The One From the Eastercon with the Dave McKean Subterranean Cover In It

The convention's over, and it was really good. Lots of wonderful people, a really nice atmosphere, and my main regret was all the conversations I never had -- I made China Mieville promise that we'd do a panel one day of us chatting, because we never manage to finish conversations and he knows so many cool things (and he seems to think that I do).

There were a lot of conversations I did have, though. Yesterday evening there was food with Mitch Benn, today there was food and talk with Farah Mendelsohn and Edward James, and Cory, Alice and Poesy Doctorow. And there were panels (my favourite today was either the one on the various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sometimes it's good just to be a fan. Or it was the one about darkness in Children's Fiction) and more signings and just running into good people...

And there was the party in honour of the upcoming Anticipation -- the 2009 WorldCon in Montreal . (http://www.anticipationsf.ca/English/Home) I talked to the con chairman, and then to Farah (who is head of programming) and we're starting to come up with some ideas for things that would be really special and fun.

(It's a World Science Fiction Convention, and it's about 18 months away, and I hope you'll come. There's a map of where in the world the members are from, and right now there's no-one at all from Eastern Europe or China or even Brazil....)

Also I seem to be guardian of an enormous pink pig.

....

“It is my opinion,” Wertham told the senators and the cameras, “without any reasonable doubt and without any reservation, that comic books are an important contributing factor in many cases of juvenile delinquency.” The child most likely to be influenced by comic books, he said, is the normal child; morbid children are less affected, “because they are wrapped up in their own fantasies.” Comic books taught children racism and sadism—“Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry,” he said. In his book, he said that “Batman” comics were homoerotic and that “Wonder Woman” was about sadomasochism. He was even critical of “Superman” comics: “They arouse in children fantasies of sadistic joy in seeing other people punished over and over again while you yourself remain immune,” he testified. “We have called it the Superman complex.”

If you're interested in comics and their relation to America, or in censorship, or foolishness, you should read this: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/03/31/080331crbo_books_menand

...

Dave McKean sent over the cover to the Subterranean Press edition (and probably the Bloomsbury Adult edition) of The Graveyard Book.

This is the cover....



And this is the wraparound cover, with the front and back cover and the space for the dustflaps, but without the text.







Right. Bed now.

Labels: anticipation 2009, Dave McKean, eastercon, The Graveyard Book