Chapter 8 of The Graveyard Book is nearly written. He's got about 20 feet left to walk.
Normally when I finish a book, it's over. Maybe there are more stories, but it's done. I get letters from kids asking why I don't do another Coraline book, and maybe she's at school and the Other Mother could be pretending to be her teacher and... but I can't really imagine writing another Coraline book. It's done.
The Graveyard Book on the other hand, seems to be generating other stories in my head. I guess I'm really interested in what happens to Bod next. Interesting. I suppose it's understandable -- my model was The Jungle Book, and there was The Second Jungle Book. (Although The Graveyard Book also reminds me in odd ways of Kim. And I always wanted to know what happened to Kim next.)
...
This made me smile:
Dear Neil,
I am just wondering if the Birthday Thing voting will include superdelegates? Perhaps other famous authors, some bigwigs at Harper Collins, etc. I mean, you wouldn't want to leave voting to the people, would you?
Thanks!
I'm happy to watch democracy in action here. It's one person-who-clicks, one vote.
...
Hi Neil,
I hope all is going well with the new book, I am looking forward to reading it immensely when it is published.
I would be interested to know if you have kept any of the original art from The Sandman over the years. I know that the artists sell their work on after DC have finished with it and wondered if you requested certain pages or covers or were gifted them by artists, if so which page or pages do you cherish most.
Best Regards
I hope all is going well with the new book, I am looking forward to reading it immensely when it is published.
I would be interested to know if you have kept any of the original art from The Sandman over the years. I know that the artists sell their work on after DC have finished with it and wondered if you requested certain pages or covers or were gifted them by artists, if so which page or pages do you cherish most.
Best Regards
Paul
I don't have much -- off the top of my head (and I'm sure to leave something important out) a couple of Dave McKean covers, a page from Colleen Doran's lovely Facade, a Shawn MacManus page from Three Septembers and a January, a Jill Thompson Brief Lives page, the double page of the amazing Michael Zulli sea serpent, the final Death and Dream spread from the Kindly Ones, and the first page of the last issue. I have a lovely Mike Dringenberg Sandman painting he did as an advert for a signing at Night Flight in Utah. A Jay Muth Dream pin-up. A Moebius Death I bought from a gallery. And, apart from an amazing page by Michael Zulli that was a test for the pencils effect of The Wake (which I should talk to DC about reproducing in the last of the Absolute Sandman volumes) I think that's about it.
And I treasure them all.
...
It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. If you're stuck for a present, you could always get this for the object of your affection...
...
What kind of book is The Graveyard Book? What type of audience is it for? Older? Younger? I know you're not finished with it yet, but will it be a novella a la Stardust or a novel a la American Gods?
It will be about twice the length of Coraline -- a novel, not a novella.
It's eight stories, each more or less complete in itself, each different in tone, each story set about two years after the one that precedes it, that placed side by side make one big story. Or I hope they do.
I think it's "all ages", whatever that means. It's a book I wish I'd had as a kid, and had always imagined as a children's book, but the reaction from the adults who've read it so far is scarily enthusiastic, and I'm not making any compromises in it. (Having said that, nobody has read any further than chapter six, except me, and Lorraine when she was typing it.)
Here's a youTube video of me reading Chapter Four in San Jose last year. You can make up your own mind.
Labels: art pages from Sandman, last fm, The Graveyard Book, voting