I'm not actually going to post the letter that just came in that informed me that publishing Blueberry Girl and Crazy Hair was a cheap attempt to cash in on winning the Newbery Medal, because if it was me that had sent it, I don't think I'd want to be held up to ridicule, and I keep promising myself to use this power only for good.
But look, whoever-you-are, http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/11/listening-to-unresolving.asp is a nearly five year old post. It's the one where I announced Blueberry Girl would be a book, and that Charles Vess had started work on it. November 2004. In http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2007/12/still-alive-not-song.html I post the cover art for Blueberry Girl. December 2007.
March 2009 was set as a publishing date for it well over a year ago, once the art was in.
Crazy Hair goes back even further. Dave agreed to do it in 2003. It was meant to have been out originally in 2005, but Dave fell behind, due to Mirrormask, and didn't deliver his final double page spread until January 2007. The weirdness of publishing schedules (and partly because The Dangerous Alphabet was in the publishing slot it would have taken) meant that it was scheduled in about Jan 2008 to come out in May 2009.
To bring the Blueberry Girls out now means the books were printed overseas a while ago, and bound, and placed in containers on big ships.
You know, I'm normally so sanguine. But... being accused of rushing these two books out to cash in on the Newbery Medal, without access to time travel equipment or anything, just makes me want to bang my forehead gently against a tree for half an hour. Is it too much to ask people to think.
Okay. I'm done.
My assistant Lorraine always complains that whenever she goes to gigs that I also go to, I get an Access All Areas laminated badge, and she gets a piece of paper or a sticker or something. So yesterday, while I was signing books at DreamHaven and getting a haircut (from the awesome Wendy at Hair Police, making me look human since October 2000) , they made her a laminated badge.
Nobody else had a laminated badge. Just her. She can be seen displaying it below. You can see me and the haircut to the right. I do not know who the people with buttons for eyes are. They scare me.
Nobody else had a laminated badge. Just her. She can be seen displaying it below. You can see me and the haircut to the right. I do not know who the people with buttons for eyes are. They scare me.
Here they are again, patting my dog for luck this morning, before they left for Chicago (a city John Hodgman claims is mythical). What were they doing at my breakfast table? Why did I have to play the tambourine last night? Why is there a small Football made of meat in my fridge?
It was his first time off-leash since his operation. Happiest dog in the world.
It was his first time off-leash since his operation. Happiest dog in the world.Labels: Charles Vess, Dave McKean, Dog, dog photograph, facepalming forehead-bleeding, how long things take, Jonathan Coulton, lamination as an aid to enjoying the rocknroll experience, Paul'nStorm