other comic you did, or for that matter any kind of short fiction that had to be turned in on a deadline, did you afford yourself the time after finishing the piece to stick it in a drawer for a day or so, and read it again later with fresh eyes? It seems like writing a monthly periodical you would have to make compromises at some level with something. I hold The Sandman series as straight fiction, just a sweeping story cut from whole cloth I don't even consider it a comic book. It could've easily been a giant series of novels. That is why I pose this question to you. I want to know how you were able to stay on your toes so consistently and be so creative while still maintaining a strict, timely deadline. What shortcuts did you use? Did you use any?
I'm sure this question has been asked many, many times before now so I will expect your prompt reply in the FAQ section 'On Writing'within a couple of days. Yeah right. You won't answer, the question is too damn vague, and besides, there are a hundred and ten thousand books "on writing" so why don't I 'Mr. I Wanna Express Myself" just schlep my ass to the bookstore or at least the library and research it my damn self. OK. Off to the library. Hey, it was worth a shot. Did you even read this far?
All the best,
Steve Krach
P.S. I've saved this as a Word document and will cut and paste it to the FAQ section as many times as I have to until I get an answer. Just Kidding. Maybe.
Well, seeing that you didn't, I'll post this (but as a rule, any kind of "I dare you" or threat or anything automatically means that things don't get used).
Once I threw away part of a storyline (in Season of Mists) because I realised that the story would just get too damn big if I used it. It had hundreds of dead babies in it, two fashion satanists, and a girl called Isolda Bane, who swore a lot. Once I rushed the end of a story in order to leave for a convention, and it wasn't right, and I knew it as soon as I got on the plane, and I called everyone and told them not to draw the last five pages and I'd fix it when I got back. And I did. (Sandman 24 -- the one in the School.) Other than that, mostly it worked. I rarely got the re-reading time, but I just about always had the thinking time, with the deadlines pushing hard enough that I rarely had the second-thoughts time. And that was good.
Yesterday was a signing in a book shop, for about 400 people. Things got a bit tense when I learned that the shop was going to have to throw everyone out when they closed at 6.00pm, and I sped everything up, and made it with a couple of minutes to spare. A bit fell off my Lamy fountain pen, rendering it sort of useless, and I asked the bookshop if I could buy another fountain pen. Instead they brought over three Shaeffers and told me to take my pick, as a gift. I took a nice black one with a good sort of heft to it, and was happy.
Today I used it a lot -- the space at the Helsinki comic convention was too small to contain the people who wanted me to sign things, so after doing a Q & A inside for everyone who could get in, I signed outside, in a sort of open tent in the road, for a long line of people stretched down the edge of the pavement.
I slowly got colder and colder (and have not yet totally warmed up), which is an occupational hazard to signing books and comics I'd not hitherto encountered. Hoping that the rest of the signings of the tour will be inside. Intellectually I know that I'm not going to catch a cold from just being out in the cold or the rain. On the other hand, I think that the last time I typed something like that here it was in Paris in January, and was immediately followed by flu.
When I went on the road with Tori to Chicago last year, I got to meet Kitty, who was cooking for the whole of Tori's crew. Kitty is a mother-goddess, worshipped and adored by Tori and the crew. She immediately adopted Maddy and taught her how to play with her food (it was food they couldn't take to Canada with them, and, having been opened, couldn't be donated with the rest to Chicago Food pantries: I saw Kitty teaching Maddy how to frisbee tacos, catapult sugar cubes, and bowl with lemons). Kitty's also an artist -- she showed me some lush photographs, drenched in colour, which she encases in glass and frames with copper, so I thought I'd repost the details of an upcoming show she's doing from her e-mail.
it is a group show, this time around.
when: oct 5-26, 2003 (coinciding w/ the maryland microcinefest film fest)
where: G-spot gallery 2980 falls road baltimore, md 21211
show: "get your grille on" (the indian summer BBQ show)
what: i am showing my "glass candy bars"
color-saturated cross-processed photographs--encased in hand-cut recycled glass, framed in copper.
questions?: kitty9thLife@aol.com
If you're in the area, go and check them out.
So what is the etiquette (I'll be amazed if that wasn't spelled horribly wrong) for tipping servers/waiters in Finnland? Because if I or someone at my table were served food that might kill us, I would probably tip considerably less. (this sounds silly, now that I've typed it...)
on a lighter note, I just finished Stardust whilst eating sushi. it was truly a perfect moment. hope your trip is going well.
~silly american girl
I don't think the Finns are really into tipping. (I was told "We don't tip. We pay our waitresses instead.")
It was great to meet you at the signing at the Equitable Center last week during New York is Book Country. I'd like to ask my favorite interview question, which is: If you could give your younger self -- the one just starting out in the business -- any advice, what would you tell him?
Best,
Rahadyan
I think I'd probably just suggest to myself that I try to enjoy the journey more, because it's going to be interesting.
A fellow named Davey suggested I pass along a post I put on the message board to this FAQ box. It is regarding The Wolves in the Walls. Having just finished Coraline, I bought the new book as soon as I found it. I teach kindergarten in a fairly poor area of Toronto. The children haven't been exposed to a lot of literature so I was interested in how they would react to a book with no cutesy illustrations. Experience has taught me that when I read a good book to children, they listen. They don't become distracted or chat among themselves. As I read the book, there was silence in the room. They were totally involved in the story line and how it played out through the illustrations. They empathized with Lucy's attachment to her pig puppet and one little girl started bringing her favourite doll to school so she wouldn't be separated from it. At the sight of the elephant's footprint on the last page one boy commented "Oh, here we go again". I'll read it again to them closer to Hallowe'en and ask them to draw their favourite part. Writing creative stories is a regular part of their weekly routine and I plan on also asking them to continue the story from where the elephants move in. It is a great book. I hope your daughters will inspire some more. Siobhan Duart
I'm pleased. When I finished writing it I went and read it to Maddy's kindergarten (or possibly first grade -- same teachers and children) class, and they liked it, which meant I was suprised by several of the reviews which claim it's not really for small kids, being too scary, or too wordy. Kids seem to like the words, and it's very hard to be afraid of the wolves for very long.
CRAZY HAIR is the next children's picture book, probably in 2005. (Although the HarperChildrens new edition of THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH will happen in late 2004.)
And that fellow named Davey is actually a lady...
Neil-
I was reading the following summary of entertainment news:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/09/26/ddish.DTL
And wanted to ask your opinion of two of the items. The first is the mention that Fox is being sued for "ripping off" LXG (I can't bring myself to call it the same name as the Alan Moore comics ;-) from some unmake script in the early 90s, and they are also claiming that Fox paid the esteemed Mr Moore to write the comics as a way to cover up the original story source. I"m assuming that you, knowing Alan Moore, will disagree with this rather silly assertion.
Second, and not nearly as important, but still interesting, is the blurb that Madonna is refusing to pose for pictures on her current book signing tour prompting her new kids book. As I've seen you happily (if wearily) pose for countless shots with your fans at signing, I was wondering what you thought of this.
Thanks
Disagree? Sure, it's silly. It didn't happen like that. I do love the idea of putting Alan on the witness stand, though, looming and huge like a yeti in a suit, to explain his creative processes. It's true that they started working on the film before The League was finished, but that was because Don Murphy snapped up League, based on (if I remember correctly) the first issue and the outline for the rest.
As for Madonna... on the one hand I think she's giving author signings a bad name (she will "hand presigned books to children, but will not personalise them"? Honestly!) On the other hand, I do understand that she really doesn't want any bad or unflattering photographs out there. It doesn't matter to me if people take red-eyed photos of me at a signing looking like a stunned demonic lemur with a bad hair day. But it probably matters a lot to her (additionally, the phrase "an' you 'ave ter understand, Neil, that wivart any make-up on, that woman looks like an 'andbag," reverberates in the back of my head, but will not be further explained).
Hi Neil,
Received my tickets from Foyles today and are most excited to be seeing you, Dave McKean and apparently Jonathan Ross in the flesh which is a most welcome surprise (no i just have to convince someone to go with me). I know this question is asked over and over again but how many things will you be signing because I will have the first 4 issuses of 1602 that all require signatures for my retirement fund and of course Wolves in the Walls.
hoping Christmas is coming early,
Matt
I'm pretty sure I'll be signing more than just Wolves in the Walls and Coraline at the signing... but how much more, I'm not sure (probably one or two items-from-home or whatever else Foyles is selling ( Endless Nights? Cages? American Gods?), plus Wolves and Coraline if you have them). I think it's very probable that you won't get all four 1602s signed, though, given the probable numbers that night. Your best bet, if you have extra stuff you want scrawled on, is to get to one of the UK lunchtime bookshop signings if you can, as well -- they tend to be smaller than the evening ones, and will definitely be much smaller than the Foyles event (although they won't have the reading, the Jonathan Ross live interview, or Dave McKean).
There was a Russian Meal tonight, at the oldest Russian restaurant in Helsinki, with authentic Russian food, and what I was assured was authentically surly service, which reached its high point when my editor and translator enquired about the apple pie, and explained to the waitress that they would go into anaphylactic shock if they ate nuts, and she told them huffily that there could not possibly be any nuts in the apple pie, because it had raisins in. They ate the pie, and asked about the little hard bits, and were told that they were cooked raisins. Then my editor started poking about in her pie. "What's that?" she asked, nervously. I reached across, and took it, and looked at it, and ate it. "Hazel nut," I said. "Is that bad?" They told the waitress that just because there were raisins in the pie, it did not mean there were not also nuts, and they sent her back to the kitchen to see if there were cashews (which would have been very bad indeed) but there weren't. Just hazel nuts. And walnuts. I asked if they had adrenaline injectors, and my editor did, and my book translator had left his at home.
We waited to see if they would die, and I told them encouraging stories about friends of mine who had stopped breathing in restaurants but survived and gone on to live long and productive lives, to cheer them up.
But in the end, neither of them stopped breathing. And when the bill came, they told the restaurant they weren't paying for the pie, either.
My meal was great, actually.
And that's all for tonight, except that I learned that Finns Don't Ask Questions In Press Conferences. I was told they wouldn't, and that I should just talk and talk, because otherwise it would be very short and embarrassing. I doubted it... but it seems to be true. They don't. (This is not, of course, entirely true. The first Press Conference I was at in Finland, in Kemi, in 1994, all the journalists, of every nationality, asked lots of questions. Then again, everyone was naked, sweating, and slightly drunk. Probably the rule is just that Fully Dressed Finnish Journalists Not Drinking High Alcohol Beer in Very Hot Town Saunas Don't Ask Questions.)
Photographer Mimi Ko writes to say,
The new EW is out, and that picture -- it's exactly as you described
it! It looks nothing like you in mood or gesture, but I assure you that
it is still a lot of fun to look at. It kind of reminds me of Ian
McKellan's Magneto in the X-Men movies, actually. (The little picture
of you with Death now, that looks more like you, except for the wide
angle distortion. ;)
So the magazine's out, now that I'm safely out of the country.
And I better go and find breakfast. It's got to be in this hotel somewhere.
I'm in Finland. Came through the airport door and was met by my publisher, who knew when I was arriving, and by my Finnish stalkers, who had figured out from the journal when I would be landing. I'd been in transit for 24 hours, so I suspect that the photos they got of me were barely human.
Still, I had dinner with all three of them tonight and more red-eyed photographs were taken.
Endless Nights seems to be at #16 right now on Amazon.com, which is slightly mindboggling. http://1.junglescan.com/scan/details.php?asin=1401200893&days=30 is the 30 day Junglescan on it (a fun little website you can use to track things on Amazon).
Lots of people have written to tell me about Salon.com doing a really nice feature on me, but this one gets in because... well, just because, really.
Hey, there's an article about you and Endless nights on Salon:
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/09/25/gaiman/index.html
A comment about Endless Nights and Despair: thank you very much for the face of Despair #14, the suicidal woman. The mental image of her ghost watching her body be moved away, just waiting for the happiness to start was the most evocative I have ever read. Really, though, how can you do anything to make yourself joyful, happy, content, or anything if you are merely a shade? My family has always had a c'est la vie attitude towards suicide so in one part of my mind suicide has always seemed an acceptable solution. That part was very effectively muzzled after reading that. Thank you and be safe in your travels.
Thank you... Lots of people pointed out that you can access the Salon.com content with a "day pass", by watching or clicking through a 15 second ad, which is no hardship... (And the article made Jessa at the wonderful Bookslut blog say something nice about Laura Miller, thus increasing the total amount of peace, harmony, and lurve in the universe by several improbabilities.)
Hello
I'm currently looking for work and a friend said I should be a research assistant, as I have a head for seemingly useless facts. I was wondering if you have ever had someone helping gather interesting and unusual material for you or know of anyone who does?
Thanks
James Moore
You know, for most authors, that's the fun bit, the whole head filled with otherwise-useless facts bit. I could delegate lots of things, but I don't know how I'd delegate that one, I'm afraid.
Not a question. Just wanted to welcome you to Finland. It's great to have you visiting these northern wastes every 2-3 years or so... See you on saturday.
Jouni (a gentleman from Finland)
PS. Got an email from the webmaster for the Israeli Neil Gaiman website. He wanted to use a panel from my comics version of 'Babycakes' illustrating a Hebrew translation of the story (he has a permission from Neil's online publisher to put the story online). If you want to check out the site, go to http://www.dreaming.co.il/index.shtml or if your computer doesn't understand Hebrew, you can check out my comics version in http://ljconstantine.com/babycakes/page1.htm
And Jaime Hernandez, of Love and Rockets fame, is interviewed over at Suicide Girls about the book's 25th Anniversary. http://suicidegirls.com/words/Jaime+Hernandez/ (Remember, there are lots of (extremely nice) naked Suicide Girls at the Suicide Girls site, so you may want not to look at it at work. Failing that, you can always explain to your boss that you read it for the articles...)
and now I plan to catch up on my sleep for a whole night.
This is being typed on the plane to Amsterdam, where I will change planes and go to Finland. This is the story of my plane journey so far:
I got onto the plane. I picked up some newspapers, got comfortable, read several pages of a newspaper before it slipped from my fingers onto the floor. The dreams went on for millions of years and I remember only the ones about black cats slipping into television screens, and then I woke up and stretched, groggily, momentarily waking up the man in the seat next to me, and I checked my watch. I'd been asleep for well over four hours and the meal service had come and gone.
I wasn't hungry, but the first rule of BookTour is probably Eat If You Can. Because you never know when there won't be food and you'll be on the road, so I ate what they had, which was a sad salad and a cheese plate and some melted ice cream. (Rule two of BookTour is probably And Grab the Hotel Bedtime Pillow Chocolates you don't want, and drop them in your computer bag, because one day it'll be 4.00am somewhere there isn't any food, and you'll remember you have hotel chocolates somewhere, and it's better than nothing.)
And then I wrote. The middle of 1602 part 7 seems to have gotten over its hesitations (I tend to stop a bit before killing a major character, trying to see if there's any way out. I don't do it with relish until I have to) and I answered all of the questions from journalists that have come in this week, except for the Slashdot.org interview ones, which I feel some sort of obligation to write a longer reply to...
Did I mention that I flew from Miami (very early in the morning) to Minneapolis, was driven to DreamHaven Books where I signed several hundred copies of ENDLESS NIGHTS and WOLVES IN THE WALLS before going back to the airport via the Mall of America to pick up a speaker for the iPod, and going away again? No? Well, that was the morning, before I got on the plane and fell asleep.
...
Now in Amsterdam Schiphol... leave for Helsinki in 80 minutes. Then on to Sweden, Norway, Croatia and Germany.
Lots of messages in on the Stephen King and Harold Bloom front, of which my favourite is probably:
Re: Stephen King
Of course, Mr. King isn't above a bit of snobbery himself. In a recent Entertainment Weekly article, he trashed James Patterson as "dopey" and dismissed William Gaddis and Paul Auster (as well as their "ilk") as "dull" and "overpraised." I am sure the late Mr. Gaddis wishes he had been able to please Mr. King more by having written about a group of childhood friends who, as grownups, fight monsters; choosing instead to write about such dull topics as politics, law, religion, language, music, economics, education, art, and love were surely mistakes which he now greatly regrets from beyond the grave. I am sure he also wishes he had been praised less (if such a thing were possible in light of the sort of reviews he received during his lifetime) in order to have made his writing more palatable to Mr. King.
Best,
Damin
and if your point is that authors (and columnists) say dopy things sometimes, you're absolutely right (I know. I'm one of them, and I certainly do). If your point is that authors write bad books from time to time, or retread, worry and chew over old themes, not always for the best, well, you're right there as well.
But I can't make the jump from there to anything other than puzzled irritation at the Bloom article in the LA Times, in which King's faults are demonstrated for the world to see. They appear to be 1) he is a writer of "penny dreadfuls" and 2) he liked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and said so in print. (Bloom then goes on to explain that it would be better for children not to read at all than to read J. K Rowling, and be led down the slippery slope to reading Stephen King. Read the article if you don't believe me.)
Now, I like and respect Steve very much as a person, and I've been a fan since picking up Salem's Lot on East Croydon station when I was fourteen. I've reviewed his work (not always positively), and twice now I've wound up on the BBC World Service talking about Stephen King as a writer, and his strengths and weaknesses. If I wanted to write an article about why Stephen King shouldn't be honoured as a writer, I bet I could come up with some more cogent and convincing reasons than Bloom's (and by the looks of it, so could you).
King's written some really solid non-fiction (Danse Macabre, and On Writing), many excellent short stories, several very fine novels. He's also a working writer who has raised a family by writing. He's written enough that there are some stinkers in there, but that's what happens when you write a lot. (And very few writers set out to write a stinker. Most of us hope that this next story will be one of the beautiful, angel-winged children we are proud of, rather than one of the evil malformed ones who should have remained locked in the cellar forever.) But I'd say that his strengths, like Twain's, far outweigh his weaknesses. And the man understands story...
And this was my other favourite comment:
I read your comment about the Harold Bloom piece and thanks to the login id and password provided by a fan went ahead and read the article by Professor Bloom. Much of Blooms comments are just part of a problem that exists in the academic world, especially in literature departments. I earned a Bachelor's degree in Literature from a pretty respected program at the time and found a lot of snobbery that I just didn't understand. One example, is the idea that certain people understand literature and some people just can't really "get it." There were numerous examples of people who came to me asking for help in their composition or literature classes who had made it all the way to college and were otherwise obviously very intelligent people but were struggling in some way or another. With a little dedication and some teaching to how these people needed to learn I was not only able to help them improve their grades immediately but I found their performance improved on following tests and assignments because their foundation was better. I understand that at the college level it's virtually impossible for a professor to teach to each individual but I think in 13 years of public school they could have gotten, as a foundation, what it took me a few days to give them. Unfortunately, these people were led to believe they just couldn't perform as well as people with more "talent" for it and they should just accept scraping by with minimum passing grades. In one instance I was astounded to find a college junior whose research for a paper was excellent but couldn't put sentences together to make a coherent paragraph. Not only did her grade on the specific paper on which we worked reflect my help, but future papers which she brought me to look over showed a definite improvement in organization and clarity. By asserting that King is unworthy of the award and Pynchon, or any of the other writers he mentions are more so, Bloom is clearly showing he "gets it" and the millions of people who read King don't. I think this is related to a myth that is propagated, in society at large, if not in the literary academic establishment specifically. That being, that great artists (writers included) are not really appreciated in their own time. I can't speak to other art forms but when it comes to writers this just isn't true. All members of the canon of western literature I can think of were popular in their day (and I'm willing to bet all the readers of your blog could only come up with maybe one or two exceptions total). Poe, Twain, Hemingway, Dickens, Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, you name it and they were very popular even when they were alive. Shakespeare's plays at The Globe were very popular among both the illiterate and the literate of his time. Dickens was wildly popular. So much so, that not only did he sell his novels in serial form but then turned around and sold them again bundled together as whole books. Twain was not only popular for his writing but was a sought after speaker who traveled not only on this continent but Europe and Asia as well. Now, Huckleberry Fin is considered one of the greatest works of American fiction.
Another of Bloom's comments is patently untrue and again I base this on personal experience. He says he would rather kids not read anything at all rather than read J. K. Rowling. That reading the Harry Potter books only prepares them to read King and not more worthy works. The first book I remember enjoying is The Hobbit (another book frequently derided by the literary critics and professors). This led me to read the rest of Tolkien's works and then on to other books in the fantasy genre. Eventually, I began to read and enjoy works other than fantasy including those works part of the western literary canon. This all led me to choose to seek a degree in literature. There is a gap in literature from Dick and Jane beginner reading to heavier material that turns a lot of kids (mostly young boys) away from reading. If only a fraction of those kids go on to enjoy or even just appreciate the works of Shakespeare or any of the other great works of literature as a result of reading Harry Potter, then I applaud Rowling. If one person of any age reads King, or you, or whoever and decides they want to pass on their enjoyment of the written word by becoming a writer or a teacher then I think anyone who already loves the written word in any form should be overjoyed.
Always a fan,
Larry Johnson, Jr.
Hello Neil,
Just curious - the Silver Bullet Comics page you linked to a few days ago mentions that the picture and story about Endless Nights for Entertainment Weekly was supposed to run in the September 19th edition. Well, there was a short (pictureless) review of the Neverwhere DVD in there, but I didn't see anything else pertaining to you in that edition, nor in the September 26th one either.
Did the story get pulled or something, or am I just incredibly blind?
Thanks for all your wonderful work,
Leigh
it'll be in the one that comes out on Sep 26th (which is cover dated a week on from there -- probably 3 October 2004. Bizarre matrix-male-model photo and all.
...
High points of today:
Went to see Will Eisner for 50 minutes in the afternoon, during my only down time.
Met (and signed copies of Endless Nights and Wolves in the Walls) for many hundreds of Barnes and Noble Managers. And while many of them were "You have to sign something for my assistant manager who hand-sells your stuff and reads your journal and says she'll stab me in the night if I forget to get something signed" there were also an awful lot of "So who is Virginia Dare?" and "I've been reading you since Sandman #1" and so on, just like a normal signing. We ran out of Endless Nights for them. Then we ran out of Wolves in the Walls. Then, about 5 hours after I started, I stopped.
Low points of today: just got to my hotel. It's nearly 1:30 am right now. I leave for the airport at 6.00 am. I need to figure out how to connect to the internet do e-mail and post this...
Posting may become a bit irregular, as I will probably next be logging on from Finland. Or maybe Amsterdam airport.
New York is already starting to recede into a strange signing hand-aching braindead sort of blur.
I stayed at the Library Hotel -- having mentioned it on the journal I thought I'd try it -- and was disappointed. The concept of themed book-filled Dewey decimal-numbered rooms is a wonderful one, but I felt like they'd missed out on the whole hotel bit that goes with it. There was no food, for example. No room service. There's a restaurant attached to the hotel that you can order food from and go down and pick up, when it's open (which it isn't on, for example, Sundays) but nothing else, which meant I kept rediscovering how weird it is to stay in a room-service-less hotel, normally by being very hungry (during days like the last few, when food doesn't always get included in your daily schedule and you grab food wherever you can). It also had a patchwork of amazingly nice and helpful staff, along with some amazingly unhelpful or clueless ones who managed a couple of times to slide over into a sort of Basil Fawltyesque rudeness, astonishing Fred, the driver who DC had assigned to me to make sure I got to all the events on time.
On the other hand, the conceit is nice (and I hope the lawsuit is dismissed), they don't mind if you have your photo taken in their hotel (lots of hotels get very twitchy if you're being interviewed and there's a photographer there, and I had a day of interviews), and I ran into a bunch of nice readers-of-my-stuff-and-this-blog-down-from-Boston in the elevator , which was fun -- they were there because I'd mentioned it here, which is why I'm shaking my head and giving it a thumbs down in the journal at this point. I don't think I'd ever stay there again. It's not cheap, and for the money you're paying for a room there, you could get a room in, well, an actual hotel. New York's full of them, even if the rest of them are a bit further from the New York Public Library, and don't have books aplenty everywhere. (Would I have been more forgiving if my room had been something other than "New Media" and filled with books telling me how to survive the Coming Millennium Bug? Possibly. Might it be a lovely hotel if you're not an author on a crazed booksigning spree? Also possibly.)
(Remember: if you're in New York, go to the Public Library on 5th Avenue and 41st, go up to the third floor, and --this is not a joke -- follow the signs to the Men's Toilets. Just before you reach the toilets, you get to the Charles Addams original art exhibit, which changes several times a year, and is always wonderful.)
Sunday was fun in a smashed sort of way. (Saturday did the smashing: an hour of talking and reading to 500 people, followed by seven hours of signing. It was made easy because everyone was so nice, but I was punch-drunk by the end.) The highlights of Sunday included a signing in the middle of the street for a hundred or so wristbanded people, eating ice-cream with Shelly Bond, Scott Rowe-from Time-Warner, Danny Vozzo and his family (he met his wife, Stephanie, because she was a Sandman fan who went looking for his name in the New York phone book, long enough ago that they have a ten year old daughter...) and Fred the driver, and doing the talk in the evening with art spiegelman at the 92nd St Y.
After the talk at the Y art and I signed, and I was made happy to see how many of the people there had things by both of us. Then got a hasty something to eat, once it was done, and was in bed by about 1:00am. I got a very small amount of sleep before the alarm call and a 5:45 am pick up by a driver and on to the airport.
No-one at DC seemed quite certain why I had to leave New York so early, but there seemed a general consensus that it was important and Rich Johnson, the man who sells the DC graphic novels to the book trade, and who would be my host at this Barnes and Noble thingie in Ft Lauderdale, would explain why when I saw him at the airport. He stumbled, grey, morning-eyed and uncoffeed, up to the airport gate this morning. "Rich, why am I on this plane?" "No idea," he muttered. "I only discovered we were on the same plane a couple of days ago. I didn't book it."
So I slept on the plane. This was a good thing...
Oh well. The sea is pounding outside my bedroom window, and it bought me a little writing time, and one of my favourite characters in 1602 will meet a nasty end in a couple of minutes.
Barnes and Noble Fort Lauderdale signing tonight...
...
Several people asked if I was serious about Steve King at his best being as good a writer as anyone. As good as Shakespeare, or Rochester, or Tyndale? Probably not. As good as anyone on Bloom's list of "more worthy" writers. Absolutely.
(A helpful one for anyone who wants to read the Bloom comments and doesn't want to register:
Hi, Neil,
I hate having to register to use otherwise free services on the web. To save your faithful readers who feel likewise the indignity, here's an ID they're more than welcome to use to access the LATimes:
login: gaimanfans
password: gaimanfans
Enjoy.
There.)
And I commented during the Equitable Centre talk -- during a question on why the idea of reading the future through entrails and innards cropped up in my fiction -- that I'd never understood how you could tell the future through Cheese, although I knew it was a real way of looking into the unknown.
And someone's replied to say:
My curiousity was piqued by your comment about Tiromancy (sometimes with a "y", though that would suggest a rather different Latin root), the telling of fortunes through cheese. According to Shaw's "Divining the Future: Prognostication from Astrology to Zoomancy" (1998), it was probably practiced by looking at the formation of mold spores on the surface of the cheese, much in the same way as divination through tea leaves. Other (less reputable) sources argue for attaching notes to pieces of cheese, then seeing which is the last to be eaten by a mouse (which seems more like sminthomancy, if such a thing exists), or which is the last to go moldy.
I'm sure you've got a flood of responses on this, but thought I'd throw in my two cents.
and GMZoe writes to say:
We have some people on the message board wondering how long the Sandman library editions (as opposed to the new editions) will still be available through bookstores. A few of them have invested in half a set so far, and want all their copies to match, but can't afford to buy the rest all in one go.
Well, as the books go out of print, and need to be reprinted, as they do every few months, the new covers will go on. Preludes and Nocturnes should be drifting into stores over the next few weeks. No-one's going to take the older editions off-sale. There are thousands of them out there, in bookstores and comics stores, and I expect it'll take several years until they're harder to find (much as the first run of Sandman books are now. And you still run into them on shelves from time to time).
I'm encouraging DC to do a Boxed Set of Sandman books as well. This is not something for people who already have the books, but something that just makes it easier for someone who wants to get them all, to get them all. Few and far, far and few, are the shops -- even online ones -- with all ten books on hand and for sale.
The biggest problem with long and interesting and exhausting days is that once they're done, the last thing I can do is type a coherent account of the doings of the day. Dull, routine days are much more likely to produce interesting posts.
So, for whoever's interested: DC has just bound up the last 20,000 previously unbound copies of Endless Nights, and will be sending them out to the stores, bringing the first printing to 120,000, and DC has ordered a second printing, so there should be about 140,000 copies in print in a couple of weeks. It also looks like we can correct the tiny bunch of typos that crept in (the oddest of which, the word "memory" spelled "memery" in the seventh Despair story, is the most mysterious typo in the world, because it was spelled correctly in the files that went to the printer, and in every version before that).
I need to close a bunch of Opera and Explorer windows that are marking things I meant to link to when I got a moment. So...
Here are some strange and beautiful photographic images: http://entropy8.com/greatest_hits/hallucinations/ephemera/
What else? Well, Harold Bloom is a twerp. Steve King's best work -- Misery, for example, or The Body, or the Man in Black short story about the kid who met the Devil, picking a few just off the top of my head -- are as good, sentence by sentence and story by story, as anything out there, by anyone. This LA Times article is just puffed-up snobbery of the worst kind.
Here's a link to some articles on Endless Nights I may or may not have remembered to post: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/news/106392072887765.htm
It hadn't occurred to us that people who already had the Sandman books would see the new Sandman covers and want them, but lots of people have written in en masse and asked about ways of obtaining them to put on their own books. DC's investigating a way of packaging the ten covers alone, the hardback versions with dustflaps, with a slip of cardboard, for more or less cost, for those people who want them. I'll put something up when it's figured out, if it happens.
Here's the first part of Orson Scott Card's essay on Internet copyright, piracy and MP3s: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-1.html
There's more on the same subject, some different but equally interesting opinions, and a fascinating look at Harlan Ellison's case against AOL at http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/archive_detail.html?id1=21
There's a short and not particularly accurate review of Wolves in the Walls at the New York Times (you need to register, I think). It's not as good as the outraged Amazon i-have-read-this-book reviewer who complained about a book in which
"Children live in a house with noises in the walls - and the noises turn out to be wolves with blood dripping from their jaws that come out of the walls and attack the family!"
She seems very certain that that no children must be allowed to see these bloody-jawed wolves; I wonder if she'll start a campaign to stamp out this sort of thing, and if anyone will tell her that if she had read the book she'd realise that it was jam...
Interview with art speigelman and Francoise Mouly about Little Lit 3 here at http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/7430851p-8373874c.html
I loved this article about an interview with Johnny Cash that changed someone's life: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1043707,00.html
I'm a Guest of Honour at next year's Mythopoeic Conference: http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon35.html
Someone wanted to know where the expression "safe as houses" came from. I like to think it's because houses are safe places, but really it's from the Victorian middle classes feeling the safest possible investment was in property -- a safe investment was safe as houses.
...
I have seen the Entertainment Weekly photograph, the one I talk about here: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/
2003_08_03_archive.asp#106032199878652529. I don't look like me at all. It's a billowy coat shot, and I look, well, as I suspected, rather like a Bond villain -- one of the normal-looking ones, not one of the creepy bald ones with no earlobes -- in some Matrixy film, who is doing something very odd with his hands...
I know this is missing information, and I'll update it over at Where's Neil as I get bookstore names and addresses and times... but we're running late enough that I figure that this is a start...
....
> FINLAND
>
> SATURDAY September 27
> Host: Helsinki Comic Books Festival
> 15.00 - Interview (Interviewer Hannu Blommila) and signing at Suomalainen kirjakauppa, Aleksanterinkatu 23, Helsinki
> SUNDAY September 28
> Host: Helsinki Comic Books Festival
> 15.00: Interview (Hannu Blommila) and signing at Aktia Hall, Yrj�nkatu 31, Helsinki where the Helsinki Comic Books Festival is held
I believe that Aktia Hall, Yrjonkatu 31, is the address
> NORWAY
>
> TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
> 16.00 - 17.00 Tronsmo Bookstore - presentation of "Coraline" and book signing
at Kristian Augustsgate 19, Oslo
The bookstore's website is here: http://www.tronsmo.no/?action=info&om=tronsmo
> SWEDEN
>
> Thursday October 2
> Neil arrives from Norway.
> 7 pm Seminar at Kulturhuset lead by Kristoffer Leandoer, the Swedish translator of Coraline. Neil Gaiman starts with reading from his book/books. (About Kulturhuset: http://www.kulturhuset.se/english/default.asp)
Kulturhuset is located in the centre of Stockholm on Sergels Torg. The website has detailed directions. Here is the mailing address:
Kulturhuset
Box 16414
103 27 Stockholm
SWEDEN
> Friday October 3
> 5 pm - 6 pm Reading and signing books at one of largest bookstore in Stockholm, Akademibokhandeln.
M�ster Samuelsgatan 32, Sergels Torg 12, Stockholm SE, 111 57
The website is here http://www.akademibokhandeln.se/. You might want to direct people there--I am not 100% sure the above address is the correct one.
> Saturday October 4
> 3 pm (??) reading and signing books, Science Fiction Bookstore
Address: V�sterl�nggatan 48 Gamla stan Stockholm (NB - it's 14:00 on the store website, which is probably right.)
> CROATIA
>
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5
Late afternoon (TIME NOT YET SET): promotion and signing in Bookshop Algoritam, Trgovacki centar King Cross, Skorpikova 34
19:30: promotion in: Klub Knjizevnika trg Bana Jelacica 7 (accross the street from the hotel)
Neil--we are finding out what these "promotions" are exactly entailing.
Monday: October 6th
12:00: signing in Bookshop Zagreb (Gajeva 1)
19:00: promotion in Osijek, Franck Caffe Club, Trg slobode 7 (Osijek-Zagreb about 300 km/ 180 miles)
> GERMANY
>
> Readings and signings (always English/German with actor Martin Semmelrogge):
> Thursday, Oct. 9. in Cologne: 20.30 (8.30 PM) at Mayersche Buchhandlung, Neumarkt-Galerie, Neumarkt 2
> Friday, Oct. 10. in Hamburg: 20.00 (8.00 PM) at Abaton Kino, Allendeplatz 3/Ecke Grindelhof
> Saturday, Oct. 11. in Frankfurt: 14.00 (2.00 PM) at Frankfurt Book Fair, Hall 4.1/ Forum
>
> Book signing (and participation in the Guinness world record for the longest ever comic): Sunday, Oct. 12. in Frankfurt: 11.00-12.00 AM at Frankfurt Book Fair, Hall 3.0 / J 807 (Comic-Zentrum)
Dirk Deppey over at the Comics Journal Journalista blog says...
Neil Gaiman prepares himself for the "comic shops are underordering my graphic novel" blues. Given where I work, I can of course sympathise. Fortunately, I'm sure the royalty checks from the many, many, many copies sold in bookstores will ease his pain somewhat.
... which is funny, but kind of misses the point. I'm sure that Dirk doesn't feel that the sales of Ghost World or Jimmy Corrigan through bookstores makes up for the absence of many excellent Fantagraphics books from lots of comic store shelves.
There were a lot of reasons for doing SANDMAN:ENDLESS NIGHTS, but money wasn't really one of them. I got (I just worked it out) exactly a 40th the advance for it I would have for spending the same amount of time writing a prose novel, and will make a tiny fraction of the royalty that I'd get for a novel (DC pays a real royalty, but not a big one, and it's being split with the seven artists, which is as it should be). Most of the other reasons took care of themselves: the joy of seeing a Manara story drawn by Manara, for example. Finally working with Bill Sienkiewicz. Giving Karen something really cool for Vertigo's tenth birthday. Creating an original hardback graphic novel that the book trade could get behind was another bit of the whole.
But a big part of it was wanting to give the comic stores something. These are the places that I started, and Sandman started, after all. Back when we used to release Sandman hardbacks, I'd hear from delighted retailers that they'd shifted a hundred or more, and I'd paid their overheads for the month. That they liked getting new people, some of them even female, into their stores, and that these people would go on and buy other things, would discover Alan Moore or the Hernandez brothers or, or, or....
And I liked that, because it felt like we were giving something back to the comic shops, which were the places that everything started.
Where ENDLESS NIGHTS was concerned, we've tried (with varying degrees of success) to make sure that the comic shops had the book before the bookshops, hoping to be able to send people into comic shops.
Paul Levitz mentioned to me, several months ago, that DC Comics decided, earlier this year, to survey comic store customers and bookstore customers to find out who was buying their graphic novels. They put reply paid cards into several of their top-selling graphic novels, coded for where people bought their books, and waited for the replies to come in. The results puzzled and astonished them: there was no significant difference between the two sets of buyers. Gender, income, education, age spread, all that was, rather counterintuitively, identical across the two groups. Whether the bookbuyers bought their graphic novels in Borders or at Midway Comics had more to do with accidents of geography and availability than anything else.
And it's worked, to some extent: there are lots of nice messages coming in from people who have gone into comic shops for the very first time, now that Endless Nights is out.
I'll extract from a few, to give you the flavour:
I went to the Atlantis Fantasywold Comic shop here in Santa Cruz for the
first time ever...not sure why it took me so long--mostly because i bought
most of your work on eBay or at signings i guess!
It's not icky in there at all! ;-) It's bright and lovely and there was
actually even a girl working there (what a shame that it surprises me!).
Both she and the man behind the counter were friendly had wonderfully
helpful and I walked out with Endless Nights and both issues of 1602. Not
hard to find either. There was a huge display with Endless Nights on the
counter and a spinny thingy full of Sandmans...again, why have I never
gone in there??
Robyn
Thank you so much for mentioning Golden Apple Comics on your site. I've spent a good chunk of today searching for a comic store in my area, as I just moved to LA. One of Golden's locations is just a short bus ride from me - perfect. I even talked to a gentleman, who I am assuming is the owner, who spoke highly of you and said he was just on the phone with you this morning. You had called to make sure he had Endless Nights. It was in. As was 1602 issue 2 and Neverwhere DVD. I spent a bit more money than I'd planned but I am quite pleased with everything I purchased. 1602 is amazing and I can't wait until the next issue. Endless Nights was both amazing and depressing. Despair had me almost in tears. Very powerful writing in all of them, and the artwork was amazing as well. Please pass on my appreciation to the all of the artists!
And now I think I will go and treat myself to sushi. It seems like a good end to a good day.
jennifer
And lots of ones from comic store regulars who did just fine:
Dear Mister Gaiman:
I'm one of the fortunate folks in Raleigh, NC where the comic book proprietor was savvy enough to get Plenty Of "Endless Nights" Copies. There were enough that they put my copy aside more out of habit: "Sandman book, yep, Garrett'll want this." Great stories, lovely stories, by the way. I guess I'm writing all this to stave off the rising wave of "Why in the heck am I at work before a hurricane?" panic. At any rate, please keep up the great writing. You're my favorite writer, bar none.
Sincerely, Garrett
and
Regarding Endlesss Nights - happy dance, indeed! Got my copy from the Silver Snail in Toronto, and had to elbow past the group pawing the few remaining copies. Devoured the first story illuminated with a tiny flashlight while my wife slept beside me. Batteries for the hurricane be damned!
I get many of my odd links thanks to your diligence. Here is one in return. It lists over 4000 bunny names, and is quite comprehensive. For a bunny-name-list type of thing.
http://www.altheim.com/bunny/
Best,
TedB
My god. The bunny names....
The next one is also pretty typical, though:
I'm sure you're going to get a stack of accolades and stories and other such e-mail...but here's one more.
I dutifully went to my local (Pasadena) comics shop to get "Endless Nights" to find (despite their assurances last week) they'd sold all their copies. (They apparently only got half their order. I don't know why. I'm not sure they know either.)
Undaunted, I went to the very first comics shop I found when I moved out here and found that they, too, had sold out. The proprietor (somewhat sadly) told me his competition down the street would probably have books left, but if they didn't would I please return and ask him to order one for me?
I had a moral dilemma then, wishing I could both patronise the shop and read the book tonight. I ended up driving to the other shop, where I did find the book and had a lovely conversation with the guy at the cash register. Then I came home, read the book, and can declare that it was worth every mile driven.
I also solved my dilemma by deciding to go back to the second shop and buy a copy for a friend who won't otherwise read it. Everyone wins, right?
I hope none of your readers complaining of not being able to find "Endless Nights" are in the LA area, 'cause there are definitely books to be found with a little effort. If not (say, if the impending rush tomorrow makes the rest of them disappear), Phil at Kings Comics and Cards in Burbank will happily order them.
Oh, and good luck with the huricane...
-- Heather
Some people have had to go into a lot of comics shops in order to actually find a copy, which may be good for teaching new people where their comics shops are, but is lousy from a making new customers point of view. And while I'm sure that that some of the shops who are telling the people who are going in that they were shorted on their order really did only get half -- or a third -- or none -- of the copies they ordered, in my experience this is also what comic shops tell people when saying "Heck, we jes' didn't order enough," is too embarrassing actually to admit.
The comic stores that really puzzle me are the ones who are saying that they didn't know there was going to be a demand for it. It's not like DC didn't take the cover of Diamond Previews, or warn the retailers that there was going to be a lot of media attention for the book.
And if I've devoted too much time to maundering about this, it's from a sort of frustration. I do understand that lots of comics shops are small, and are out on the edge, and only have so much money to spend on things every month, and have to guess about where they put their money. But if the same people are buying the graphic novels in both places, I'd like to send them out of comic stores holding a copy of Endless Nights, and maybe something else they wouldn't otherwise have known about.
...
Hi Neil,
Thanks for making my day with 'giddy harumphrodite'. Wonderful expression. Or is it a quote?
Also, I think that your Village Voice picture isn't so much a Minneapolis Weird Hair Day photo as an Oh My God He's Turning Into Michael Chabon photo. That may be because I have just finished re-reading Kavalier & Clay, and I keep wondering just how well and how long you two know each other.
Enjoy your hurricane,
Marrije
It's a half-remembered and probably mis-spelled quote from a Rudyard Kipling poem, where he explains that a marine "is a kind of a giddy harumphrodite, soldier and sailor too".
I can guarantee I'm not turning into Michael Chabon, who is much better looking than me, and whose hair always looks as though it's happening on purpose. I first met Michael on a panel in Chicago, with Chris Ware and Scott McCloud and Will Eisner and Ben Katchor, and we've not seen each other as much as either of us would have liked since, but when we're in the same place we take advantage of it, and chat and eat and chat some more.
Hi Neil.
I see that you are doing two conversations followed by signings at San Jose State University on Oct. 16th. I'm going to the later reading, the one at 7:30pm, and I was wondering if there was any significant reason why one is free and the other is priced? Will one be privledged to something that the other won't be?
---
Narineh.
I don't know. I think that one's a kind of "in conversation" while the other will be a much longer reading/talk/Q & A sort of thing. But that's my assumption from looking at probably the same websites that you've been looking at.
...
hi neil,
you mention the article by the journalist who saw the line of hundreds of fans waiting in line... the best writer you never heard of, etc... if i remember correctly, isnt that the article that mentions you signing girls' breasts? heh. no wonder you gave us no link.
has anyone mentioned the inspector linley mysteries on pbs? because for some reason my brain seems to think he looks slightly like you.
no, you havent signed my breasts, just my sandmans. :)
bloogirl
I don't remember if that was in that article or not, but the reason I didn't link to it was that it's a pay-per-view article, and not a very long one.
Hi Neil,
Bust Magazine just released its "Tales From The Dark Side" issue and named Death one of the "Top 25 Dark Ladies of All Time." There's an image from Endless Nights and the following:
Death first appears in Neil Gaiman's Preludes and Nocturnes, the first sequence of comics in The Sandman series. Her brother Dream is sitting on a park bench feeling sorry for himself when she arrives, talking about Mary Poppins, and telling him, in the way that only a sibling can, to stop being so "bubble-headed." This is her role in the comic, to be the voice of reason for her family. Death's job is also, by definition, to be there when your time is up, but she is the last personification of the Grim Reaper one might expect to see. Dressed like Siouxsie Sioux in a pair of black jeans and sporting a gold Ankh pendant, she is there to usher the living to whatever comes next. Not in a depressing way, but matter-of-factly, and with care. As one of the characters in The Sandman describes her, Death is "...just a friend. Sometimes. Maybe." - Shelley Brooke
Other top "Dark Ladies" include Elizabeth Bathory, Joan Crawford, Frida Kahlo and Medea.
-jen
Yay for Bust. I meant to mention this when it came out -- my assistant Lorraine has a subscription to Bust -- and completely forgot.
I love ENDLESS NIGHTS so far, but a quick comment about the photo in the back - no black, leather jacket? I nearly didn't recognize you. Did you break out a leather jacket when writing the stories for ENDLESS NIGHTS, like you wore during the writing of THE SANDMAN?
dave golbitz
It was a hot day in a hot studio, so I didn't bother.
But oddly enough, the mysterious possibly elephant-hide (according to a leather worker who pointed out that she'd destroyed several leather needles trying to penetrate the thickest, hardest, wrinklediest leather she'd ever encountered, while customising it, and had also discovered that it was made in India and decided that that probably meant it was elephant) black leather jacket, worn from 1995 on, which had been sitting in a dark closet since around the point I started writing American Gods, has just surfaced, and is being happily worn again.
The original Sandman leather jacket (1988-1995ish) was auctioned on eBay for the CBLDF, and made over $6000 at the time -- and has made more since, I understand.
Hey Neil, when you have a moment, could you post on your journal that our site is now able to sell CDs again? Due to the link in your journal yesterday, our album sold out and the page was refusing people. Huge, massive thanks to you. www.theendlessband.com
-Adriana and David Roze
Sure.
And let's see... someof these answer themselves:
I missed you on NPR earlier today and was wondering if you knew of anywhere I could hear the program online?
Hullo Neil--
I'm sure you've already received a thousand or so copies of this link, but
I'll make it 1001...
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?
prgDate=18-Sep-2003&prgId=5
Great interview, hope you're staying out of the storm!
--Bill^2, ex of the Well crew
"We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." --David Zindell
http://billsquared.says.it/
Nope. You were it.
And I'd talk about NPR and things but it's too late and this is already too long, and tomorrow will be a long long day...
My hotel is weird. It's so cool and stylish that they have a pretty much nonexistent room service menu, and when you order the hamburger from it, while they do the expensive hotel thing of charging you $20 for it, they also bring it up in a plastic bag of the kind that makes you suspect they picked it up from the burger place next door and charged you (well, AOL Time Warner) $15 to bring it up to your room. Said room is decorated with giant photos of barbie dolls in pyjamas, and is decorated in a style I like to think of as Early Pimp. The imitation wolfskin throw rug on the bed is a particularly interesting touch....
I have a son currently watching the Jay Leno show, because Eddie Izzard's going to be on. "You know," I said, "I don't think I've watched Jay Leno in ages." "Like how long?" he asked. "Er. I think Hugh Grant was on that night to apologise for getting a blowjob from a hooker," I said. He looked at me as if I'd told him that it was back when Jay was still making topical jokes about the Albigensian Crusades, and said that that was a very long time ago, and I agreed that it was.
His college is cancelled tomorrow, due to hurricanes. The train I was going to take out of here has also been cancelled due to hurricanes. Life is certainly interesting.
Hi Neil,
Just curious, when you say the NY Times "tracks" books so if they aren't tracked they won't be listed. Does that mean that there can be books that are huge sellers, best-sellers, that are not on the list? Could, would, the paper purposely not track something? It seems rather scetchy and unethical. Kind of like the electoral college...
Thanks,
Ingrid
Here's a four-year-old article from Salon.com that explains it fairly accurately: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/10/14/nytimes/ It's a really interesting article.
There are other bestseller lists. The weird thing is simply how important the Times list is perceived as being.
No, I don't believe they'd intentionally not track something. But it's easy for books to fly under the radar.
The Northern Californian Booksellers Association bestseller list is always similar to the Times list in braod strokes but just, well, sharper.
Dear Neil,
Please take pity on a confused librarian and answer the following question: Is the Wolves in the Walls a picture book or a graphic novel?
Allow me to explain: today, my library's copies of the Wolves in the Walls arrived, to much jubliation, after sitting in cataloging purgatory for some time. Upon recieving the book, I noticed that our cracker-jack catalogers had classified the book as a Picture Book. I immediately said "That's wrong! This is a graphic novel -- look at the word balloons! Look at the sequetntial art! It's a graphic novel, it should be in the Juvenile Graphic novel collection!"
I took my complaint to a co-worker, who said "But it looks like a picture book" Me: "But it's a graphic novel" Her: "But it looks like a picture book" Me: "But it's a graphic novel" And so on and so forth for the better part of the afternoon.
Finally we agreed to ask you, and let you be the final word on the subject. Should The Wolves in the Walls be shelved with the Picture Books, with things like Madeline and Curious George (among others) -OR- Should it be shelved in the Juvinile Graphic Novel collection with things like Scary Godmother and the Batman Adventures (among others)?
Thank You
Merideth
...can't you just get two copies, and put one in each place? To be honest, I think it's probably an amphibian, or even a giddy harumphrodite, and will be equally at home in either location.
Okay. Off to Washington now...
You did a happy dance for Endless Nights coming out today (Wednesday) so I walked into my local comic store today and asked if it had come in yet, same as I did last week. They said "It came in ... it sold out. Should have more copies soon."
Good news for you (it's selling well, at least around here), bad news for me (no copy yet, asked them to put one aside for me when they get more).
-- Peter Radcliffe.
Sorry about that, Peter. I think I'm going to be getting rather a lot of these "my comic store sold out of both of the copies it ordered" messages. It'll probably get worse tomorrow (?), when the USA Today piece comes out, and worse again next week when Entertainment Weekly comes out, and more people go into comic stores to be told that, nope, they've sold out.
There are sensible comics retailers who've ordered high numbers, or high for them. (Brian Hibbs at Comix Experience wrote to say he's ordered well over a hundred copies as his first order. Bill Leibowitz at Golden Apple has many hundreds of copies across all three of his stores, and a photo of me taken about fifteen years ago on the front page of his website. Yes, Virginia, I was that thin, and the dark glasses really were that big, and please let's not talk about the hair.)
But lots of them didn't order enough -- and will now start grumbling about people buying their graphic novels in bookstores.
...
And yes, I know that the North Carolinas and Virginias and lots of other places than Washington DC are in the path of Isabel. Honest.
And I'm rather looking forward to seeing whatever hurricane there is to see.
...
You're on CNN.com!!! I'm sure everyone else has mentioned it by now.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/09/17/
review.gaiman/index.html
CNN) -- The day on which Neil Gaiman finally breaks through to the culture-at-large -- and it seems a good bet that he will -- a lot of folks will be blindsided.
-Congrats!!
cynister
Interesting review of both books.
It's fascinating the way that different people have favourite (and least favourite) stories.
My New York friends are being as reassuring as they can. "Don't worry about Hurricane Isabel," they say. "It's probably going to miss us completely. The latest news is that it won't trouble anywhere but Washington DC, and that only on Thursday."
I will, of course, be in Washington DC on Thursday, doing NPR's Talk of the Nation. (People have asked if it's prerecorded or live. It's live; Talk of the Nation's a phone-in show.)
So, several years ago a journalist looked out of his window, and saw a line of many hundred people wrapped around the New York Virgin megastore building, and discovered that it was all for a signing by someone he'd never heard of for a book called Sandman: Dream Hunters. (That was me and Yoshitaka Amano signing. Try to keep up.) And there was an article in Forbes Magazine very soon after, explaining that I was the most famous author you'd never heard of.
And now Forbes does one of the first reviews of Endless Nights, at Forbes.com: The Sandman Returns in an article that also mentions such things as Alisa Kwitney's SANDMAN: KING OF DREAMS book (it's a sort of a big, heavily illustrated introduction to and overview of Sandman) and Adriana and David Roze's band "The Endless" (I have their CD "...and I'm the Queen of the Moon" in front of me as I type this. It's aetherial, intelligent and catchy at the same time).
Which reminds me, Lorraine-my-assistant-and-goddess-of-the-Minnesota-renfest (see her on the Ship stage, the one that looks like a boat, before Puke and Snot) is terribly happy about her latest CD review, over at Green Man review: http://greenmanreview.com/cd/cd_folkunderground_buriedthings.html and thinks that everyone should read the review, buy the CD, make her rich, etc.
Sandman: Endless Nights comes out tomorrow (Wednesday). (Does a little happy dance.)
I hope you all like it. I'm really really proud of it, and think it's got some of the best comics work I've ever done in it. And the art makes me very thrilled indeed.
Everything that I see has Endless Nights listed as #12 in the Sandman series. I have 1-10, and I can't seem to find a #11 anywhere. Could you tell me if it really exists and what it's titled?
Thanks!
Diana
I think it's only Amazon.com, as far as I know, who've decided that Endless Nights is Book 12, and I suppose they've picked Sandman:Dream Hunters to be Book 11 by that reckoning. Unless Sandman: Dust Covers, the Dave McKean covers and art book (which also contains one new story) is their #11.
Endless Nights is really not Book 12, unless it's also Book 0 at the same time. As a rule, the further into Sandman you go, the more wise it is to read the books in the order they were published. (Starting with THE WAKE, the last one, is not recommended at all.) Endless Nights on the other hand, is a book that anyone should be able to pick up. People who've already read Sandman will find things in it that people who haven't won't notice, but it should be accessible to anybody.
Dave McKean's done a new set of Sandman covers, patterned after ENDLESS NIGHTS (you can see some of them in this press release at http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=2778 Click on the thumbnail covers to see them full size). We've made sure that those books have numbers on. Endless Nights, intentionally, isn't numbered. It's its own thing.
I did a web-search for Virginia Dare. It says she was a real person and that there is a story that she turned herslef into a white deer. Did you know this? There's a page about her story at http://www.angelfire.com/tn/traderz/virginia.html amd more on the legend at http://www.tangledforest.com/states2/northcarx.html.
Yes, I knew it. Truth to tell, I sort of automatically assumed that most Americans probably were familiar with the story of Virginia Dare and the White Doe, because I first read about it when I was a little kid in England, and, well, you people live here.
(And I just googled, and this -- http://www.icw-net.com/tales/mantwdoe.htm -- was the first thing that came up, which seems a good retelling of the version I'd heard.)
So, yes, she was a real person, who was, in many stories, killed in the form of a white doe, by a silver arrow. She, and Elizabeth, and James of Scotland, are pretty much it for my real historical people (although there are innkeepers, soldiers, papal assassins, and executioners who just walked on when I needed them and aren't meant to be analogues of anyone really.)
...
Hey,
John Giuffo's you/sandman article for the Village Voice is online.
(nice picture... ?)
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0338/giuffo.php
Thanks. That's the Minneapolis Weird Hair Day photo.
Next to be published will be the USA Today "I want a sort of knowing smirk. No, you're not smirking. Just sort of smirk and look at me sideways," photo, to be followed by the Entertainment Weekly "Stand in front of this giant fan and grit your teeth as hard as you can -- no, I want a real scowl," photos.
I'll stand by my comments about the final Manara page in the Voice article, although it makes more sense if you've read the Desire story. On the other hand the statement that "Gaiman expects that it will be the first graphic novel since Art Spiegelman's 1992 Pulitzer-winning Maus to reach the Times bestseller list" is balderdash: what I expect is that it will sell in numbers which would put it on the Times list, if the Times were tracking it, and if 30% of the sales weren't through the direct market and thus invisible. I'd love to be able to put a graphic novel on the Times list (if you don't count The Wolves in the Walls, which is now in its fifth week on the list), but I'm certainly not holding my breath.
(The New York Times "tracks" the books it expects to see on the list. It sends out queries to reporting stores, asking how many they sold of the books in question. If you're not on the list to be tracked, you won't be on the final list.)
And this one's being posted as a public service announcement...
Hello Neil,
Two partners and myself are starting a monthly zine for the younger crowd (8-12 is what we think but you never can tell, can you?) and we are in need of several comic strips. We're aiming for a full page of comics. Either strips or one panel would be great.
I'm thinking that out of the 20 myriad readers you have there must be some who are just starting drawing comic strips and would like a venue for their work.
We can't pay much at all to start as we're doing this with the change we find in our couches, but we will increase pay as we increase our market. We're all firm believers in treating others as we'd like to be treated and we're all tired of writing, drawing, etc. for no money.
If you'd be so kind as to run the following blurb we'd all be quite grateful. The email is one of my partner's but anyone can also get in touch with me at houseofinsomnia@comcast.net
Thanks very much,
Georgiana
We're looking for never-before-seen comic strips for a kidzine start-up. In the manner of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Ren & Stimpy, or the Far Side, strips should be kid-friendly but also amusing to adults. We are asking for first syndication rights only. You would retain all other ownership of your work. Query by email at strangerthanthou@bright.net
Good luck.
Hi Neil
First of all - it seems that the Neverwhere DVD does indeed work on dvd machines. So that will be good noise for all those people out there who don't have multi-region dvd players.
Secondly - I'm reading Nick Sagan's Idlewild at the moment- on the strenght of your little blurb I might add and thought you might like to know I'm enjoying it very much.
Lastly - I'm coming to see you when you do your talk at Foyles and i have what might be a problem and might not be. Despite attending the event you did with foyles to launch Coraline we've never met- having hat to leave when half way through the signing queue. Something which has always disapointed me, since you've always been one of my favourite writers. Now I was hopefully going to stand in line this time and get to thank you personally for the many hours of enjoyment your work has given me, however, and here is the rub - I already have Wolves and ALL of your previous work (including an order of Endless Nights) so how CAN i queue to meet you? I was hoping to meet you, as I'm an artist (you can see some of my now quite old work at www.mixedfables.co.uk ) and was hoping to present you with a painting. Just as my little thank you.
Is this going to be at all possible?
Christian Ward
Well, seeing that Foyles is charging for tickets, I very much doubt that they'd try and insist that you buy something new from them to get into the signing line. They certainly didn't last time.
And it's far from unknown for people to get into signing lines and wait for hours to just shake hands and say thanks, or similar. So I wouldn't worry.
And the last word for the night goes to a soon-to-be librarian.
Dear Neil, other people who may or may not read this
I am a 23-year old soon to be school librarian and have been enjoying a lot of the random library banter that's been on your blog lately. I thought I would send in some more info and thoughts becuase I am sure whatever in box this goes to isn't clogged enough.
1. "Where's Waldo" has been challenged and banned so many times because one page features a beach scene on which the sharp eyed viewer may notice a sun bathing woman who has been startled and whose bikini has fallen off. This small illustrator reveals the shocking truth to our children that there are breasts in this world and that women have them. Thank God for all right thinking parents out there who have shielded the innocent lambs of the world from this menace.
2. Libraries sometimes have to play games with where they put their books, because the librarians feel it's more important to have the books in the library. Hence you find some graphic novels in more adult areas, while others may be in a YA section. Librarians want to buy the books that people want. My public library used to have the all of the Sandman graphic novels, until someone stole/lost. Library patrons, tell your librarians what you want. Library budgets are being cut like crazy, but if a couple of people say they want the same things, your librarians should try and find a way to help you out. Graphic Novels are The New Hot Topic of library science so strike now while the iron is hot. Frankly I can't wait till I finish my MLIS in Dec. and get myself a high school library so I can start a graphic novel collection and get angry parent phone calls.
And in the event this gets posted for the wider world to see, do something really radical and subversive that will threaten the morals of society. Read a banned book, banned book week runs from Sept 20-27. If nothing else, pick up Harry Potter. Hundreds of parents swear it will cause you to lose all respect for authority and worship Satan.
Oh, I think you're going to be an excellent librarian...
In the ideal environmentally correct home of tomorrow, the humble toilet will save water, the bath tub will be for fun and games rather than just hygiene while the wash basin will come in a range of exciting new colours as the bathroom becomes less about keeping clean and more of an "private intimate space, in which scary-looking ladies in gold jump-suits, probably from a planet where they eat kittens, will intrude upon your privacy while caressing the porcelain in an off-puttingly intimate fashion". Normal people will find the experience of visiting a toilet or a bathroom deeply terrifying, and only the brave will ever wash or perform intimate personal functions inside a house. The rest of us will go out to the woods and the walls and the rivers to wash and so on.
They left off the last half of that in the photo caption, but it's implicit in the image, so so I put it back in for them.
You better click on the picture to see what I'm talking about. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030910/241/58607.html
Dear Mr. Gaiman:
Regarding your series for Marvel "1602" --
After reading 1602 #2, I am very surprised that you seem to be suggesting that Magneto, a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz death camp in the Marvel Universe, is the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Magneto couldn't be more opposite from the Grand Inquisitor that you portray.
I realize this might not be the best venue to voice my deep concerns, so I apologize. But I don't understand why your editor, the Editor in Chief, didn't tell you that Magneto is not only Jewish, but that his acitivites have always been those of the outsider, the anarchist, the terrorist, even in the Silver Age days. It seems incredibly wrong to turn a Jewish survivor of Auschwit into the Grand Inquisitor of what was nothing but a cats paw for the Spanish and then Hapsburg rulers. Magneto in the Marvel Universe is a man twisted by his rage and pain. He has become that which he hates the most, like the Nazi thugs who killed his entire family and sent him to Auschwitz.
He is the embodiment of the paradigm that hate and violence give birth to more hate and violence. Young Magnus wasn't just a prisoner at Auschwitz, he was in the Sonderkommando -- he helped the Nazis gas, cremate, bury, and plunder hundreds and thousands of his own people each day. He was one of the crematoria ravens, the Jewish men the Nazis forced to participate in the process of genocide.
You always do your research. I'm really surprised you have ignored the Jewish culture alive at this time -- except to make the politically correct reference to the persecuted Jewish victim of the Inquisition. Everything in this story is from a warped Christian perspective, including the importance of the city of Jerusalem.
Ignoring the Jewish and Muslim civilizations of this era, or even the Golem of legend who was being created at this very time in Prague by Rabbi Lowe, is your perogative as the author. But in the context of taking one of Marvel's most prominent Jewish characters -- a Holocaust survivor -- and making him a priest and Grand Inquisitor, and in the context of Marvel's sorry history of past attempts to eliminate their Jewish characters and Magneto's Jewish backstory, I am completely at a loss to understand why you've written 1602 like this.
Please don't let Marvel use you to erase Magneto's Auschwitz history and Jewish identity, which is something various biggotted staff and writers of Marvel have been maneuvering and pushing for years.
I apologize for imposing on you like this, or imposing on this FAQ question site, but I am so very confused and surprised that either you or Andy Kubert (his father is coming out with a magnificent Holocaust graphic novel, for gosh sakes) could participate in a project that took a Jewish character and made him a Catholic priest and the leader of an institution tantamount to the Nazis of the 20th century.
Again, I apologize, and remain a fan,
All the Best,
Rivka Jacobs
I'm not sure why you're blaming poor Joe Quesada for the story or the characters. It's all my fault, honestly. He has nothing to do with the content, except for telling me to make the exchange with the Innkeeper a bit clearer in Issue #1, and letting me know I'd written two page 12s in one issue. There's no evil Marvel revisionism going on, just me telling the story I thought it would be fun to tell.
I'm also not sure why you're deciding what I am or am not doing with any of the characters on the basis of the first couple of chapters. Generally speaking, it's a good way to make yourself look silly. Better to wait until the end, and then complain about what I did, when you have all the facts.
I do find the bit in your letter where you talk about the reference to the Jew killed (not, as you put it, "persecuted") in issue #1 to have been put there for reasons of "politically correctness" to be, well, rather troubling. The Spanish Inquisition tortured and killed a lot of Jews. That was pretty much their prime initial purpose -- they watched for the marranos, the secret Jews, the ones who had pretended to have converted in order to keep their lands or livelihoods, after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and burned tens of thousands. (The last Auto da Fe was in the early eighteenth century.) That really happened. Brushing it aside as unimportant (or "politically correct" -- and what the heck does that mean in this context?) compared to what I may or may not be doing with Magneto and my omission of a Golem leaves me blinking. Rabbi Lowe's Golem is, more than likely, a story. An important story, but a story. Magneto's a fictional character. Obviously an important fictional character to you, but fictional. Torquemada's team were very real.
I put it in because I wanted to make clear what the Inquisition really did, even in a world in which they're burning boys with wings, not because it was "politically correct".
And remember, it's rather hard for me to put Auschwitz into 1602. I'm not "erasing it" -- how could I? I'm just setting a story several hundred years before it happened, with a bunch of characters that the universe is pushing into predetermined roles.
How they came to be in those roles, and how and whether they succeed or fail is part of the journey, as is what happens. I'd say "trust me" but I'm not sure that you're going to. But you might want to anyway.
Is there an annotation attempt for the second issue of 1602 somewhere? My searches have found nothing? I don't want to miss out on the discussion? By the way, where do you think is a good site to get into a discussion about that series?
And really, only 8 issues? It seems like it could be a lot more? I am really engrossed.
Sean Murphy
It probably ought to have been longer. Now I'm in the final act I'm trying to make every panel do several different things, and I'm already wondering about doing an additional story which explains some of the stuff that no-one in the 1602 world really knows, except for one person, and he's not talking.
Let's see. More annotations. I should have put these up as they came in, I suppose:
Julian Darius's 1602 annotations (at http://continuitypages.com/marvel1602.htm) were expanded this morning by 4,000 words to include #2 (published yesterday). Thought you'd want to know.
Neil,
I'm writing to let you know that the second in my series of articles, "Mysteries and Conundrums in Neil Gaiman's 1602", has been posted on Comic World News.
http://comicworldnews.com/forum/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=19;t=1837
This is the analysis that gives names to all the puzzles in the story and tries to solve them in real time, as the issues come out. There's also a message board afterwards and the discussion that followed the first article was lots of fun.
The true identity and significance of Virginia Dare has been hotly debated. So far, suggestions for analogues have included The Hulk, Thor, Storm and Gwen Stacy. (Personally, I think she's an Animorph!)
Thanks for all the stories.
Jason Pomerantz
jason@fiddleandburn.com
In addition, Jess Nevins' annotations for 1602#2 are at http://www.enjolrasworld.com/Jess%20Nevins/1602/16022.html
Links to all these, and to any others that appear, can be found at http://www.enjolrasworld.com/Annotations%20for%20All%20Other%20Comics.htm
(Incidentally, it was only after the book went to press that I noticed that I'd bubble-headedly typed Lombardy when I meant Picardy in 1602#2, and that no-one had caught it, which is going to make following Matt's trip across Europe rather difficult for any annotators. Calais, not Milan. Sorry about that, I'm an idiot, and I'll fix it in the collection.)
...
Hi Neil,
I'm a big fan, excited to get a chance to finally meet you at one of your signings. I missed out on one chance at a store that a friend of mine was working at- and he inexplicably didn't get me a copy, which considering that I had introduced him to your work, such was my fandom, upset me at the time...But I'm digressing...
I'm turning suddenly paranoid, that I'll be unprepared when the time comes...will copies of Endless Nights be available to buy before the signing at the NY book country events, or should I come in laden with stuff in hand. I hope to pick a few actually, for friends who can't make it. i would expect so, but I think my nerves need some reassurance.
-Alex
Yes, there will definitely be copies of Endless Nights on sale on Saturday, and at the signing on Sunday. (I don't know about the signing at the YMHA on Sunday Night -- that'll probably have copies of Little Lit "It Was A Dark and Silly Night" for sale. They may have copies of Sandman and of Maus, but they may not.)
And there's an article on Endless Nights in the Boston Herald at http://theedge.bostonherald.com/lifeNews/edgeLife.bg?articleid=90
...
Further to my "which dimension is this again?" ponderings of this morning, even without the future toilets, I think that it's pretty obvious that Canadian politics has been infiltrated by aliens.
The increasingly bitter tone of the Ontario campaign took a surreal turn Friday when a press release from the Tory election machine labelled Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty a pet-eating alien. "Dalton McGuinty," the statement said. "He's an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet."
Conservative Leader Ernie Eves blamed the release on a staffer who apparently "had too much coffee this morning ... too much time."
But he refused to retract the statement. (Could he know this because... he is also an alien? One from a planet where they dress in golden all-over jumpsuits and caress toiletware? I think we should be told.)
http://globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030912.wonta0912/BNStory/National/ for anyone who thinks I'm making any of this up.
You lot are remarkable. Dozens of people let me know about tube map umbrellas. For example:
I read your journal via the LiveJournal RSS feed and just saw a question about the London Underground umbrella. My guess was that if anyone sold them it would be the London Transport Museum.
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/
Indeed, they do sell umbrellas with the underground map on them; http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/cgi-bin/shop.cgi?cmd=product&product_id=128
--Peter Radcliffe.
And someone sent me a link to a DVD intervew/review of Neverwhere at http://www.captaincomics.us/weeklycolumn.htm. Meanwhile, over at The Dreaming, Lucy Anne has accumulated dozens of reviews and interviews and quotes and links -- it's much more sensible to send the curious over to www.holycow.com/dreaming than for me to repost them all here
...
The phone just rang.
Roz said, "I just want you know that you were just a question on University Challenge."
Me: sputtering noises.
Roz: The question was "Neil Gaiman's erudite tales of the Sandman is a work in which medium"?
Me: Sputtering noises continue.
and as I'm still holding the phone and sputtering the messages start to come in:
Hi Neil!
First of all, a little news thingy: you were a question on University Challenge just now on BBC2! well, the question was something like "what medium did writer Neil Gaiman use to tell his Sandman stories in?" or something like that. The team in question got it right ("graphic novels," though Jeremy Paxman said he'd also have accepted "Comic Strip").
Anyway, a question: I bought Midnight Days last week, and greatly enjoyed it. However, I'm now wondering (big Hellblazer fan that I am) if we will ever see your story about John Constantine's fridge in print...
That's it, except for the fact that I'd like to point out that A&E's Neverwhere boxset appears to be region code free, as it not only plays on my regioncode free dvd player but also in my European Playstation 2. So everybody can enjoy your very nice commentary. Well, consider that pointed out now.
Cheers,
Sean
I wonder if there's still a copy of it around. I don't think it was very good, to be honest.
And that's really interesting. I've got an all region DVD player, so can't check this -- can anyone else confirm or deny whether the Neverwhere box set will play on other regions?
Okay. Sputtering attack over.
...
I am preparing a presentation for our sci-fi/fantasy lovers club about the advantages of the comic book/graphic novel medium(This is voluntary, there is no money involved). I would like to know if scanning certain pages out of your works and using them as slides would be an infringement of copyright laws. And if not, would it be acceptable for me to ask friends to e-mail me certain frames out of works I don't own?
I think it counts as "fair use", and I wouldn't worry if I were you.
Sweden! Thanks to the messageboard I�ve been reached by the news that Mr Neil Gaiman will be at the Sci-fi bookstore in Stockholm Oct 4 at 2pm - I�ll be in Stockholm at the time so the timing is perfect. I hope this information will be confirmed at this website?
Happy signing!! / Anneli
www.anneli.rr.nu
(with the worst painting yet: "The two polka-connected clowns with the long throuts")
You know more than I do, Anneli, but that sounds right. (I'm currently asking my agents to get me the information on what I'm doing where on the European trip, and I'm not sure what's holding it up.)
...
Another real life superhero.... http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_819416.html?menu=news.quirkies. An article on female Robots. (What dimension are we in, again?)
...
Hello-
If the Space Elevator article caught your attention, then you might be interested in finding more info at the project website, which I don't believe was mentioned in the Guardian article - http://www.isr.us/SEHome.asp?m=1 The downloads section contains some papers written by the head scientist (Dr. Edwards) that serve as a pretty interesting overview to the whole project, including the approximately 80 page final feasibility report to NASA.
I realize I'm probably spending a lot of time to respond to a one sentence link in the journal but I actually worked on this project for a while (awhile?) and have a great affinity for it.
Thank you
Matthew
Not a problem. Consider it posted. And this last is from Ginger, who is my agent Merrilee's right hand lady:
Hi, Neil. I thought that if you had empty space on an upcoming journal post and wanted to do something altruistic, you might want to send readers here:
http://www.tomatonation.com/finddon.shtml
Sars is one of the geniuses behind Television Without Pity, who is looking for the stranger who was kind to her on that fateful date 2 years ago. I indentify with her desire to find Don intensely, because on 9/11/01 a very nice woman on my N train handed me Kleenex and tried to keep me calm when I saw the Towers burning and realized my father could be up there. (He worked on the 98th Floor of Tower 1---he's fine, thank God, but for an hour that AM I thought he was in danger or...). I've always wanted to thank her for her kindness, but I have even less to go on than Sars. She's now putting her readers to the test, but I think you get many more daily hits than she does.
Anyway, if you have some space sometime soon. Thank you.
Best,
Ginger
You know, you can now play Five Card Nancy on the web, with classic Ernie Bushmiller Nancy Strips.
Really and truly, Five Card Nancy should be played late at night with bits of paper and several players and a bunch of people around kibbitzing. But if you have to play it alone... http://www.7415comics.com/nancy/index.html will explain all.
...
And Pam Noles was my escort at San Diego. She made sure that I got from place to place on time. She made sure I ate, and told people that, no, I couldn't sign for them but I was doing a signing upstairs, and all that. At one point she even let me know that I'd gone sort of sheet white and had stopped making sense, and that she'd let the people I was meant to be eating with know I'd not be there, while I slept for an hour instead.
This means that when Pam asked if I'd do a favour for her, and plug a convention she's helping to organise, I was happy to say yes:
************************
�It�s a comic show focusing on the more artistically unique voice this particularly small world has to offer. Not comics for the sake of pitching a movie, or getting an art show. It�s a celebration of the one person comic, the hand made aspect, the guerilla feel.�
WHAT: super*MARKET: The Independent Comic Arts Festival
WHEN: Nov. 7-9, 2003
Friday, Nov. 7: 6:30 p.m.-10:30p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 8: 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 9: Noon-5 p.m.
WHERE: Ackerman Grand Ballroom, located inside the Ackerman Union. 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles.
COST: $2 per day general admission, free with UCLA student identification. Friday night�s screening and talk is free, but tickets must be secured in advance.
TICKETS: Festival tickets sold at the door. Film tickets can be picked up at UCLA Campus Events, 319 Kerckhoff Hall, 308 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, 90024, soon.
For updates, keep an eye on the UCLA Campus Events Commission Website!
or
http://students.asucla.ucla.edu/cec/
You�ll want to bookmark that address and keep checking in for soon to be released details about participants and programs so fabulous, it�s killing us not to tell you all about them right now!
(Keep an eye out for a nifty press kit silk screened by artist Martin Cendreda, and collectible posters created by artists Jordan Crane, Sammy Harkham and John Pham!)
! CREATORS AND PUBLISHERS !
Does super*MARKET sound like your sort of scene? Consider bringing your creations to the festival. We have a room for 90 tables in the spacious and lovely Ackerman Grand Ballroom, which comes complete with a food court mere steps away in the Ackerman Union.
Table rates are $100 for two days, with an electricity drop for $8 extra. Tables are 8� long, with two chairs and a tablecloth provided. Tables do not include backing.
For a table application, contact Jessica Gao, UCLA Campus Events Commission, yeknom@ucla.edu
*******************************
I couldn' t get the link to work, though. But maybe it's a Sunday night sort of thing. {edit -- thanks for the people who pointed out the typo in it]
g'night
There's a New York Times piece about Karen Berger and Vertigo that's just gone up, which also talks about Endless Nights. It's a pretty good article. The only bit that left me scratching my head was the statement that Endless Nights has received a first printing of 100,000 copies, the biggest of any DC or Vertigo offering. For Vertigo, the release is more than an expensive bet on a single graphic novel; it is a crucial marketing gambit to introduce prospective readers to the rest of its line.
Which, for a business column seems to miss the idea that graphic novels are basically printed to order, and that that's also the same first printing that, for example, The Wolves in the Walls had. Nobody's gambling on anything; there's no crucial marketing gambit to attract people to read Vertigo titles. They've simply printed enough to fulfill initial orders with a few left over so they can keep selling books without having immediately to go back to press. (It's also not the biggest hardcover printrun in DC's history. That was Grant and Dave's Arkham Asylum, which did about quarter of a million copies in hardcover.)
What's interesting about the article, though, is the huge growth in the percentage of the books going out through bookstores and not comics shops.
I spoke to one comics retailer at San Diego who explained that he simply didn't order the high ticket items (Endless Nights is $25) because if they don't sell, he's stuck with the books, so he'd rather put the effort into selling comics. He was also complaining that bookstores now sell manga and graphic novels, and, later, that there wasn't enough of a profit in selling individual comics to cover the overheads in his store. My pointing out that his profit on selling ten graphic novels was the same as on selling a hundred comics was not amazingly well-received.
I probably wasn't as sympathetic as I should have been, but then, a lot of my favourite kind of comics shop are places like Page 45 in Nottingham which are primarily graphic novel shops, and which also (and often enthusiastically) sell monthly comics....
...
So, at Scott McCloud's urging, I spent 50 cents from my Bitpass account on Wary Tales at http://projectkooky.com/warytales/, several twisted fairy tales by some smart and talented young creators. I enjoyed it, although I've been more impressed by the individual work being done by the gang responsible -- for example, http://rts.lunistice.com/ is a webcomic called Return to Sender by Vera Brosgol, who so needs to get back to work on the story. (The girl scout cookie sequence is probably my favourite bit.) http://stringsoffate.com/art/ is Jen Wang's page -- she has a beguiling art-style and a webcomic that desperately needs some sort of easy way to get to the next page.
One of my favourite online strips is Scott McCloud's marvellous, heartbreaking SOMNIVORE.
...
According to Bill Gibson's blog, he's retired from the blogging business to go and write a novel. I understand how he feels.
It was from Bill's blog that I discovered the babelizer, which runs text through many translation programs until it breaks down into deep nonsense.
" Nicholas Was..." my 100 word "Drabble" short story came out like this (222 words long, oddly enough):
There is Nicholas.. But of the luck, this mountain lowered of anh one much period of
report/ratio, of that a crime, extended and a white man is, to that he consolidates. It dies, time.
Towards her thing the fact that, you monopolize
the language with which twittering, in the addition of elaborated, when one is cutting, you work, does not say in this diminutivo
of the plant to person in the lodging of the zone to perforate of the Poland of the north this language, only ess the donkey of anh? Drawn towards outside and include/understand ordered that he you do not assume same, you, he era, produced of recent.
For the company of the indicated school of this anniversary that this field is lacked, the protests, the obligation of internal and the extreme night of Wuhan sobbed. The shout Or of this person during the night, will
be infinite and will be lacked the internal protest, to the interior
of the complete noises of the anniversary, when it eats and he exijiu.
Rappresentazione that sees it in the side of the side of the base, does not know.
The dream of the boy, congeals of the hour. You send Prometheus and Loki,
Sisyphus and Judas. This punishment is more of the one than the
maximum. I have. I have. I have.
I tried it several times and got a different version each time. Have fun rendering your favourite text incomprehensible...
...
Does the London Underground umbrella really exist and if so, where can I get one!!! I'm obssessed with the underground and that umbrella I must have! :) Thanks.
Yes, it exists, or it used to. There's probably somewhere that sells souvenirs of London on the web, or failing that you'll need to go to a tourist souvenir shop in London, or strike up an online friendship with someone who travel there on your behalf and find a London Underground Map umbrella...
(on the other hand, they may have stopped doing them, and replaced them by these...)
Hey Neil...
I'm sure you're aware of the Green Man Review, if only because Will Shetterly is on staff over there. Somebody (me, actually) has finally gotten around to reviewing some of The Sandman. The rest will be turning up in subsequent issues.
Partially I'm sending you this because I thought you might like to know, and partially because I thought it might be interesting to get your take on a couple of things about reviews, and this seemed connected.
This week, a friend and I attended a reading by Vindela Vida, who is also a editor (I think) for the review magazine "The Believer." In response to a question from my friend, Ms. Vida said that she didn't think books ought to be reviewed by people those specific books "aren't for." While I could see this for a genre work, where a reviewer needs to understand what theoretically ought to be happening to be able to tell if its doing it well or not, the question was about Ms. Vida's book. Since this is "modern fiction" and supposedly meant to be accessable to nearly anyone, we were a bit confused. So the questions are: Who do you think ought to review books (in particular, not in general)? What type of person would you prefer review your books? How much should a reviewer's knowledge about a writer's life influence a review, and how much of that sould be included in a review? (Apparently, reviews of Ms. Vida's work standardly mention that she's married to Dave Eggers well before anything actually pertaining to the work itself.)
Between being a new reviewer for GMR and the conversation my friend and I had about the whole thing afterwards, these questions are rolling around in my head.
I tend to think that the job of a reviewer and the job of a critic are two very different things, and the job of a reviewer is a pretty simple one, or it was when I did it. It's to read the book, and then to write something that says This is what this thing is. If you're the kind of person who likes this sort of thing then this is something you will/won't like.
If you hate all SF on principle, then there's precious little point you reviewing an SF novel. If you hate all "modern fiction" as a matter of course, and would no more read it than swallow castor oil, then you probably aren't going to be able to write an informed review that would let someone who does like it know whether or not she or he would have liked the book you just, grudgingly, read.
Of course, it's rarely that simple in real life. And many readers just like good books, whatever shelves they're on.
(The job of a critic -- a real critic, not just a reviewer who uses a few long words, or has 2000 words to fill instead of 200 -- is to illuminate the work you read. A good critic should make you want to go back and read whatever they're talking about again -- even if they are tearing it apart -- because you want to see it through their eyes. A good critic hands you a key to a book you thought you understood, and gives you a way of reading it.
Some reviewers are also critics.)
And it's sometimes enlightening to read and to write about books that "aren't for" you. When I was a journalist, I was assigned to read and write an article on all the romantic mega-blockbusters of the early 80s, and was astonished and delighted to discover that they all had the plots of classic fairy tales. I'd never have read them of my own free will, nor would I have read them in enough quantity to realise that this is Cinderella, while that one was practically Snow White...
The best book review column I ever had was about four years of "review books that look interesting from the publisher's catalogues or anywhere else, and it's 1800 words a month". To this day I have no idea what the readers made of it, but I learned an amazing amount about areas of fiction and non-fiction I hadn't thought I'd like until I read them.
Not sure if that answers your question, or if it's just something else to roll around in your head.
a nice quick one for ye. just wondering if you have ever tried doing Scott Mclouds '24 hour comic' challenge? i'd truely like to see what you'd produce under such circumstances.
cheers
-KnofC
I was one of the first, such that the Gaiman variant is considered a legitimate noble way to fail (you aren't going to make 24 pages in 24 hours, so you wrap it up anyway...). It's an autobiographical piece, online here, at http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/helio/ and was the last thing of any length I drew...
As interesting as the micropayments side of things is what Cory Doctorow is doing with his books, viz., putting up nicely designed electronic versions of the book as the print one comes out, figuring, probably correctly, that the overall effect in terms of people knowing who Cory is, and reading his books, and passing things on, is probably more than worth it.
One of the things that helps this work is that the stories are really good.
http://craphound.com/place/ is the place to go...
In some ways the most interesting comment Cory makes (and the one that cuts, for me, to the heart of the whole micropayment thing) is the last:
Q: Can't I just send some money to you by PayPal instead of buying the book?
A: You don't have to buy the book, but I'm not interested in tipjar payments. I'm not doing this to compete with my publisher. If you read the ebook and want to pay me back, but don't have any use for the dead-tree edition, the best way you can do that is to buy a copy of the book and donate it to a school, library or community center. If you do this, you'll put a copy of the book on the shelf where it might be read, I'll get a royalty, and my sales-figures will go up (which means that I'll get a bigger advance on my next book and my publisher will be more likely to want to repeat the experiment).
Scott McCloud and I have arguments, really fun ones that can go on for hours, where I ask him why he doesn't put the stuff he's done on the web over the years into a more physical format, like printing it on paper and having that bound, and having it distributed to people who would happily pay money for it. And he explains that a) it was designed for the screen so the dot resolution of the early ones isn't printable and b) the whole point of his web comics is that they exist on infinite screens that are merely windows thus allowing characters if necessary to fall a really long distance, and he would need more paper than there is matter in the physical universe to actually print The Right Number as a comic, and c) that would be an admission of failure in some way.
Which may all be true, but I'd happily buy a paper version of Scott's morning improvs or various webcomics, even if characters didn't actually blink, and even if it was reformatted for paper, and even if I just had to imagine characters falling a very long way, instead of actually having to scroll down a very long way on a screen. I have an imagination: it would be no hardship.
And I'd rather pay my $20 for something I could stick on the shelf, and page through when I wanted to, even in bed, than, as Cory puts it, drop 25 cents in the tipjar every time I pass through. And I wouldn't mind at all if the physical object carried a warning on the back cover saying that it was, in every way, inferior to the version online; and I appreciate that Scott would, like Cory, only be getting around 10% of the sale price (rather than 85% of the tip jar...).
Having said that, Scott happily redrew his WHY I'M NOT NEIL GAIMAN online strip as a limited edition print for the CBLDF, so he is willing to move material from screen back to paper for a good cause. (No, the print hasn't come out yet. No idea why not. I'll ask Charles Brownstein at the CBLDF.)
(This is what they currently have for sale at the CBLDF Neil store. Looks like some things have sold out since the last time I looked.)
...
Actually, the same or a similar $200 bill has surfaced at least once before--at a Dairy Queen in Danville, Kentucky, where I went to college. The BBC (oddly) has more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1147246.stm
--Brendan
And now you can actually see the currency in question...
I suppose the advantage to passing one of those $200 bills is that if the person at the till calls you on it, you can always point out it's a joke, and no, they weren't meant to take it seriously. Ain't no such thing as a $200 bill nohow. And it's not counterfeiting (it would be obtaining goods or money by deception).
...
Interesting Space Elevator article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/spacedocumentary/story/0,2763,1041360,00.html
...
And for those people keeping track, next Saturday and Sunday, the 20th and 21st of Sept, I'm in New York.
On Saturday, I'm talking about Sandman: Endless Nights. It's at 11:00am at the Equitable Centre. That's followed by a signing for the people who were at the talk. The talk is ticketed.
In the morning, I'm doing a signing at NEW YORK IS BOOK COUNTRY on the graphic novel stage, which is out in the open air on 5th avenue. There's a limited number of people I can sign for, as I can only sign for an hour and then someone else will sit in my chair and take over (art speigelman, oddly enough), so get there early...
In the evening, I'll be "in conversation" with art speigelman at the 92nd st Y, at least partly talking about Little Lit 3. Again, it's ticketed. I don't know if we'll be signing stuff afterwards, but I expect we will. Details at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/where.asp.
I expect that both venues will be selling tickets for any unsold seats on the day, but you may be disappointed if they've sold out.
(And yes, I know I've put all this up already. But enough people have written and asked, confused and needing clarification, that I thought I'd post it, as clearly as I could, one more time.)
And sometimes things don't get answered because I don't yet have the information. For example, this came in last month...
Dear Neil,
Is there any plan to release Avalon on DVD any time soon. I live in a half-Polish household and so this seems like the ideal film for us but I can't see any release plans anywhere. Is it already available in Poland? If so, I can have it shipped over.
Matt Devereux
www.edgeyourself.com
And I can answer it today....
I got an e-mail yesterday letting me know that Avalon will be released by Miramax on Dec 9th. I don't think that any of the work I did on it has made it into what they'll bring out, mostly because the work that I did was extra stuff for the subtitled Polish version, and in the end they wound up doing an English dub instead. I think you can safely assume that the original Polish subtitled version will be on the DVD as well.
Avalon is a remarkable film -- it looks astonishing, is haunting, deep, frustrating and magical in equal measure, like an art-film version of the Matrix, or a middle-European Philip K Dick structure created by a Japanese director more to unsettle you then to excite you. In a grey, futuristic world, people enter a consensual reality run by computers to play illegal war-games, and the finest player is a woman called Ash. There are hidden levels to the game, and to reality. It doesn't look like anything else: it's like an SF tone poem, or a mood, as much as it is a story.
Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I searched the FAQ and the journal, and I know I'm not inept at searching because everyone on campus asks me to do their internet research for them (and I do it for free!) So can you please tell me if 1602 will be released in a book format, like Sandman and Stardust were? With all the pretty little pictures, not the hardback. (Though a hardback would be cool, too!)
Thank you for letting me waste your time,
--Sarah (there are too many of us in the world)
I'm sure it will, yes. Hardcover doesn't mean it won't have the pictures, just that the binding will be more solid than that of a paperback...
Dear Mr. Gaiman:
You wrote:
>It certainly makes me wish that DC would do a Lucien the Librarian Action figure for librarians everywhere.<
Actually I'm not a librarian, but I have Lucien one my desk. All in grey with a staple of books in his hands and glasses. I've got it as a present from a friend. Is it pirated? It has a "(c) 2000 DC comics" written under its foot.
It really looks nice. I could send you a picture if you want to.
You're right, of course -- DC did a set of little plastic figures from The Dreaming, and Lucien was one of them, along with Merv, and Eve, and Cain & Abel. (And Nuala and Daniel, I just found out, when I went and checked at the DreamHaven NeilGaiman.net site -- picture up at http://www.neilgaiman.net/images/G1085-600.jpg)
Lots of people writing to say how they've found or read Sandman at their library, and many other letters from librarians...
you said: "I suspect that having a reputation as adult material that's unsuitable for teens will probably do more to get teens to read Sandman than having the books ready and waiting on the YA shelves would ever do."
This is just *so* true.
I work for Wellington Public Libraries in New Zealand. Recently they bought up a sizable collection of "Adult Graphic Novels" including the full Sandman Library and things like Transmetropolitan, Invisibles, Powers and Lenore to name a few. They're being housed by the sci fi/fantasy apparently, which I think is a great idea.
Let the teens find them!
Still waiting on a pic of the Sandman quilt, by the way. If I don't see one soon, I'll have to make my own :)
Jenni
and
In response to the message about some libraries not carrying Sandman graphic novels, or not finding them suitable for the YA section . . . I'm happy to report that many more libraries are indeed interested and beginning to build large collections for Young Adult as well as adult readers. It seems more and more of the yearly Library conferences (local, national and international) are conducting workshops about comics and graphic novels. Most if not all of these workshops are conducted by fairly knowledgable individuals who know a great deal about comics and include good starter lists for various types of collections. More often than not, Sandman is included in suitable materials for YA collections, as well as collections geared toward adult readers.
I myself am currently working as a library assistant at the Carrollton Public Library, in charge of collection development for graphic novels. We already had a sizeable collection of Sandman books when I came on board and I've made sure to fill in any gaps. We also carry a complete collection of Jeff Smith's "Bone" and Kurt Busiek's "Astro City". As it is the most popular trend in libraries (as far as what's asked for the most and circulated the most) are all the Manga titles we have.
Obviously there are some communities that are not going to be as receptive to graphic novels as most seem to be. But it seems that the greatest challenge to those of us trying to build interesting and well rounded collections, comes from the inside. There are still a few librarians who don't quite grasp the merit of comics and graphic novels as an art form as well as a valuable and worthwhile literar form. But more and more are getting the picture.
Julio
and
Hi Neil--
This isn't so much a question as an answer to the fellow who was looking for _Sandman_ in his local library. If he contacts his librarian again, he might want to look up Kat Kan's _Voices of Youth Advocates_ article, "Recommended Graphic Novels for Libraries" (Volume 23, issue 5, pp 322-4). Kan recommends the Sandman series in the "Fairy Tales and Magic" section.
I hope this is helpful!
By the way, I wish they'd do a Lucien action figure, too - I'll have to content myself with the figure in the Dreaming PVC set in the meantime, I suppose.
--Beth Tarr (_Lucien's Guide_: http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/seworkspace/tarr/lucien )
and an interesting question:
Hi, Neil.
In response to the article attacking booklending - don't you see any similarities between booklending and online filesharing? Admittedly there is not the fact that filesharing actually creates duplicates of the files shared, whereas the books leant don't. I used to be all for file sharing, but I've come to my senses recently (like with shoplifting, I will not steal from peopel I respect/know need the money. but Eminem? Sure. Same goes with file sharing. Which is not to say I disrespect EMinem. AHHH. I'm contradicting myself. Anyway). Still, the big cheese of the music industry foaming at the mouth with rage is just pricless. As if there calling it theft - they've been at the same for years, ripping of artists, consumers and those that work for them.
Anyway, thanks for the stories etc etc. And the journal. I've just started my own one at - shamless self-pplugging - www.seanpadraicbirnie.blogspot.com
Sean Birnie,
Not really, no. Most obviously, because each book in circulation has been paid for. One person doesn't get buy a book then print their own free editions of it, on demand, for anyone who's interested. (It's the bedrock of copyright: who has the right to make the copies.)
Scott McCloud makes some interesting comments about all this in an essay about micropayments at his website --
File-sharing other people's IP may be a kind of "theft," but it's a kind the world has never seen before; one that has a strangely philanthropic component. It takes time and computational resources to offer those songs to others for free; an effort rationalized by high retail prices, disdain for record companies and the belief that musicians see very little of our dollars.
Micros won't eliminate file-sharing (any more than they'll eliminate other forms of free content) but they could reduce the incentive. After all, if musicians did start selling their songs for small change directly to their listeners, why would those listeners still devote time and computational resources to stealing business from their favorite bands�just for the privilege of giving free content to total strangers?
Most users are neither Saints nor Sinners. If getting it legitimately is just a few more cents, while getting it for free is just a little more work (or even risk), a significant number will "do the right thing" at the drop of a hat. At a time when 1% of computer users (Mac owners running OS X) just bought 10 million songs in four months�nearly all of which they probably could have found for free with a little effort�it seems a little odd to be speaking of the collapse of paid content.
A question on The Man Who was Thursday -is the Martin Gardiner annotated version worthwhile or does it all just get annoyingly in the way when all you want is to read a good story?
Neither -- it's just not a very good choice of book to have annotated, and the annotations don't add anything. Gardner's Annotated Alice is excellent.
I have searched through this whole site and I'll be damned if I can find any mention of additional material in a new edition of American Gods, and maybe for Neverwhere as well, but I was certain I had read something along those lines. Was I in a world of my own imagining when I read that or is there actually editions of those books with material that did not appear in the original US hardcover editions?
Information is at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/
2003_07_27_archive.asp#105987118637088626 and as soon as I have more information I will tell the world...
Delighted to hear that of all the Barnes & Nobles in Florida, you're going to be at the one located less than a mile from my house. I'm looking forward to buying a signed copy of "Endless Nights" to put next to my signed copy of "Neverwhere".
Will you be doing a reading? Any suggestions or information about when to get there to line up?
I asked if I could do a reading at the Ft Lauderdale signing, or at least use a microphone and do a sort of a run through the Frequently Asked Questions, but I was told that they apparently don't have room or facilities for anything like that. So people will just have to ask me things when they reach me, I suppose.
They'll be handing out bracelets all through the day that will mark your place in the line (and also let you go off and grab something to eat, or sit down, if the wait is interminable) and they start doing the bracelets on the Monday Morning.
Neil, I've an organisational sort of question for you. In your journal, you often comment about what you're reading or what books the post/FedEx/whatever has delivered. I have a mental image of you receiving dozens of boxes of books every week (a description which may only be slightly hyperbolic). So what do you actually do with all of them? Do you really have sixteen different editions of Coraline hanging about in boxes in the basement? Are there bookshelves in every room, piled high with books, and in no particular order? Do you just point at the boxes, then Lorraine, and mumble, 'could you just do something with those?' and she secretly tosses them in the bin or keeps a used bookshop in business (although occasionally drawing mustaches on Delerium before sending them out)? Do you bribe a librarian (with or without the shushing action) to come in and label everything with the Dewey decimal system?
I find myself in the bookshelves-everywhere-and-in-not-very-good-order category, so wondered how someone who owns (I assume) a much larger library than mine handles it.
Thanks!
Nadyne.
http://www.little-blue-world.org/
Actually, the answer to most of those questions is yes. The basement is filled with boxes of books (and plastic tubs of books, which is a bit safer for keeping damp and rodents out). Lorraine makes them vanish after they arrive (if they arrive while I'm here I see them first; if they arrive when I'm not they can be strange surprises years afterwards) and produces them on demand. And sometimes she even bribes a librarian to come in and help out with the filing and the sorting and the putting things places, although I think that Jodi, the librarian in question, does it because she likes it, really. There are three huge basement rooms, in addition to the basement library itself, so it'll be a while before they all fill up. And on the day I need more space I'll probably just do what Frank Miller did -- sign everything in sight and send it to the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund.
And a final one:
Neil,
I've found the Hunt the Marble game on the Mouse Circus and have whiled away probably-far-too-long on it (nice picture, by the way. Where is it?). Just one thing that is getting me. Where the hell is the fifth marble??? I'm reasonably certain that I've scoured the whole picture at least once... Or is this some kind of bizarre in-joke that tells you that I haven't read the book closely enough.
By the way, I saw Wolves In The Walls in Gosh! Comics yesterday and thought it looked utterly gorgeous. I haven't bought it yet, because I'm going to get it at your Foyle's signing thing. So far, I'm up to three copies of that and two of the paperback version of Coraline to buy...
Anyway, thanks for the daily journal and everything else,
Stephen.
Given that I don't know which of the four marbles you found, it's rather hard to tell you where the fifth one is. But it is there. When I did the Coraline marble-hunting game, I did it with an eight year old girl, who found all the marbles in minutes and with ease. Do you know any eight year old girls, who could help?
And one final link: http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2855036p-2634600c.html It's not learning that Police are searching for a man who paid for $150 in groceries at a Food Lion grocery store with a $200 bill that amused me, but discovering that The bogus bill -- the U.S. Mint does not print a $200 bill -- bore the image of President Bush on the front and had the White House on the back. It also included signs on the front lawn of the White House with slogans such as "We like broccoli" and "USA deserves a tax cut," Roanoke Rapids police said.
Instead of being labeled a Federal Reserve note, the fake bill was marked as a "Moral Reserve Note." The bill bore the signatures of Ronald Reagan, political mentor; and George H.W. Bush, campaign adviser and mentor. Which sounds one step up from paying for something with Monopoly money.
I'm accumulating links, so let's get rid of them:
I mentioned that I was getting ready to do a story on prostitution, interviewing call girls from a midtown agency that advertised in Screw, and he said: "I called for a girl in response to one of those ads once. It said 'Unusual black girls.' So I phoned and said, 'Just what do you mean by unusual?' They said, 'Just what did you have in mind?' I said, 'Well, I'd like one that was bald with an astigmatism.' 'Well, we'll see what we can do,' they said. They found the astigmatism but no the baldness."
"Why astigmatism?" I wondered.
"I'm terribly attracted to women with ocular damage."
The two people talking are Lester Bangs and Brian Eno, in a previously unpublished chapter of a Bangs book, available at: http://www.furious.com/perfect/bangseno.html (And I wonder whether there are any airports that play Eno's "Music For Airports". If I had an airport, I'd play it all the time.)
There's a marvellous essay about blurbs, for blurbers and blurbees over at
http://www.mobylives.com/Almond_blurbs.html (you'll find my own version of this essay over at April 16th 2001, in http://www.neilgaiman.com/archive/2001_04_01_archive.asp which was pre-permalinks...)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1039562,00.html is a hilarious take on the reaction to David Blaine's failure to hang over the Thames properly. To anyone who has recently felt downcast by popular displays of credulity and celebrity worship, this massed derision should come as a reassuring, even an inspiring, sight. Well, it certainly cheered me up.
http://phobialist.com/reverse.html is a list of things people are afraid of.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34413 is an article about something I didn't know I was meant to be afraid of, viz. and to wit: lethal Russian pictures of Christ, which emit murderous rays...
http://uahc.org/rjmag/03fall/comics.shtml is the first part of an article about Jews and comics, and a fascinating one. (Incidentally, I recently stumbled across this -- it's a fairly stiff interview between Fred Allen and Jerry Seigel, followed by a conversation between Superman and Harry Donenfeld, "Superman's boss", done in 1940. I'll stick it up here, for anyone interested enough to download -- it's a 2 meg MP3 file, though, so be warned... 1940 - Fred Allen and Siegel and Donenfeld.mp3).
http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2003/08/28#1062061680 sheds light on what the BBC is actually offering the world, in terms of free access to its archives.
http://www.thebookseller.com/?pid=4&did=8375 and speaking as a member of the Society of Authors, I really hope this person doesn't formally complain about Bookcrossing, or that if she does, she's ignored.
It's like the woman who mounted the campaign against second-hand bookstores some years ago, claiming they were depriving authors of income. (I googled to find out who she was, but couldn't find it, although I remember reading articles in USA Today and People and several other places at the time.) The Enemy (as it were) is not Bookcrossing.com, or second-hand bookshops. The enemy is the fact that most people don't buy books. Most people don't read for pleasure. It's like the teachers who proudly stop kids reading R.L. Stine or Enid Blyton or comics or whatever, proud that they've stopped them reading the Wrong Things, without noticing that they've also stopped them reading for pleasure, reducing the chances that the kids will ever go on to read things that the teachers think of as the Right Things...
People lend each other books. That's a good thing. They recommend books to each other. That's how most people find authors they like, after all. Looking over at bookcrossing I can see at least 500 of my books floating around out there, some of them being posted all over the world, some of them being set free in interesting places. At some point, someone bought each and every one of those books. From here on out, the books are wandering around letting people discover whether or not they like what I write. It's viral. It's a good thing.
And on the subject of banned and challenged books...
We're in the countdown to Banned Books Week -- there's a nice solid essay by Suzanne Fisher Staples at
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/winter96/pubCONN.html -- and I got interested enough that I went and looked at the 100 most challenged books of 1990-1999, at the ALA site.
I could understand that people might challenge books about gay dads, or sex and puberty, or scary Hallowe'en books. I can just about get my mind around the fact that there are people who would try and get Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain off the shelves, because they find ideas and stories dangerous.
But the 87th most-challenged book of the 1990s was Where�s Waldo?
...
How old are you, and do you really still look like the photo on the back of American Gods?
I'm 42, and I never looked like the photo on the back of American Gods. That's an author photo. They're not meant to be recognisable. The most recent photo of me that I know of is the everyone holding their Hugo Awards pic at http://www.sfcanada.ca/torcon/hugowinners3.jpg (I'm at the bottom left, letting the whole side down by wearing a leather jacket.)
...
Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I recently did a search for the Sandman series on my local library's computer and found to my utter dismay that they own only one volume (The Kindly Ones), classified as a YA Graphic Novel. Wanting an explanation, I talked to one of the YA coordinators for the county. The explanation I was given is that the "word" on Sandman is that the series is too graphic and/or mature for YA readers and a lot of libraries (my county included), won't purchase it. I pointed out the volume they owned was classified as YA, but she encouraged me to reccomend Sandman to the Adult services coordinator for consideration, as Children's/YA was not going to purchase any more volumes.
I was curious what your feelings are about Sandman's reputation as adult material unsuitable for teens? Perhaps a word from the man himself might encourage my library (and others) to reconsider their stance on Sandman.
I suspect that having a reputation as adult material that's unsuitable for teens will probably do more to get teens to read Sandman than having the books ready and waiting on the YA shelves would ever do.
I'm perfectly happy for Sandman to be on adult shelves. And if they aren't on any shelves, due to fearful or underbudgeted librarians, there's always an Interlibrary Loan...
And talking about librarians, I'll give the last word to John M. Ford:
..I note in passing that all the taradiddle about "the first librarian
action figure" seems to miss the fact that there was a Rupert Giles figure
some time back, and he was enough of a librarian to appear as a role model
on the cover of a professional journal -- I think it was Ameriican
Libraries. The figure was prominently displayed during Anthony Stewart
Head's turn on Graham Norton, and that is quite enough to say.
Let's see...
A couple of Publishers Weekly reviews have arrived...
Sept 8th, 2003
Publishers Weekly
pwforecasts, p. 57 (starred review)
THE SANDMAN: Endless Nights
NEIL GAIMAN AND VARIOUS ILLUSTRATORS.
Vertigo/DC Comics, $24.95 (160p) ISBN 1-4012-0089-3
Now that he's a bestselling fantasy novelist, Gaiman returns to the comics series that made his reputation with this new volume of seven gorgeously illustrated stories. Gaiman specializes in inventing fantastic allegories for the quotidian, in a voice that casually shifts between uneasy realism and Borgesian grandeur. In Sandman cosmology, "The Endless" are seven immortal siblings who personify abstract concepts: Dream, Death, Destiny and so on. This work devotes a story to each of them, drawn in distinctly different styles by an all-star lineup of American, British and European cartoonists and fine artists. Gaiman is famous for writing to his artists' strengths, and he does so here. P. Craig Russell draws the surreal fantasia "Death and Venice" with the opulent brio of his opera adaptations. "What I've Tasted of Desire" is a darkly sexual fable, painted by Milo Manara in the style of his more X-rated work. A couple of the stories find Gaiman working in a more experimental mode than usual, notably "Fifteen Portraits of Despair," a set of anecdotes and prose poems accompanied by Barron Storey's tormented, abstract drawings and paintings. Longtime comics fans will notice plenty of inside jokes in "The Heart of a Star," but most of this book is a red carpet -- or perhaps a Persian rug -- rolled out for Gaiman's prose readers to see his visions turned into lush, dramatic images. (Oct.)
Here's another PW review that you may be interested in.
Sheila
************
August 18, 2003
Publishers Weekly
pwforecasts, p. 62
THE THACKERY T. LAMBSHEAD POCKET GUIDE TO ECCENTRIC & DISCREDITED DISEASES
EDITED BY: JEFF VANDERMEER AND MARK ROBERTS. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $24. (286p) ISBN 1-892389-53-3
The talented and prolific VanderMeer (Veniss Underground) and co-editor Roberts have here created perhaps the oddest theme anthology in the history of fantasy literature. The heavily illustrated volume does exactly what its title implies, collecting short, fictional medical descriptions of such diseases as Ballistic Organ Syndrome, Delusions of Universal Grandeur and Razomail Bone Rot. Each disease receives a carefully laid out history, list of symptoms and cure (althouugh many seem to be invariably fatal). The Thackery T. Lambshead of the title, a sort of medical Indiana Jones, supposedly published the first edition of the guide more than 80 years ago, and the book also includes a series of short "essays" outlining his many outrageous adventures. The volume's own rather outrageous list of contributors, nearly 70 strong, includes such esteemed physicians as Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, China Mieville, Michael Bishop, Kage Baker, Cory Doctrow and Brian Stableford. Though occasionally uneven, this is on the whole an amazing book. Not for the faint of heart, the easily shocked or those who see fantasy fiction primarily in terms of warring elves and interminable quests, VanderMeer's anthology plays delicious postmodernist games that are sure to delight the discerning (and slightly warped) reader. (Oct.)
Forecast: With Borders ordering an initial 3,000 copies and many of the contributors in place to do readings in major cities, this unusual small-press item promises to attract a fair share of mainstream readers, not least curious doctors.
Thanks, Sheila.
...
Okay, a question. How do you research semi-everyday things that are hard to find information about? For example, if i were looking for the procedure 911 (i think this is 999 for the british, but i'm not sure) operators go through when answering the phone how would i go about doing this?
My first impulse is to just call and ask, but i think that's a felony.
-benjamin
Your local police department will almost deifintely have a nice person whose job is community relations. They'll happily answer questions, show you around and answer questions. They may even introduce you to the 911 operator.
Mostly, people are only too happy to answer questions about things they know. They want you to get the details right, because they've seen the details got wrong too much.
...
Speaking as a librarian who is surrounded by librarians at work who are offended by this new librarian action figure, I can only say that perhaps it's time librarians across the board discovered the value of a good custom repaint on an action figure....
Hoping to make mine look rather delirious and get a Shakespeare one to go with so the two of them can have interesting conversations,
Anita
I wonder if they ever had this trouble when they did the Diskworld Librarian statues. ("We are not all orang-utans.") It certainly makes me wish that DC would do a Lucien the Librarian Action figure for librarians everywhere.
Of course, if the whole point of the offended librarians is that librarians can, and, wisely, do, look like anyone, then any action figure would do. ("Isn't that a Gandalf toy?" "Nope it's a librarian. One with a hat and a beard." "And he's next to a... Bettie Page toy?" "Nope. Just a cute, half-naked librarian with a big smile and a Bettie Page haircut.")
...
and a couple of final helpful ones:
I don't think I've seen you mention this, but the new issue of Pages Magazine has an interview with Gaiman in it (and also an interview with Neal Stephenson about Quicksilver). You can find the interview online at:
http://www.ireadpages.com/gaiman.htm
and, for those of you who want to write comics...
Dear Neil,
Hi, hope you're happy, healthy and enjoying things!
Um, bit of a belated reply to the question submitted by S.Pham, but here's a great webpage for aspiring comics writers:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/creatingcomics/writers.html
It's packed full of links to examples of comics scripts, reference material, editors and publishers to think about contacting, how to submit it etc. etc. Pretty comprehensive.
Anyhow, I just thought people might find it as helpful as I did!
Thanks for all the writing,
Yours, Matt
We got a starred review for Endless Nights in Publisher's Weekly.
And I don't have a schedule yet for Europe, but I do now have days: I'll be in Finland from the 26th of September to the 28th of September (I'll be at the Finnish comics festival), Norway through October the 1st, Sweden on the 2nd and 3rd, in Zagreb Croatia on the 4th and 5th, and then in Germany until the 12th of October. More solid times and dates should be in any time now, and I'll post 'em as I get 'em.
Dear Neil,
On average, how many words a day do you write when you're in the midst of a novel? I ask because I'm coming out to about 1000 words a night and I'd like to get an example to go by.
Thanks in advance,
Pete
A thousand words a day average is perfectly solid. I can do 6000 words a day for short bursts of total madness, but tend to be good for nothing once I've I've done that for a few days. It varies so much from person that I don't think you can point to a wordcount and say "you should be doing this". 300 useable words a day may be better than 5000 words of rubbish, after all... The most important bit is to keep writing.
...
And today brought copies of the Bloomsbury paperback edition of CORALINE. It's wonderful -- a new Dave McKean cover and all the illustrations. When the hardback came out there were people in the UK ordering the US edition to get the pictures. Now, I suspect, the book traffic may cross the Atlantic going the other way...
Let's see -- the LiveJournal feed has just done a "Too Big" shudder, so while it's sorting itself out, I'll put up a short one.
Here's a link to something I wish I could have seen in the flesh: two jawdropping Sandman costumes from the Worldcon Masquerade:
Hi Neil,
I'm the short chick who accosted you on the street after the Hugos. ^_^ You made me promise to send you photos of our costumes, so here they are (I didn't manage to get very many on my camera, so I'm hoping more turn up online soon...). http://sarcasm.fanfic.org/morpheuscosplay.html
Of course, you don't have to spend money, time and life recreating amazing Amano and P. Craig Russell artwork. Nor does it take Talk Like A Pirate Day to foster a strange sense of togetherness. There's always Annual Sandman Dressup Days...
Hi Neil - don't know if you remember me. I met you (yay!) at the signing in Toronto on the 30th. I was the crazy one with dreads who showed you some pictures on a digital camera. I thought you might be interested in seeing what crazy Sandman fans will do when they live together for a summer at an arts camp. The pictures below are from the First and Second Annual Sandman Dressup Days which are a large event at my camp.
http://cruel-kind.org/followship/kat/photos.html
I would really love to know what you think!
~Katie (known in alternate universes as Frankie)
(link replaced with one that won't go down.)
and once you've started dressing as them, then next question has to be, which of them you've invited to dinner....
Hello Neil. I made this little quiz and I thought you might find it amusing. It's called, "Which of the Endless Should You Invite to Dinner?" Just know I mean no disrespect towards you or your characters, it's just silly fun. I hope the link works. Cheers, RedPandaPrincess
...
And here we have someone answering questions about Frankfurt and the world's longest comic strip...
Hi Neil,
it's me again. And, again, it's not a question but some links instead.
For everybody who wants to read more about comics on the Frankfurt book fair:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z66A128D5
or if you just want info on the world'S longest comic strip:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E2BA458D5
enjoy
Alex (German connection)
So it looks like I'll be drawing a panel about the history of the Guinness Book of (World) Records. Knowing my luck, other people will get to draw the panels about how many pickles people have stuffed up their noses, while I'll probably be asked to draw the panel where cofounder/editor Ross McWhirter gets killed by the IRA.
So....
this is one that people with blogs and livejournals and fansites, and news-sites and such may want to help get the word out on. Stick it up on message boards. (But only where people who might be interested congregate.)
There's an at-short-notice SANDMAN:ENDLESS NIGHTS signing happening. It'll be on Monday the 22nd of September 2003 -- two weeks from now -- in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Barnes and Noble 2051 N. Federal Hwy Ft Lauderdale, FL -- -- the link is to the store locator, which doesn't yet show me signing there, as it's been put together, as I said, at pretty short notice. (I have to go to Florida and say hello to a throng -- or whatever the collective noun is -- of Barnes and Noble store managers.) The signing is going to start at 6.00pm.
I know it's not much notice, but I would hate to spend the next couple of years apologising to people in the Florida/Georgia/SouthEast area for not letting them know I was going to be there and signing.
So if anyone can help spread the word, I'd be very grateful. Right now, the Ft lauderdale and the two short New York is Book Country signings are the only Endless Nights signings in the US. I wanted to do a San Francisco or an LA one, but time is pretty tight towards the end of the year, and even though I want to do them, I doubt very much they'll happen at this point.
So it's B&N, Fort Lauderdale, Monday the 22nd of Sept at 6.00pm.
...
Howdy Neil,
I was going over your How To Become a Writer FAQ entry, and thought I'd check out the inscriptionsmagazine.com link in there. Imagine my surprise when it popped up a "domain for sale" page and more popups than a porn site. (Not that I'd know.)
Just thought you ought to know that that link no longer appears to be functional.
Cheers,
-joe in San Rafael, CA
You know, I knew that Inscriptions had died, but forgot it was linked to in the FAQs. My fault. I'll drop a line to Julia-thewebmistress and ask her to take down the link...
Eh? What about the world longest comic strip? Sounds interesting.
You know as much as I do.
Hello Mr. Gaiman,
There's a question in here, so please bear with my story. Anyway, my name's Jeff and, while buying my books for my first semester at the University of Michigan, I became quite...jealous. Here at UM, there are so many kids that they break up each course (i.e. English 124) into smaller groups, or sections (my section is 003). Anyway, while I was picking up my books, I saw that other English 124 sections were reading WATCHMEN, MAUS and THE ESSENTIAL HULK vol. 1. My section, however, was not, and like I said, I was jealous (although we are still blessed with other wonderful literature).
But, even though a little peeved, I walked to the cash register, and on my way there, I saw that one of the film classes here had all ten volumes of SANDMAN! I was gritting my teeth even more now, just because I've been reading comics since I was in the third grade and it would've been a fanboy's dream to study them in college.
My question is: do you know when colleges and/or any other high schools teach your works, or does the institution just go directly to the publisher for permission (or do they even have to ask at all?)? I was just curious about whether or not you're informed formally of these things or if it's handled by somebody else.
Thank you for your time.
--Jeff
P.S.: I'm eagerly awaiting 1602 #2! Just a couple more days...
Nope -- I only ever find out by accident. Someone once asked here on the blog how many higher education places taught Sandman or other works by me, and I asked for people to let me know, and the replies came in thick and fast. I think we learned about a little over 60, from all over the world.
The only one who ever made a point of telling me, was Professor Frank McConnell, who is still much missed, and who would get me to come down once a year and give a talk to UCSB in Santa Barbara, which I loved to do because spending time with Frank was so amazingly entertaining. He was perfectly at ease with high culture and low culture, and wrote mystery novels, and loved Byron and H.G. Wells, and moved in an atmosphere of tumbling cigarette ash and alcohol and the occasional choice, rich and perfectly placed obscenity. I'd get a phone call from Frank every year informing me that it was time for him to teach something else of mine, and did I have any goddamned suggestions?
...
And for those of you who have started sending in sad notes complaining that I haven't posted your question/comment/essay/poem... please remember that the maths are against you. We're getting about a hundred things a day coming in. I can't put everything up (and this journal would be pretty near unreadable if I did).
Assume that your comment or question won't get posted, and that if it does, it's cool and fortunate, not that if it doesn't I hate you.
I tend to pick questions over comments. I tend to pick things I've not already answered before. I'm more likely to put up something short than something long, partly because this is now propagating to over 2000 livejournal accounts through the OfficialGaiman Livejournal feed (and to another 700 or so through the Gaimanblog feed, which is more resilient but doesn't have the titles) and I feel sort of guilty if it goes on too long. I'll try and pick the first one, if lots of people write to tell me the same thing (or I may just say "lots of people wrote to say that...".
Small funny things are more likely to get in if they come through while I'm typing one of these than if there are dozens waiting for me. Sometimes things with cool-looking links will get clicked on. If I'm in a hurry, they won't be.
For heaven's sake, don't take it personally.
(And it's probably also worth reminding people about the message boards at http://www.neilgaimanboard.com/6/ubb.x. They answer questions there as well...)
And take a look at the selected FAQs at http://www.neilgaiman.com/faq/faq.asp and the FAQ blog over at http://www.neilgaiman.com/faq/blog.asp, and don't be afraid to use the neilgaiman.com search function at http://www.neilgaiman.com/search/search.asp.
For example...
Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I've been fan of your work for some time now and I often visit this site. I was hoping you could help with a little matter. I am trying to make a career as a comic book writer. I read plenty of comic books, analyzing panels, pacing, etcetera. But I have not been able to find sample comic book scripts to get an idea of how comics are written. Could you guide me to where I could obtain some comic scripts (on-line preferably) or could you send me one of yours? A few sample pages would suffice.
Thanks for your time.
--S.Pham
Which is kind of answered, between the FAQs and a blog entry like http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2002_01_27_archive.asp#9113240...
But seeing it was something that used to puzzle me before I started writing comics, it's probably worth repeating. The entire script to the Sandman story "Calliope" is reprinted in the volume of stories in which Calliope appears, along with an essay by me about why it's reprinted and how to write comics. It's called Sandman: DREAM COUNTRY, and is the third Sandman book. Nat Gertler's edited a couple of collections of comics scripts by various authors, that are in print. George Khoury's recent Alan Moore book, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, contains an original, un-drawn Alan Moore script called "Belly of Cloud".
...
And for all those people who have been fascinated by the Salam Pax blogs, here's an article by him in the Guardian about how it all happened...
got up nice and early today to call foyles and book my tickets for the event on the 14th of november, but the slighlty uphelpful gentleman on the other end of the phone told me the event is not confirmed yet. is this true there seems to be nothing to back this up on the wheres neil page or the foyles site according to that everything is confirmed. will you be there on the 14th?
Well, I'm up on their website with a time and a date and a ticket price, which would tend to lead me to believe it's been confirmed with Foyles. Bloomsbury think it's been confirmed by Foyles. And our Guest Interviewer has confirmed he'll be interviewing us. http://www.foyles.co.uk/foyles/events.asp?TAG=&CID= for more details there. It sounds like you were probably just speaking on the phone to one of those people who don't know what they're talking about.
And speaking about ordering tickets, there have been lots of messages saying things like...
Hi Neil,
Re: Novello - I just ordered a ticket last week and also had troubles with the website. I called ((704) 372-1000) and got a friendly person who set me up. She asked if I'd tried to order online and ran into problems, so they are likely aware that there may be web gremlins.
--Maureen
So the people who thought that the Charlotte NC event was sold out should try again. And ordering by phone seems much more successful than from the website, although a couple of people have even managed that.
I saw a mention of one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Warren Zevon, in your journal awhile back, and was pleased to know that you were also a fan. I thought you might wish to know that he passed away Sunday from the lung cancer he'd been battling for over a year. He will be missed.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/
Music/09/08/obit.zevon.ap/index.html
Misty A. Smith
He made some wonderful music, and imprving with age. I loved "My Ride's Here" and pretty much all of "The Wind".
I only saw him live once about a decade ago, when my assistant Lorraine and Emma Bull, in their Flash Girls incarnation, were his support band (opening act) at Minneapolis's First Avenue. They'd only been together as a group about a month at that point, and were utterly terrified. I pointed out to Lorraine before the gig that if they screwed up badly enough she could always change her name to Pansy Smith and vanish off without a trace never to be seen again, which was where the title of their first CD came from.
(And looking for that link, I found something else: here's the version of the Pansy and Violet story that was in the CD. It's a bit darker than the one that was printed in "Adventures int he Dream Trade")
And for those people who bought a $3 bitpass to read the first chapter of The Right Number, and now have $2.75 left...
Neil -
You recently made mention of the lack of online content with which people can spend Bitpass money on, so to help rectify that problem, we've made a fairy tale-related anthology available for purchase via Bitpass here:
http://projectkooky.com/warytales/ (Thanks for the inspiration, and thanks for the stories, Neil.)
Actually, there's some other stuff out there -- it's listed at http://www.bitpass.com/share/ -- but I can't see the micropayment revolution happening until there's a lot of stuff to spend your quarters on.
NYC September....Hi Neil it's Dena again, girl with the little mummy. When I saw you last month you had told me you'd be in NYC again in September. So far, the dates you've posted are Sat. the 20th and Sunday the 21st but... I am working. You had mentioned that you might do somthing on Friday the 19th...which is my day off. Please let me know if this might happen, my boss is giving me a hard time about getting one of those days off. He seems to think that recording studios are more important than Neil signings...I say..."no way!" Hope to see you soon. -Dena
It's just the Saturday and the Sunday, I'm afraid. (On the Thursday, I think, I'll now be in Washington chatting to Neal Conan & sundry callers for the Talk of the Nation NPR show.) But there's a morning Sunday signing and an evening Sunday talk with art spiegelman, so maybe your boss would let you out for one of them. (I should possibly say, for the confused, that Dena's little mummy, which she brought to the signing, is about 4 inches high, and wrapped in bandages.)
...
And the word started to come in from Germany about what I'm doing. According to Yvonne, the Heyne books publicist:
Germany isn't the place for talks or book signings so what we do here a lot are readings. (People go and pay for readings like going to the cinema). And since everybody seems to really be into the "original version" we do German-English readings. The format is that the author takes turns in reading with (usually) an actor. (You will be accompanied by Martin Semmelrogge, a famous German actor who is also very well known for his readings). The reading in total takes about 40 mins. The passages are different ones in German and English because everybody understands English well enough
Readings (always English/German with actor Martin Semmelrogge):
Thursday, Oct. 9. in Cologne: 20.30 (8.30 PM) at Mayersche Buchhandlung, Neumarkt-Galerie, Neumarkt 2
Friday, Oct. 10. in Hamburg: 20.00 (8.00 PM) at Abaton Kino, Allendeplatz 3/Ecke Grindelhof
Saturday, Oct. 11. in Frankfurt: 14.00 (2.00 PM) at Frankfurt Book Fair, Hall 4.1/ Forum
Book signing (and participation in the Guiness world record for the longest ever comic):
Sunday, Oct. 12. in Frankfurt: 11.00-12.00 AM at Frankfurt Book Fair, Hall 3.0 / J 807 (Comic-Zentrum)
Which is weird, because my memories of previous German signings over the years, in Berlin and Erlangen and Frankfurt, are just of incredibly long lines of people who wanted things signed, and I've seen enough Germans in countries like Italy and Belgium and England to know that Germans will travel a long way to get their books signed; and I suspect that a one hour signing for an entire country, during which I'm also participating in the world's longest comic seems like a recipe for disgruntling an awful lot of German readers.
On the other hand, the readings may also include signings, and I may well have read it wrong.
So we're querying the details on this, and will report back. But for now, those are cities and times.
...
And one final one, because it made me smile...
Dear Neil,
Just wanted to say "thanks" for coming to my house this weekend to watch Neverwhere with me. At least, that's how it felt when I activated the "creator's commentary" feature on my DVD. After the first episode, my wife refused to watch any more, grumbling about low production values and how much better the novel was compared to this thing. But when I turned your voice on, it drew her right back and made the experience richer by an order to high to calculate. If nothing else, we never would have known that was you walking through the bottom of Dave McKean's stunning opening sequence (and my wife wouldn't have believed you were sitting in a kitchen in Mayhew's flat, scribbling the novel whilst the show was being filmed!).
I confess I'm not one for all the extras they throw on DVDs these days, but this was a case where it truly raised the overall quality of the whole thing. Again, sincerest thanks for a pleasant evening.
Steve and Lori
...
Lots and lots and lots of requests coming in for me to read and blurb people's books, or write introductions to things, to all of which at present the answer has to be no. I'm already overcommitted with books I've agreed to read and blurb and introductions I've agreed to write going back some years. Don't take it personally, and please, no.
I know that this is probably a silly question, but...
I'm a college professor, teaching a freshman composition class at a small pacific northwestern university. Your essay on "where you get your ideas" would be a wonderful addition to my curriculum, and I was wondering if I was free to use it.
I'd be most grateful (and would possible send you a batch of the best chocolate chip cookies ever if you were to say yes).
Thanks.
micheal
I appreciate the cookie-based bribery, but it's not needed. Sure you can use it, feel free -- there are a couple of universities using it currently, and as far as I can tell, they just link to it as part of their online syllabus. I'm glad it helps.
More on how to get comics in Germany:
Hi Neil,
I've just read Verena's Mail and am still slightly shocked. Where the heck does she live? My Comic-Shop usually has no problems getting issues only a few days later than they are published in the US. But to help Verena, she should maybe look for another comic shop, a (complete?) list is available here:
http://www.comic.de/helferlein/adr_buchhandel.0-4.html
or here
http://www.comicradioshow.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Haendlerliste&file=index
And there's an online shop at
http://www.hummelcomic.de/index.phpbut I have no personal experience with them. And I can't figure out if they haven't 1602 in store or if I'm just to stupid to find it.
If you still have questions, Verena, you can go to the newsgroup
de.alt.comics, to the comic forum at
http://www.comicforum.de/comicforum/
or just drop me a mail ;-) [alexanderaaron gmx.de]
bye
Alex (who is longing for the exact dates of Neil's trip to Europe as well, because he needs to book his trip to Norway)
Thanks Alex. I'll try and get all the information tomorrow -- I'll be in Norway in the first week of October, but which days I'm not yet certain.
Hi Neil,
This isn't a question, just an encouraging note to those who feel insufficiently cool to go into comic stores. I had never been into a comic store until last week, when I went to the one in Cambridge to get a copy of 1602 for my beloved comic-loving husband (who introduced me to your books!) I am a full-on married orthodox Jewish woman, complete with long sleeves, stockings, long skirt and wig in 80 degree heat. I walked in and said, "1602, please." And the man smiled and handed me a copy. Totally painless, and my husband was happy. I think the moral of this story is, you're never too weird for a comic store.
:) Abby & Mendel
I can't think of anyone I've ever met who was too weird for a comics store...
Lots of messages pointing out that Michael Dirda wrote Anastasia Nutter when he meant Anathema Device, which is the kind of thing you do when you're using your memory, and no, it wasn't the American Name For the Character, as someone wanted to know.
Dear Neil,
Good to hear you will be providing the introduction for a Doctor Who Telos Novella. May I ask you a Who-related question for the fiction fanzine I edit?
The question is: which element of Doctor Who do you consider to be essential to the longevity, success and popularity of the show and why? Your answer doesn't have to be long, just a couple of sentences would be great. Responses we've had so far include elements such as "time travel", "wit" and Terry Pratchett suggested "wobbly sets"!
Thanks for your time,
Richard Salter
I think fond memories of being shows wonderful things play an enormous part in it -- my relationship with Dr Who tends to have a lot to do with my memories of Dr Who. The majority of the Telos introduction (to Paul McCauley's excellent novella Eye of the Tyger) is for the most part me trying to explain what Dr Who meant to me as a kid, and why the things it did to me as a kid still matter to me now -- and how they creep out in my work, and at the back of my head, to this day.
There's more info on the Telos book here, at http://www.cuttingsarchive.org.uk/telos/who_nov/novella12/main12.htm. (I signed all the signature plates while I was in the UK a couple of months ago.)
...
Lots of people have asked if they let me into the Hugo Losers party at Torcon 3. Indeed they did. They were very nice about it. And I even lent the Hugo to people who needed it (see http://www.emcit.com/ph_t3_07.shtml for details...)
...
Information on the October 16th San Jose conversation and "An Evening With..." is here: http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/hum_arts/events.html and at http://www.litart.org/ (which has the tickemaster link).
Several people have written to say that they've had problems getting online tickets for the Novello Festival in Charlotte N.C. on Oct 18th, and a few people thought it was sold out. I can't see any enidence of this on the site itself -- if anyone knows if it's sold out or not let me know....
...
And to finish, something about the Neverwhere DVD...
Hi Neil,
I'm sure your loyal readers don't need to be reminded that the Neverwhere DVD set is due out this Tuesday, the 9th. And if they're so inclined, they can pay about $30 for it at places like Amazon-- but they may instead want to preorder it for $21.25 at DeepDiscountDVD (http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=ANE070853).
Can't wait to see it for the first time!
Eric
I'm sure I'm one of hundrdeds of people telling you this, but the Washington Post Book Club's touting of Good Omens "officially" began today with Michael Dirda's presentation/review of the book.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28395-2003Sep4.html
Mark Coale
Odessa Steps Magazine
Which is good to know. I do wish I could be there.
Hi Neil...
Just browsing IMDB and saw that you were credited with a "special thanks" for Dogma. As a big fan of your books and of this movie, I just had to know what the connection was...?
Jaimie
I'm not completely sure. I think it's a polite way of saying thank you, because Kevin found some inspiration in Sandman and Good Omens.
Is it just me, or does the Hugo award looks rather... phallic in design?
More than a rhetorical question, I was wondering if there's any inside jokes on that.
Thanks whether you reply or not ;o)
Oscar Morales Viv�
Of course it looks phallic. It's a four-finned rocket ship. Phallic comes with the territory...
I think the most interesting thing about the design of the Hugos is that, when designed in 1953ish, they were cutting edge cool. By the late 60s I'd read about how embarrassing the actual object was for writers (a rocket ship!) and how proud SF writers were of the Nebulas -- blocks of lucite with glitter and such inside, which, for the time, were cutting edge as well..
And now, 50 years on, the Hugos are perfect and classical and look like the thing they are -- the apotheosis of an SF award -- while the Nebulas probably need another 15 years before they become timeless.
(Last year's Hugo was more phallic than this one -- the maple-wood mapleleaf rocket-flame sort of mutes the cool spacedildo effect.)
Hi!
I can�t believe it - only three or four weeks to go, and there is still no further information about your trip to Europe available (neither here nor anywhere else I looked). On how short notice do you usually get those dates and places? Makes me wonder how you cope with not knowing where you�ll be when at least a month in advance... would annoy me enormously...
Btw, does anyone (you or maybe someone reading your journal) know if there is anywhere where I (living in germany) can mailorder 1602 without having to wait 2 months (which is what my local comic store tells me I�ll have to if I do it via them)?
Thanks and all the best...
Verena
Well, in broad strokes it's all been decided for ages. I'm happy enough knowing the dates I'll be in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Croatia and Germany, for example.
It's not posted here yet because I don't yet have exact times and dates of where I'll be and what I'll be signing. I've just sent an e-mail to the German publisher's publicist, and I should be able to post them in a couple of days. Expect long lists of where I'll be...
As for 1602 -- it doesn't sound like much of a local comic store if they can't you a copy in under 8 weeks.My suggestion would be to go into the Message Board, and put up a request, and if any comic stores with copies available, and who don't mind mailing things to Germany see it, you can make each other happy...
...
I sent the iPod that only worked if it had a plastic knife and a rubber band holding things in the proper position back to Apple to fix. They sent me a new iPod by return, which made me happy.
And there's a review of Monarch of the Glen (the new Shadow story from Legends II) at Silver Bullet. It's hard to say whether it has spoilers or not, as the reviewer works very hard not to give anything away, but still has to, just to be able to talk about the story. If you want to read the story without any preconceptions at all, though, you may want to skip it.
There's a full list of the writers and the stories in the book at http://www.voyageronline.com.au/books/title.cfm?ISBN=0007154356&Author=23 which is an Australian website. And if your an American who can't wait until the 30th of December, as the reviewer says, that's what Amazon.co.uk is for...
Took Maddy to the renfest again, where she played her violin for the crowd and she and her friend had their hair braided. Was delighted to see that Lorraine and Paul and Trevor (aka Folk Underground) seem to be becoming really popular, and are selling enormous quantities of CDs to people who thought they were just trying to get in early for good seats to see Puke and Snot, and who become converts.
Unfortunately, their biggest hit is 'The Tea Song' (which Emma renamed 'Tea and Corpses' when the Flash Girls did it. She also renamed 'The Lalala Song' to 'A Meaningful Dialogue'. You may see a pattern here, consisting of laziness on the part of the person who wrote the song, and desperation on the part of the person who put it on the CD. Still, 'The Herring Song' stayed 'The Herring Song'.) And the Tea Song isn't on their CD. Which probably means they'll have to do another one.
Came home late, dusty and dehydrated.
Neil,
Any chance you'll be at World Fantasy this year?
--Michail Velichansky
It's possible, but very unlikely. While I have several hundred friends there, and am nominated for two World Fantasy Awards, and would love to go to Washington, I'll have just got back from pretty much a month on the road, about ten days before, and the week after World Fantasy I have to to the UK for a Coraline/Wolves signing tour. And it's looking like once the tour is done I may have to hide and write for several weeks. So the idea of getting two weeks practically uninterrupted at home, and reading to Maddy, and so on, becomes even more attractive than the idea of going to Washington in the middle of that time at home...
...
There's a photo of a bunch of Hugo winners unsure of where they are meant to be looking as a sea of camera flashes goes off here at http://www.sfcanada.ca/torcon/hugowinners3.jpg. Not one single person is looking at the camera that took the picture in question. (This is because SF fans are too polite to yell "yo! look over here!' like newspaper photographers do.)
I'm the one on the bottom left.
...
When I was younger, and felt that fine enemies were important things to have, I took Julie Burchill's hatred of comics as a sort of badge of pride. It wasn't that I hated her as a person -- I'd had a perfectly pleasant lunch with her, her then-husband Cosmo, and author Kathy Acker, shortly before she began making her pronouncements on comics, but she's an opinionated, terribly smart, shit-stirrer whose columns seem sometimes to exist in order to irritate as many readers as possible. So her much-quoted statement that "There are no comics for adults, because adults don't read comics" was down on my list of great stupid things that sound good, and from her articles attacking those who made and those who read, comics, graphic novels, and the like, at least I knew without any doubt which camp she was in.
The discovery that she's become a wishy-washy convert in her old age, and now recants, and admits to liking Dan Clowes and Terry Moore is sort of troubling: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1026555,00.html. I think I preferred her on the other side, really.
...
There's a librarian action figure on the way. Some librarians are apparently complaining about the "shushing" action of the figure, and, perhaps, that it isn't glamorous enough. Meanwhile there's a profile on the librarian it's based on in the Seattle Times. I think it looks genuinely fun. (I can understand a profession complaining that they are being mocked or stereotyped, but a real person isn't a stereotype.)
...
Don't know if you remember me, but I met you briefly in Evanston at Stars Our Destination on your American Gods tour (it's closed its doors and become mail order only, shame!) Tall, a bit portly, definitely a bit awestruck. Anyway, at the time, I mentioned to you a Sandman Timeline I had compiled which, although presumably having some errors, is kinda fun ... you suggested I send the URL into you ... so now that the FAQ line is fixed yet again, thought I'd give it another try, despite having tried a few times in the past to no avail. We'll see if it goes through this time 'round!
http://biphome.spray.se/rivieran/literature/timeline.html
Thanks so much for your tales ... they've meant a lot to me over the years.
-- Mike
You're welcome. Mike's Sandman timeline is a remarkable thing, and made me feel justified for putting all the work into making the movement of time actually work, on the basis that "one day, someone will check up, so I better make it all work just for the someone, as well as for me". And because I could never get comics timelines to work in my own head (when I was a boy I'd puzzle over whether 12 monthly issues of a comic add up to twelve days in the life of a character, or to a year?)
...
First, I'd say the only way to eat porridge is with Lyle's Golden Syrup (unless you're a Scot, like over half of my mother, in which case you eat it with salt).
Golden Syrup, the one in the green and gold Victorian tin which has a picture of a dead lion and bees humming out of it because 'out of strength comes forth sweetness'. You'll probably also know that this is a quote from Virgil.
Virgil was very keen on farming but was a better poet than he was farmer. He instructs us in the Georgics that a dead animal is the way to catch a swarm of bees (Now I'm sure you'll catch a swarm of *something* if you leave a dead animal lying about, just not so sure it'll be bees).
Love Kass
I think it's actually a quote from the bible -- I'm pretty sure it's Samson's riddle in the book of Judges, after slaying a lion, and finding a swarm in its chest cavity, some time later. Virgil, I think, believed that dead animals spontaneously created bees, but it's late and I'm not sure where to start looking...
By jove, it's amazing what you can find on the web with a google click or two. Here's a site all about strange bee lore -- and you'll find Samson, and Virgil, and even Pliny (who doesn't really get mentioned much but was consistently wronger about bees than anyone could be without working at it)...
Second, have you come across Join Me yet?
It's an account of how Danny Wallace set up his own cult by placing a cryptic small ad in Loot, one of our local newspapers. All it said was "Join me" and people did. Now he's going Stateside (website: http://www.join-me.co.uk).
It was Danny Wallace who made another curious journey with Dave Gorman - they tracked down all the Dave Gormans they could worldwide and made a book/tv series about them all.
Love
Kass
I'm already a fan of Danny Wallace and Dave Gorman ( see here, from a year ago). I bought lots of copies of " Are you Dave Gorman?" and sent them to friends.
Join us looks like fun...
....
Thanks for the comic book locator link - very useful. :) However, the site does require JavaScript for the drop down menus to function, which is a pet peeve of mine as a lot of people won't have JavaScript or have it switched off, so I wrote http://www.dracos.co.uk/web/accessibility/comicshoplocator/which is an accessible version of the site, no JavaScript or anything else required. I thought this might come in use to some (or possibly one, or none :) ) of your blog readers.
ATB,
Matthew
Thanks Matthew.
...
I found this site today about censorship in New Zealand. Namely the Indecent Publications Act of 1910 which was revised in 1954.
"The 1954 Act incorporated new measures to deal with comics, which were a cause of some concern at the time. This Act extended the definition of indecency to include undue emphasis on matters of sex, horror, crime, cruelty or violence. In 1961 the Act was amended to include sound recordings."
Under this Act Sandman was not let into New Zealand until 1994 when new legislation came in to force and adults were finally allowed their own comic books.
I thought you might have been interested on the way things work in such a small uninvolved country.
Slowly working my way through the Sandman series backwards as that's all I can ever find at my local library. I haven't seen much more of your writing out here but then I haven't really trolled all the books stores like I should.
Thanks,
Rachel
Fascinating.
I've always found it odd that while, in the US, comics were coming under attack for being unamerican, all over the rest of the world they were being attacked for being evil items of American cultural imperialism -- Martin Barker wrote an excellent book on the history of UK anticomics legislation, which turned out to be the only legislation that the British Communist Party pushed into existence in all the years they were around. (The book's called Haunt of Fears, and it's probably long out of print.) (Yup, it is, but there are plenty of second hand copies, places like here.)
Lots of people point out that LEGENDS II has just appeared on Amazon.com and is listed as coming out in the US on December the 30th. (Which is odd, as I thought I'd mentioned that already.) (And I've misalid the info on the Australian release.)
Hey, Neil,
Figures I'd choose to shoot you a first message at the EXACT SAME TIME your FAQ starts to fall apart.
To repeat (with apologies if this's utterly redundant because the original message penetrated somehow):
An oddball pronunciation question: How do you personally pronounce the word "prelude," as in "Preludes & Nocturnes"? The Honda pronunciation is clear, of course, but I hear -- hear, get it? -- the jury's still out on PREL-yood versus PRAY-lood for the ordinary noun. So, which is it for you?
(I liked learning that "Chabon" is pronounced SHAYB'n. Does wonders to know the correct pronunciations for things, especially words.)
Both pronounciations are right. And I'm a prel-yoods person.
A couple of replies in to America's query. One from someone who worked in a comic shop (hi Jinx)
just wanted to pass on to America that comic shops are great and finding a good local one will far outweigh the momentary feeling like a poser. Local comic shops are lovely and need to be supported, even if they are death on my budget. The few places that look upon non-regulars are few and far between these days.
As well as 1602 is lovely and understandable if you're not a comic junkie like me. My Mother read it today at the hospital (she took my purse by mistake, and no it wasn't serious, just normal treatment) and was all over me to find out when the next one came out.
Tracey who worked at her local shop for 10 years
and one from a friendly New Yorker who just went into a comic shop for the first time...
Neil,
I'd like to assure you and America--both the person and the entire country--that 1602 is enjoyable even for those who aren't Marvel experts. I'd never read any Marvel comics (or any comics at all!) but obviously some of the characters are well enough known that even if you've never read the actual comics you'll recognize them because they've popped up in movies, television series, and other pop culture media. I knew while reading that I was missing a lot, but I was able to follow things perfectly well and got to have a few "haha, I know who THAT is" moments.
I'd also like say that when I went to buy 1602 it was my very first time inside a comic store. I went to midtown comics in Manhattan and I definitely felt lost and stupid at first, but there were so many different types of people around me that I didn't feel like people would see me and think "what's SHE doing here?" I had no idea where to look at first but I just took my time and scanned the walls till I spotted the shelf labeled with new arrivals, and there 1602 was. I felt very proud of myself as I walked to the register to make my purchase. And if I hadn't found it that easily I'd have just asked one of the numerous friendly-looking people in the store. Comic book enthusiasts strike me as the sort who'd be eager to help out a newbie and view him/her as someone to welcome into the fold rather than as a poser.
--Tsippa, who has been craving Salsa ever since you wrote about it.
Mostly, they are, especially at the good stores. (Midtown Comics is a good store.)
Incidentally, Amazon has now put up a link to Robert Silverberg's LEGENDS II anthology, and it now has a publication date of December 30th.
Having grumbled in the last entry about a journalist trying to write a funny article and failing, here's a link to a journalist trying to write a funny article and succeeding. It's from the Guardian, and concerns someone spending 24 hours in a perspex box. Just like David Blaine is going to. Only Blaine's going to do it for a couple of months, and without cashews.
and changing the subject completely...
I am looking for a particular book with illustrations by Dave McKean.
I believe the story goes something like this: Mrs.Baxter takes in some
stray cats (which apparently look rather like griffins) and then Mr. Baxter
disappears, apparently eaten by cat-griffins. Thought you might know.
Thanks for any help. NR, In WNY
Sounds like you've heard a bit about MirrorMask, the film I wrote that Dave McKean has directed. You'll have to wait until sometime in 2004 to see it, I'm afraid.
...
Regarding the World's Best Porridge Recipe that you perfected on Wednesday...could you post it, please? My beloved housemate just had all four impacted wisdom teeth pulled and any chewing on his part is thus out of the question for the foreseeable future. He complains constantly, gushing blood with every whine. World's Best Porridge would therefore be much appreciated by all concerned. Thanks! - Eve
I wasn't going to, but you ask so nicely, and then there's the blood and the whine... One of the drawbacks of the World's Best Porridge Recipe for those purposes is that it's slightly chewy, which is part of the charm.
Having experimented with porridge recipes for years now, this one sort of came together in a bunch of "what if I tried..."s that actually worked.
You need two kinds of oats for it to work. Normal rolled oats ( not instant oats), and also steel-cut oats (I use McCanns but I'm sure any brand would do).
(Okay. It's not Healthy, though. Or Sensible. I feel like I ought to mention that. It's the sort of porridge I'd break out to impress guests with, rather than eat every morning.)
Begin with a saucepan. Take a generous couple of tablespoonfuls of butter, and melt them in the saucepan over a low light.
Add about a tablespoonful of McCann's Steel Cut Oats. Let it start to cook in the butter. Add about three-quarters of a cupful of normal rolled oats, and a little less than half a teaspoon of coarse seasalt. Let it all cook in the butter, on a low heat, stirring it around a bit with a wooden spoon. Don't let it burn. Pretty soon, everything will start to smell like oatmeal cookies, and the oats will be browning well, and will have absorbed all the butter, and people will be saying "That smells nice, are you cooking something?" (If it goes black and people ask if they should open the windows, you let it burn. Start again.)
At this point add a couple of cups of boiling water. Bring it back to the boil and "spirtle" (stir vigorously). Let it cook for about ten minutes over a medium to low heat, stirring whenever you remember. Somewhere in there I normally add a little more water, and as it thickens at the end, I stir more.
After about ten minutes, it'll be done. Put it into a bowl. Drizzle real maple syrup on. Pour thick cream over that. Put spoon in. Eat.
(I suppose the maple syrup can be replaced with sugar or honey or no sweetener at all. The steel cut oats add some texture to the whole. The frying the oats gently in butter is there to make you feel guilty and seems to make the whole thing work.)
Several links and things...
UK readers who wish to write the BBC about a "Neverwhere" DVD (or anything else come to that) should use this address:
BBC Video
BBC Woodlands
80, Wood Lane,
London
W12 0TT
- Steve Manfred, River Falls, WI
Over in Peter David's journal he links to an article in a Toronto paper making fun of the Hugo Awards. It's not much of an article (it's meant to be one of those "make fun of the geeks" articles, but it hits condescending and never carries on to reach funny) but the comments on the article by the people who were actually there are fascinating -- including some very restrained comments in from Tom Galloway, who was floor manager for the event, and points out the first thing that occured to me while reading it - how can the journalist claim to be so bored that she left half-way through, while also casually quoting a line from the last speech of the night?
This article from the Globe and Mail was much more interesting -- real reporting, which occasionally put my back up slightly, but which paints a picture that has some truth to it, of core SF fandom as something that is as much about itself as it is about SF (but then, all fandoms are).
Google now has a calculator feature -- http://www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator. I still owe a drink to whoever at Google fixed their google sets feature to put Terry Pratchett and me in such very good company.
...
Someone posted kindly about Endless Nights on Slashdot.org which sent the Endless Nights up from around the 1000 level ranking to #33 (on just checking) on Amazon.com. The power of slashdot...
I'm meant to be doing an interview at Slashdot reasonably soon, by the way.
And now I have to play Nintendo with Maddy (I've just been informed). (I dug out the old Super Nintendo system as a way of getting my mobile phone back from Maddy, who otherwise steals it to play Bounce.)
This just arrived from Sunil at Authors on the Web: If you haven't already you may get a sudden burst of email messages. Working with ActiveHost I think we've discovered the problem they were having before, and they may have actually saved all the FAQ emails that were supposed to come to you and didn't. It was immediately followed by the arrival of a host of hitherto lost FAQ messages.
(insert very small, polite, scream here)
Spent the morning answering FAQs. Did about a dozen of them. Blogger just ate them.... which is mostly a pity because I'd tried to answer all the immediately useful ones, and they'll still need to be redone, and also because the stuff about academic brawls was really funny in a nasal kitty sort of way, and I don't think I can reproduce it.
Let's try that again, or something like it, anyway:
Celebrating a once-again working FAQ, just wanted to mention that Amazon.co.uk is apparently shipping Legends 2.
Judging from this, http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0007154348, it does indeed. (Although the story in Legends is the new American Gods novella, "The Monarch of the Glen", and not, as it says, a Sandman story.) I've prodded Amazon.com for a US release date and can't find anything at all.
Hello Mr. Neil Gaiman,
Couple of signing questions:
a) at the 5th ave street fair, do you know which booth you'll be at. I remember you saying something about you NOT being at the DC booth, and if I'm too arrive early, I need to know which booth obviously.
b) um, er, hmm, this is silly, and you may laugh, but after all the hullaballo with Miracleman, do you sign them, or do you look at them, sigh, and say, must I really sign this, do you have any idea what I've been through because of these? Just don't what the author chargrined if I present him a Miracleman I enjoyed tha the wrote, when I could have brought something else that I enjoyed that he wrote that would make him smile rather than grimace.
Okay then, thanks for your time, have a fantabulous day.
Beth
a) I'll be signing on the graphic novel stage, in the centre of the graphic novel space, around 5th Avenue and 49th Street, at around 11:30am, for an hour. Signing after me is art speigelman, after him is Jim Lee. Given that I'll only have 60 mins to sign in, get there early. (And don't forget the event at the 92nd st Y with art spiegelman that night.)
b) I'll happily sign anything I've ever written, except bootlegs, and sometimes I'll sigh and sign even them. There was a while when I wouldn't sign any of the Image ANGELA collections, seeing they didn't ever pay me anything on them, or intend to, but since the trial and the judgement against Image and Todd Macfarlane, I'm happy to sign even them. The only bootlegs I've run into are the one volume video/DVD of NEVERWHERE, and a pirate printing of the DreamHaven "Snow, Glass, Apples" chapbook.
Hi! It's Tuesdae Jade, you met me at the Chicago Tori Amos show. Probly don't remember me, but I certanly remember you! I have now read Stardust and Neverwhere, I really liked them, especially Neverwhere, and am now trying to get through American Gods, but I'm rambling. Sorry. My question is: Do you think you could ever get some desktops or screensavers for your books or site? That would be really awsome. If they are here, I am really sorry to bother you, I just couldn't find them. Ko, thanks for listaning, I apreciateit! Tuesdae Jade
You know, Tuesdae Jades don't come along in quantity enough to be forgettable.
I don't think we have any screensavers here at the site. But over at www.mousecircus.com you'll find Coraline screensavers, and Wolves in the Walls desktop, all for Windows and Mac. (Sometimes the screensaver sings rat songs, which can be a bit unnerving.) There's also e-cards at http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/coraline/ and a windows Coraline screensaver (downloadable from http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/coraline/corascr.exe)
DC Comics said they were doing ENDLESS NIGHTS screensavers and desktop themes, but I can't see anything at the Endless Nights Website, so who knows...?
Hello Neil.
I'm writing again since you posted that this FAQ is working. YEAH! O.K....Of course I can't write without mentioning how much i love your works. I fell in love with the Sandman comics (which i know are now graphic novels but at least people in Barnes & Noble can get to know you too. )
I'm a little hesitant to read your 1602 work because i understand that it's about the Marvel universe and i'm afraid that i'm not much of a comic person so i don't think i'll understand. This has become a great dilema and don't know what to do?
And then there's the comic shop dilema...i feel like when i go in there it's like your suppose to know where things are and if you don't your like a big ol' poser. This is not high school, you know? Anyway, Sorry i decided to vent on your time. * ____ * Keep up the excellent work and keep on blogging.
* America * (yes, it's my real name.)
+
Dear America
well, the idea of 1602 was to do something that Marvel people and non-Marvel people would enjoy, in different ways. You don't really have to know that these characters are versions of characters (like Daredevil, or the X-Men) who were meant to have turned up 400 years later, to enjoy the story. Or at least, I hope you don't.
It's sort of like Endless Nights, which I wrote hoping that for new readers it would be perfectly accessible, while Sandman readers would get a different reading experience.
I really want to support the comics shops -- which is why I posted the links to the comics shops locator services in the previous entries. I'd suggest using the locator to find local stores to you, and phone them up -- find out when they're open, if they have 1602 #1, where they are. You should at least have a sense of what kind of a shop they are from whether they're nice on the phone or not. Friends of Lulu is an organisation out there to promote women and comics, and they have lots of helpful things on their website , including a message forum, and I bet someone there could recommend a good comics shop to you.
And then there's mail order...
Will there be a UK release of Neverwhere on DVD, and if so will it differ from the soon to be released region 1 set.
That's up to the BBC. Your best bet is to write to them.
Re: the Foyles event - the tickets aren't quite available yet, so there's even more time for Disgruntled of Tonbridge Wells to become flush - or they can always reserve a signed copy from emily@foyles.co.uk. Besides, when I went to a Stephen King signing, it was free, and I had a photo taken with him, but I had to buy his new hardback book for 16.99, and only spent 2 minutes "chatting" with him - "Er, hello, I, um, like your books" - well, duh, otherwise I wouldn't be there. I would have happily paid a fiver instead for those 2 minutes, let alone a whole evening's show, with slides and things. Bargain!
By the way, you said it was always worth asking, so I thought I'd get in early for the November Foyles thing: fancy coming for some sushi after, with me and my girlfriend? There's a couple of great places in nearby Soho, and we're not psychos or anything, we would never do something crazy like having you stuffed and mounted in a glass case (okay, except that one time, but nobody was seriously injured).
Let's see -- the event starts at 7:00pm. There's an interview, reading, Q & A. Probably the signing bit will start around 8:30. Then there's 500 people who will want things signed (books, comics, CDs, body parts).... I doubt Dave and I will get out of there before midnight, and probably just want sleep or death at that point. But I appreciate the offer.
Dear Neil,
Not a question, but a quick link to my annotations for THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS SPECIAL if you're interested. I expect I've gotten a good portion of it wrong, but that's also part of the fun of it, of course.
http://www.mattpeckham.com/annotations/sandman.endless.nights.special.htm
Best wishes,
Matt
Thanks Matt. There that's all the ones replied to that I did before except for the pagan college group and the Tom Bombadil one, which must wait for another time.
PS: Hah! Blogger ate that one too. This time I was prepared though...
They've fixed the FAQ line. Hurrah.
Why is it Foyles wants to charge me to come into its store, if I am going to buy a book there to get it signed, why do they want to charge me a fiver for the privilege?
I am only bitter this month as I have a budget of �15 to live off, and I know when I am paid and rich again, they'll all be sold.
Bah to Foyles. I'm going to Into The Void instead.
Disgrunteld
Lou
I'm sure they'll have a lot of seats left, when you're flush. The only place the event has been mentioned so far is here and on Foyles site, for a November event. And they aren't charging you a fiver to come into the bookshop. Foyles is renting a 500 seat theatre and putting on a really solid event, if last year's is anything to go by, including an interview (and an interviewer), audience Q & A, a reading with slides, and the kind of signing you get when Dave McKean and I sign for all 500 people (which in this case, includes comfy seating until your row gets called, which is not to be underestimated).
I don't know if the fiver counts against the cost of the book -- most UK bookshops that charge for events will give you back the ticket price if you buy a book by the author from them.
I probably should have posted the rest..
November 14th 2003. 7pm (Doors open 6.30pm)
The Congress Centre, 28 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS
Tickets: (special online only price) �5, �4 Concessions)
The nice people doing the construction work at the end of our drive just came up to the door to let us know that they'd just put a bulldozer through our phone lines...
So I'm phone-less. Luckily the internet's a satellite...
http://csls.diamondcomics.com/ is the Diamond Distributors "Comic Store Locator", for the US and UK.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/09/04/cornfield.killing.ap/index.html is a weird but true news story about guns and tomatoes.
And while the FAQ line is down, I'll stick up some previously unanswered questions, like:
Reminded of something: "and if I don't miss the deadline, I'm meant to be writing a Sherlock-Holmes-meets-the-Chulhu-mythos story very soon."
I take it you missed the deadline?
-Damien
Nope, made it just fine, thank you very much. It'll be in a book called SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET, which comes out very soon, and is, I think, my favourite of all the stories I've written in the last few years. It's called "A Study In Emerald".
...
Today's post brought:
A finished copy of Sandman:Endless Nights.
The Japanese hardback edition of Coraline with some really cute, strange, original Japanese illustrations.
1602 #1 (so I finally got to read a finished copy).
More of Dave Mckean's new SANDMAN covers. (As the books go back to press, they'll come out with the new design. It's prettier than the first uniform edition).
And things are looking good for New York is Book Country. You need special expensive VIP tickets to be one of the 50 people Steve Martin will sign for, at the Saturday morning event. I, on the other hand, will sign for everyone there on the Saturday (tickets are needed for the event), at least as far as I know, and NYIBC isn't charging any extra for the privilege...
I'll be signing (for free!) at the Fifth Avenue Street fair on Sunday Morning, but only for an hour (and it can't overrun, as someone else will be in the seat after an hour), so if you want a signature, get there early.
...
Over on Where's Neil, I've posted the first of the UK events -- FOYLES bookshop are hosting an event on Nov 14th. It's listed as me, but I think it's actually going to be me and Dave McKean and a special guest interviewer.
The message line is still down, but I was cheered by being copied on e-mails this morning that seem to mean that unless it gets sorted out permanently soon, we'll be finding somewhere else to host the site.
Felicia Quon just sent me a link to a nice article in the Toronto Globe and Mail -- I was amused by the intro, the bit written by sub editors at the paper, not by Luma, the journalist (who has, she told me, a wolf, a tame one that appears on TV, living upstairs from her) which says: Not just a comic-book hero. Neil Gaiman, author of the groundbreaking Sandman series, now frightens kids, including his own, LUMA MUHTADIE finds ("What do you do for a living?" "I used to write a comic, but now I frighten children.")
Over at the Radio 4 site, I see the second series of Ross Noble Goes Global is up for listening at Radio 4. Ross Noble is sort of like a Geordie Eddie Izzard, in that he's nothing at all like Eddie Izzard, but if you're going to point at someone to compare him to, Eddie's a good person to point at. ( Good review of his new show at the Telegraph site.)
Brian Hibbs, at San Francisco's Comix Experience writes to say:
Might want to point it out in the blog that the ENDLESS NIGHTS Special is out -- as far as I know, it's ONLY available to direct market comic shops, and even then, only to those that a) topped their orders on DREAM HUNTERS and b) thought that there would be demand for 1/7th of the HC before the full book ships in 2 weeks.
This probably means that it has the lowest orders of a SANDMAN comic, ever...
(then you probably want to tell people what it is, like)
-B
The Endless Nights Special is a 'taster" -- a 24 page comic, with the Miguelanxo Prado Dream story in it. It's for people who aren't sure that they want to buy a whole hardback book, but would like to see what the fuss is about. It's about Morpheus, and his first girlfriend, and it's set a very long time ago. No, longer ago than that...
...
So far today I've done four interviews with journalists for WOLVES IN THE WALLS, although, like yesterday's NEVERWHERE DVD interviews, they've wandered all over the place. Which is sort of fun.
Interesting article over at http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/3439.html (found via TCJ's always fascinating Journalista blog).
If I read it right, I think it's saying that...
1) Bookstores have ordered enormous numbers of SANDMAN:ENDLESS NIGHTS
2) Due to the incredibly efficient comics distribution system, ENDLESS NIGHTS will be in the comic shops on Wednesday the 17th of September, and will probably take several more weeks to get to the bookstore distributor warehouses and from there into the bookstores. So the comic shops will have a window of time advantage when they're the only people with the book.
3) Comic stores had better order enough copies ahead of time, because if they sell out, by the time they get their reorders in the books will already be on sale at, say, Barnes and Noble. And the comic store customers may well have decided not to wait, and gone and bought them there, or at Borders or the local independent...
4) And there are a lot of imponderables. Will the Sandman readers who've come in in the last six years, most of whom have probably bought their graphic novels in Bookshops, and may not even know that there are comic shops, know that if they go to a comic shop on the 17th of Sept, they'll get ENDLESS NIGHTS before they could get it in a bookshop? (Well, they will if they read this journal entry, but otherwise would they?) Will the comic shops benefit from the USA Today and Entertainment Weekly articles, along with the flurry of media that seems to be looming?
I'm fascinated by how it plays out. Part of wanting comics to be mainstream is wanting graphic novels to sell in bookstores, the other part of it is wanting to drive people into comic stores. (The non-creepy kind.)
From a customer point of view, it probably just means that, if you want it early, you need to get it from your comic store ( if you don't know how to find one, you could start looking here.) And you should ask them to put one aside for you.
...
Today was spent doing interviews, for the Neverwhere DVD. Each interview was exactly 20 minutes long, with no time between them, all on the same phone line, so mostly just as the conversation got interesting I'd have to say "You have to stop now". Tomorrow it's more or less the same, but with Wolves in the Walls interviews, and a USA Today photo shoot.
And the FAQ line remains down, so here's an e-mail from Scott McCloud's wife Ivy instead...
Neil,
With Sept. 19th right around the corner, I wanted make sure you were aware of
this most auspicious of occasions:
http://talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
We at Game Night have been anxiously awaiting this, our favorite of holidays,
ever since we sort of missed it last year. (Someone from Game Night sent me
the above URL in fact.) This year it falls on a Friday (which, of course, is
Game Night) so we are all getting ready...
Didn't want yer t'miss out matey!
Arrr,
Ivy
While Jonathan carroll sends a link to the dead letter office at http://www.thedeadletter.com/explore.html
...
And the latest New Scientist points in horrified amusement to the Creation Science Fair at http://objective.jesussave.us/creationsciencefair.html. All of which is, well, sad and hilarious... and reads like an Onion parody. It took a lot of clicking around (more, in retrospect, than it should have) to come to the conclusion that the whole site was parodic (although their links at the bottom of the page are for real, which was what had puzzled me). (And then a look back at the New Scientist's last paragraph shows that they'd sussed it too but weren't saying so explicitly -- which leaves me puzzled why they'd talk about it as if it was sad-but-funny-but-true, and in a way that anyone who doesn't actually go to the site would assume that this was an actual report of a real thing.)
Meanwhile, over at the Guardian, a less funny but fascinating article on scientists and religion.
And the interviews start early tomorrow, so goodnight.
Hi Mr Gaiman,
Just writing to let you know (and all your Iberian fans, via the blog) that
the History Channel over here in Portugal and Spain is showing a documentary
on superhero comics, featuring you, Frank Miller, Michael Chabon, Kevin
Smith, Stan Lee, and many others.
It's scheduled to rerun tomorrow, September 3, at midnight, 6am and finally
noon (GMT -- Spanish viewers should add one hour to these times).
Cheers,
Lu�s
--
Fantastic Metropolis: http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/
Goblindegook: http://goblindegook.blogspot.com/
Will do.
The FAQ line hasn't been working properly since the Blaster worm hit the authorsontheweb server a couple of weeks ago, and it seems to have gone down again. This wouldn't normally cheer me up, but tonight only I suspect might be a good thing, because the Real Person Fiction/Slash Defense message deluge had just begun, much of it picking apart the two previous posters' opinions line by line, or explaining what RPS/RPF fiction was or wasn't, and explaining why it was a good thing. These weren't nasty messages at all -- they were nice, friendly, uniformly polite messages defending something that is either a hobby or an artform (depending on the correspondent), and requesting equal time for a right to reply and so forth.
And I'm not going to put them up because people have other places to have those conversations than here, and I'm not going to post any of the links people have sent in to show me just how good RPS can be, nor am I actually going to click on those links because sometimes ignorance really is bliss, and all that. (And this has less to do with prudery than with my own comfort levels. I can just about get my head around the concept of Crowley-Aziraphale slash, and would rather not read it thanks. Out beyond that, I don't actually want to know...)
...
Made large quantities of Salsa from the garden this evening. Would have made much more but an incredibly well-fed groundhog recently discovered the tomatoes, which meant that half of the ripe tomatoes were half-eaten on the plant. The groundhog's now got to the point of ignoring people, and mostly he just lolls around in the garden, eating half a tomato at a time. I actually chased him from the tomato patch this afternoon -- not because I thought I'd catch him, but because he obviously needed the exercise.
Anyway, the various tomatoes, garlics, herbs, onions, peppers sweet and peppers hot -- everything but the lime juice and the salt -- came from the garden, and tasted like a magical late summer once everything had been run through the food processor. (Made four salsas - mild, medium, evilly hot, and a very hot mango salsa for Lorraine.)
Also have finally perfected the World's Greatest Porridge recipe.
Copies of the US edition of DON'T PANIC arrived this morning, the hardback Douglas Adams book which was mostly written by me in 1987, and added onto in 1993 by Dave Dickson and more recently updated and overhauled by M.J. Simpson. It looks really classy and has a new foreword which was written (although not copy-edited or proofread) by me. It was written at great haste last month, when it was pointed out to me that the introduction and reminiscence of Douglas I'd done for the US edition of M. J. Simpson's book Hitchhiker (which I wrote in a hotel bed one morning in Italy on tour, listening to accordion music from the street) had not actually, magically, covered both books...
This Onion article is wonderful: I'll thank you, Grygor, to discontinue forthwith your practice of referring to the works contained in my collection of sequential-art erotica as "dirty comics." And someone at the Onion certainly knows his or her cool-but-dirty comics.
...
I don't know if this has sent a hundred times over yet...there seems to be a problem with the mailer...but I'll ask again anyway...There seemed to be some disagreement as to whether or not you would actually be signing stuff at the Charlotte, NC Novello Festival...So do you know yet if you will be reading AND signing, or if it will just be a reading? As much as I would love to see you read, I don't know if I could make the drive (from Atlanta) if I can't have the chance to meet you...Thanks as always for your blog and everything you do for your fans!
Sorry about the mailer -- but at least yours got through.
At Book Expo America I was introduced to a Charlotte bookseller who said he'd be organising or hosting my signing -- so that certainly increases the chances of there being a signing. There's a bit more info up at http://www.novellofestival.net/archiveguest.asp?id=160 along with an e-mail interview, but the only thing it lists is the evening with me...
(Personally, I'd rather spend a couple of hours in a comfy seat, watching someone read and talk and answer questions, than stand in a line for several hours to get less than a minute with them. It's more personal.)
Errr... when I clicked on the link for the nypost interview with you, it came up with a nice interview with Sena Jeter Naslund, who I'm sure is a very nice author... but he's not you. Anyway, thanks for blogging so much - and entertaining everyone with the cat stories.
-Erika
You're right -- they obviously change their interviews daily or weekly; here's a Google cache of the interview I meant...
"How do you truly feel about (a) real person slash? (b) real person slash about you? Honestly??"
"a) not sure. Never encountered any, that I know of...
b) I think I probably simply hope (er, and pray) that you're kidding. You are kidding, aren't you?"
It's good to be innocent. I would search for a link, but my brain would melt and leak out through my ears.
There is real person slash out there. Most of them involve NSYNC members. Others include Putin/Bush, Stalin/Roosevelt, and most terrifying of all, God/Satan. Apparently, God likes to be on top.
Disclaimer: I've only heard about it. It's the kind of thing that you talk about, late at night, with the crickets chirping and marshmallows roasting, on the fanfiction topic in forums.
Sarah
And, someone has written to remind me, this qualifies too, sort of: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90247304
Sadly, real person slash (Or RPS as it is generally abbreviated) does in fact exist. The basic explanation for it is along the lines of media making celebrities into characters, ultimately every bit as invented and fictional as people who are wholly made up (c.f. the standard Hollywood rumor that there are dozens of gay movie stars, none of whom admit it because it would end their careers). And so the same desire to subvert existing fictions that drives generic old slash becomes a desire to subvert what is seen as the fictional view of celebrities written by Hollywood at large.
And yes, there is RPS about you. The closest I've found in my research (I'm doing my Masters thesis on slash) is this [link removed because. Well, just because, actually. And also because of the thing about brains leaking out of ears, and because I have elderly and respectable aunts who read this journal to see where I am and what I'm doing, and they might get the wrong idea --], but I have no doubt whatsoever that there's more, and that it's probably not as tastefully done, either.
erk.
...
It's interesting to see what's newsworthy these days. I'm happy that this was (as much for the Hugo as for me): http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1034267,00.html
There has been a few rumors that you may be working on making a script for the live action Neon Genesis Evangelion movie? Do you have any comments on this?
Sure. These rumours are what is technically known as "completely made up by someone".
Just finished the first issue of 1602 this week and can't wait for the next - but here's the question:
Is Stephen Strange meant to be a sort of Marvelized (Marvelous?) John Dee? The Queen's magician, physician, general guy-who-knows-stuff-and-is-mysteriously-connected-with-the-Templars? Because that would be pretty cool.
And if my guess is correct, can we expect more historical equivalents personified by Marvel characters?
(This is the part where you say "all your questions will be answered... in the next issue of 1602!! And I say "awww" and continue waiting impatiently.)
Well, yes, more or less.
Incidentally, a couple of years ago I started a short story about John Dee, or at least, about people who tell stories about John Dee. I mislaid the notebook it was in, though, while travelling (I think it had slipped into the wrong place in my luggage). And about six months ago I ran across the notebook and read the story. It was quite fascinating. Unfortunately it stopped when the notebook was mislaid, about half way through, and I hadn't bothered leaving any notes for myself about what was meant to happen next, probably because it hadn't occurred to me that I could possibly forget.
I keep hoping that one day I'll wake up one morning knowing what was meant to happen next in the story about the people who tell stories about John Dee....
...
And for the lady who was at the Torcon reading, and had a question about the very end of A Study In Emerald, yes, you're quite right in your assumption. (I didn't put up the question because it's a spoiler. Now, who was writing the story?)
Hi. I'm an American exchange student in G�ttingen, Germany. We went to a pizza place for lunch yesterday, and your name was on a poster advertising a Literaturfest in early October. I will sadly be already home (as in, back in the US) by this time, but my exchange partner is willing to go to this fest and see you and take pictures and possibly get something signed for me. Do you know anything about this? Can you provide any details about your involvement?
Sounds right, yes. I'll be signing in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Croatia and Germany in late sept/early oct, and I should have a bunch of dates and locations very soon now. I'm still waiting on all the details, though...
...
This morning brought character designs from Dave McKean for MirrorMask. I was surprised to discover that Spiny Wilson, the Prime Minister's assistant, was not, as I had supposed, some kind of hedgehog, but seems instead to be a large, bristly, pink, Gilliamesque slug. On the other hand, the small hairy creature who appears in the script as "Small Hairy" seems, however, to be more or less a hedgehog-person to make up for it.
There's a Wolves in the Walls interview with me (the e-mail kind) up at http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/books/interview.htm
...
How do you truly feel about (a) real person slash? (b) real person slash about you? Honestly??
a) not sure. Never encountered any, that I know of...
b) I think I probably simply hope (er, and pray) that you're kidding. You are kidding, aren't you?
|
|
The
Graveyard
Book
is now available
in the US
BUY NOW!
|
