Ah, I think, for a blog post I really need more than "Coraline has just garnered ten Annie Award Nominations, more than any other animated film". (Variety) (Congratulations to Henry Selick, to Travis Knight, Dawn French, Shane Prigmore, Shannon Tindle, Bruno Coulais, Christopher Appelhans, Tadahiro Uesugi, Chris Butler, and the whole Laika and Focus crew.) But I am feeling extraordinarily blank.
The weather just got cold, and dog-walking tonight was less fun than it should have been; I wore gloves, and solitary crystalline flecks of snow spun into the light of my flashlight-beam and vanished again into the dark. I took Maddy and her friend Anna-Rose to violin tonight, and yesterday I carried the beautiful E. H. Shepard ink-drawing I got myself to celebrate the award in to the framers to be framed. I'm concerned that we should have insulated the beehives by now.
Dear Neil, If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children's area, what would it be?
Thanks! Lynn
I'm not sure I'd put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I'd just remind people of the power of stories, of why they exist in the first place. I'd put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show that it's working, and that pages will be turned:
"...and then what happened?"
...
Oh. I nearly forgot. The short film I made, Statuesque, starring Bill Nighy, Amanda Palmer not to mention Becca Darling and Liam McKean, will be broadcast in the UK on Sky 1 at 10:00pm on Christmas Day.(There are eleven films altogether, and they'll go out every night starting on Dec the 21st, and ending on the 31st.)
Master Liam McKean can currently be seen in Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Miss Amanda Palmer is probably fast asleep at home in Boston.
Also, next week there will be strange appearances of me all over UK media thingummies. It is rumoured that Henry Selick and will be on breakfast TV for example. And on Blue Peter.
A quick one, on the run, from the Scottish Northwest (where I am for another 24 hours).
The Amanda Palmer & Me show at Chapters was really fun. Apologies to anyone who couldn't see or hear, or who turned up, looked at the crowds and went away again. I don't think anyone was expecting 500+ people to turn up in Dublin, not even me. I gritted my teeth and made an "only one thing per person" rule, which made the whole event only 5 hours long, if you count the time we spent faffing about with a printer before starting late. (Memo to self. If you are going to be reading something odd and unpublished, print it out ahead of time.) Amanda sang three songs, I read three or four short deadamandapalmery stories, and we signed for a lot of nice people. (Also, an extra-special thank you to the Chapters staff, who went above and beyond.) (Cheryl Morgan reviews it here.)
And now I'm in Scotland (just for the day) and when last heard from Ms Palmer was changing planes in Kuala Lumpur on her way to Australia. It's a strange and refreshing thing to have a friend who travels as much and as oddly as I do.
Best news yesterday was an email from my editor letting me know that The Graveyard Book is at #1 on the NYT childrens hardback list and that Coraline is #1 in paperback. I've never done that before.
In Atlanta airport en route to Dublin. Thought I would answer a few questions, then looked at watch and realised I only have time to answer one. So...
Hi Neil, how are you? Hope you are well.
I don't know if this is a FAQ, but I really want to know your opinion on this.
Coraline starts showing on Brazilian movie theaters today and I have a kind of a dilemma: there is no technology to put subtitles on 3D films right now. I realy don't like dubbed films, because I think I lose all the acting nuances in their voices and so on. But in this case, I would very much like to see the movie in 3D...
So, if you were in the same situation, what would you do???
Thank you very much for all the stories,
Marcel
Easy. See it in 3D.
You can always go back and watch it in 2D. The DVD will come out later this year and be around for ever. You'll get to appreciate the US cast's voice acting then. This may be your only chance to see CORALINE in 3D.
(Same goes for the US. If you're putting off seeing it in 3D, don't: we lose the screens to the Jonas Bros 3D movie in a week or so.)
Yesterday was another day mostly spent resting, and feeling a bit like a phone or iPod that's been a bit too drained, and now has to be charged for a while before it actually starts charging. Lots of email, some interviews (I am running the risk of getting interviewed out. I think that I'll stop doing interviews after Dublin, for a while. Or a long time), a phone call about WorldCon programming, stuff like that. No real work. Too much by-our-lady Twittering.
Today I've done three interviews (2 Brazil, 1 France) and am starting to feel human again.
Public libraries across the country are reporting that all of their copies are checked out, and, at some, requests for holds are numbering in the hundreds.
Although there’s a consensus among kids, librarians can’t seem to agree on one essential issue: Where does the book belong—in the children’s area or in the teen section?
The New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Boston Public Library keep the book in their juvenile areas. But the Seattle Public Library, Phoenix Public Library, Houston Public Library, and Los Angeles Public Library catalog the novel in their YA sections.
[...]Despite the fact that major reviewers—including SLJ—recommend the book for kids in grades five to eight, libraries adhere to their own particular policies when it comes to handling children’s books that address delicate issues, such as death, or are potentially scary, says Cass Mabbott, manager of the Children’s Center at the Seattle Public Library.
For the record, I don't mind where it's shelved, as long as no readers, of whatever age. who want to read the book are prevented from getting to it or finding it, and, like the commenters at SLJ and like Roger at the Horn Book, I really don't think this is another Scrotumgate. In the UK it's on adult shelves and child shelves in different editions in libraries and shops. It just got an adult and a child Audie nomination. It's fine.
...
Coraline did significantly better than expected. As E! Explains,
• Yes, Coraline opened at No. 3, but to its proud parents at Focus Features, it'll always be the top-debuting, wide-releasing, stop-motion film, if you go by per-screen average and not overall gross, in movie history. So there. • For the stop-motion faithful, it will be noted Chicken Run made more in its debut weekend than Coraline, but boasted a slightly lower per-screen average, and it will be further noted Tim Burton's Corpse Bride boasted a far bigger per-screen average, but didn't go wide until its second weekend.
Not eligible for the iW BOT due to its wide release, but perhaps the specialty division story of the weekend, was Focus Features’ “Coraline.” On 2,298 screens, the stop-motion 3D “Coraline” grossed a fantastic $16,334,613, essentially doubling industry expectations and outgrossing fellow family-film opener “Pink Panther 2.” The film, which was very well received by critics, had the third highest opening for a stop-motion feature (behind “The Corpse Bride” and “Chicken Run,” though “Coraline"s smaller screen count actually gave it a higher PTA than both those films), and is Focus Features’ second highest wide opening after “Burn After Reading.”
Nearly 60% of “Coraline”‘s box office came from RealD’s 3D screens. “We’re proud of the great opening weekend that Focus had with Coraline,” said Michael Lewis, chairman and CEO of RealD. “With 3D screens outperforming 2D screens about 3:1, it’s clear once again that audiences appreciate seeing fantastic worlds brought to life in ways only possible in RealD 3D.”
The tracking numbers had led people to think it would be in 5th or 6th place with about half of what it made. So it has done marvellously well, and I was filled with an unholy joy when it beat Pink Panther 2, a film that has no need to exist, and I do not mind it being beaten by HJNTIY because I am very fond of the people at Flower Films.
(The Other Mr Toast. Just to make people smile. Except Koumpounophobes.)
A few people have written in to ask about the changes between the book and the film. I'm not going to go too deeply in for risk of spoilers, will just say that Henry changed something that happens at the end, and some people mind, and some don't.
For those who want to know how much input I had into the end of the film, the answer is, some, but not a lot. The end of the film was sort of fluid -- it changed a great deal between the first version I read, the versions on storyboards, and the final film. They started filming the beginning without having locked down the end. (They weren't even sure of the Other Mother's final form.)
For my part, I still like to find people who I trust, whose work interests and excites me, and let them get on with it. Henry turned Coraline into a film by changing some things. Most of the things he changed I love, although I am glad I did them my way in the novel. For those of you who like something that sticks, with utter fidelity, to the plot of the book, I should point you at the upcoming Stephin Merritt musical version of Coraline, with book by David Greenspan.
Then again, in their version, Coraline will be played by Tony-nominated Jayne Houdyshell, who does not look 9, and David Greenspan will play the Other Mother (but not the Mother)and honestly, it sounds strange and marvellous and I cannot wait. (I've heard songs, but they have Stephin doing all the voices and accompanying himself on, I think, a toy piano.)
And I am fine with that. The book is the book. I like watching people play, and make good art. ...
There are many scenes and images in “Coraline” that are likely to scare children. This is not a warning but rather a recommendation, since the cultivation of fright can be one of the great pleasures of youthful moviegoing. As long as it doesn’t go too far toward violence or mortal dread, a film that elicits a tingle of unease or a tremor of spookiness can be a tonic to sensibilities dulled by wholesome, anodyne, school-approved entertainments.
and
Its look and mood may remind adult viewers at various times of the dreamscapes of Tim Burton (with whom Mr. Selick worked on “Nightmare”), Guillermo del Toro and David Lynch. Like those filmmakers Mr. Selick is interested in childhood not as a condition of sentimentalized, passive innocence but rather as an active, seething state of receptivity in which consciousness itself is a site of wondrous, at times unbearable drama.
The governing emotion, at the beginning, is loneliness. A smart, brave girl named Coraline Jones, voiced by Dakota Fanning, has recently moved from Michigan to an apartment in a big pink Victorian house somewhere in Oregon. She is at an age when the inadequacy of her parents starts to become apparent, and Coraline’s stressed-out, self-absorbed mom and dad (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman), who write about gardening, barely look up from their computer screens when she’s in the room. And so, like many a children’s book heroine before her, Coraline sets out to explore her curious surroundings, interweaving the odd details of everyday reality with the bright threads of imagination.
and
Like the best fantasy writers Mr. Gaiman does not draw too firm a boundary between the actual and the magical, allowing the two realms to shadow and influence each other. Mr. Selick, for his part, is so wantonly inventive and so psychologically astute that even Coraline’s dull domestic reality is tinted with enchantment.
and
“Coraline” explores the predatory implications of parental love — that other mother is a monster of misplaced maternal instinct — but is grounded in the pluck and common sense of its heroine, who is resilient, ingenious and magically real.
Which made me really proud -- not for me, but for Henry Selick and his amazing team at Laika. They worked for three years on this, making it, moving it, building it. Some of them may not have jobs unless the film works, and Laika does another one. But what they've done is awesome, and people are noticing. And that's a wonderful thing.
I just watched the HBO First Look on Coraline via the miracle of my computer, Slingbox and my home TIVO (which is the kind of thing they used to burn you as a warlock for when I was a boy) and, while it probably has too much in it that's a bit spoilery for those of you who have taken Mark Evanier's advice and don't want to be spoiled before you see the film, I have to say that I was really thrilled by some of what made it into the First Look, particularly the bit where I get to show and talk about the book I hand-wrote Coraline in, and the shot of my dog romping in the snow while I walk. The oddest part of this tour thing right now is how much I miss my dog (I would miss Miss Maddy, but I call her and chat to her and vice versa, and she will be my date to the Premiere in Portland on Thursday, but I am not -- yet -- one of those people who calls his dog on the phone.)
Also interesting, the two years between the two talking-heads versions of me, one with a test set behind him who has just gone to Portland before CORALINE starts shooting in Dec 2006, and has just seen the first 3D screen tests; and one in my house in Dec 2008 who has just filmed the buttons film and last night saw the completed film.
Right. Now I fly to Toronto. Tomorrow is going to be a very -- VERY -- long day, starting with a CANADA AM at about 7:45.
Working Dog Holiday ends today. I will carry the dog downstairs one more time. And then off to the airport, where I will give dog and car to a friend who will drive both of them back to the land of ice and snow, while I begin two and a half weeks of perambulation in support of the Coraline movie.
The first Coraline trailer I've really liked. (It's up at YouTube in HD and is very cool.)
I don't know if you've heard this directly, but I know two people who, while being Gaiman fans, said independently of each other said, "I'm sick of this Coraline hype. Enough already."
While I'm eager to see the picture, I can understand what they perceive as advertising bombardments, be it billboards, web ads, commercials and so on.
I'm sure you would like as many people as possible to see the movie, do you think it's been "a bit much" with all the Coraline stuff out there?
Not really. It's a film without a big name star, handmade in Portland by a first time studio: it's not a film that the world is holding its breath for -- mostly, the world doesn't really even know it exists. The filmmakers have one crack at getting people in to see it on its first week of release, and only one, because, while it will undoubtedly go on to live forever on DVD format (and whatever comes after that), possibly even go on to Nightmare Before Christmas-like longevity, the perception of whether it was a success or a failure is mostly all about how it does when it goes out there on Feb 6th.
I'm proud of what Henry and his astonishing team did, and want as many people to see it as possible.
The reviews will help, but I'm not sure that reviews make as big a difference as simply advertising and letting people know something's out there. (Princess Mononoke was an eye-opener for me in that regard. In its first year it had the top positive review score on Rotten Tomatoes. Didn't get people in to see it.) Word of mouth and "buzz" are difficult, probably impossible to manipulate. So you advertise, and you put the word out to where people who see films congregate.
I was sent the "tracking" for the film the other day, where the various studios and agencies find out what groups are planning right now to go and see what films, and if your friends are males under the age of 25, then all the Coraline promotion is working. Two weeks ago it was ranking very low on the list of films that that group wanted to see. Over the last few days it's spiralled up.
It's hard to promote a film that's as much for adults as it is for kids, easy for something like this to bomb -- or to be perceived as having bombed, which is not the same thing. The advertising is out there for another couple of weeks, and it'll probably get more pervasive as we get closer to the 6th of February, and will not please your friends. And the run up to Coraline will take over this blog more or less completely, I expect, because it's all I'll be doing. And then, after Feb 6th, it will all trail off, and the advertising will die away completely, and it will fade from the blog with occasional splashes of mention if the film does something interesting, or if I go somewhere to help promote it.
(Which reminds me: Jameson Dublin Film Festival. I'll be there on February the 15th, when they will be screening Coraline. And, for anyone in Dublin -- or indeed, in Ireland -- who missed the signing last year, I will be doing a reading and signing in Chapters in Parnell Street on Feb the 17th at 5pm. Perhaps with an as-yet-unnamed Special Musical Guest.)
...
I read This Blog of Cheryl Morgan's. Thought "That's bizarre. I mean no-one would actually DO that." Then read around and realised that, yes, there are people who are interpreting the laws to get lead out of products aimed at children as meaning that they have to be kept away from book, with all that printing in it. It's mad and silly, but here's an American Library Association letter explaining that, yes, it's true, and what you can do about it.
Lovely early BLUEBERRY GIRL reviews starting to come in:
Publishers Weekly
In a magical blessing for unconventional girls, Gaiman (The Graveyard Book) addresses the "ladies of light and ladies of darkness and ladies of never-you-mind," asking them to shelter and guide an infant girl as she grows. "Help her to help herself,/ help her to stand,/ help her to lose and to find./ Teach her we're only as big as our dreams./ Show her that fortune is blind." Sinuous, rococo lines-the flowing hair, drooping boughs, winding paths that inspired the pre-Raphaelites-spread their tendrils throughout Vess's (The Ladies of Grace Adieu) full-bleed spreads, potent mixtures of the charms of Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish and Cecily Barker's flower fairies. An Art Nouveau-ish font in a blueberry color compounds the sense of fantasy. On each page a different girl-short, tall, white, brown, younger, older-runs or jumps or swims, accompanied by animals meant to guard and protect her. Fans of Gaiman and Vess will pounce on this creation; so too will readers who seek for their daughters affirmation that sidesteps traditional spiritual conventions. All ages. (Mar.)
Kirkus Reviews
A rich and beautiful prayer for a girl. "Ladies of light and ladies of darkness and ladies of never-you-mind, / This is a prayer for a blueberry girl." Three women in flowing robes-the appropriately mythological Maiden, Mother and Crone-float in the sky over a small, dancing child trailed by numerous birds of the air. Free her from "nightmares at three or bad husbands at thirty," let her run and dance and grow, teach her and help her find her own truth. The verse is lovely, sinuous and sweetly rhyming, piling on blessings. Vess's precise line-and-color illustrations fill each spread with velvet colors and the iconography of myths and fairy tales, a good match to fantasist Gaiman's words. Plants, animals, sun and meadow appear in elegantly drawn detail, their realism tempered by floating trees and magical flowers. The girl transforms from stanza to stanza and spread to spread, blond or burnished, child or nearly teen. There is nothing cute or cloying here, just beauty, balance and joy. (Picture book. 4-8)
The only Blueberry Girl event will be on Saturday March 7th, at Books of Wonder in New York. Me and Charles Vess, signing books for anyone who comes by, along with a display of the original paintings, a Q&A, and so on. If you're in New York, we'd love to see you -- more details as I get them.
And the next post will probably be all coffee. You lot are amazing.
....
Nearly forgot:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/22/1000-novels-fiction-fantasy-introduction Is the introduction page to the Guardian's list of SF, Horror and Fantasy novels that you should read, along with mini-articles recommending other books by Roz Kaveney, Mike Moorcock, Susanna Clarke and others. It's a great list -- and you can have fun arguing over who shouldn't be on it and who was left out.
A few weeks ago I showed the pencils of a Batman/Catwoman panel from the last Batman/last Detective story I wrote, which Andy Kubert is drawing, and nobody told me to take it down. Herewith some of Scott Williams' elegant inks for the same panel, and a word balloon to boot. (Click on it to see it crisp and clean.) The first part comes out relatively soon, and Andy is frantically pencilling the second even as I type this.
The miniature stop-motion animation set pieces and figures in this exhibit are shown courtesy of Henry Selick and the team of talented artists at Laika Entertainment.
If you're in the LA Area, you might want to check it out.
Of course, my secret dream is for, one day, a proper Universal Hallowe'en Horror Coraline House. (I suppose it's not secret any longer now.) And I almost forgot:
And I find myself wondering what a Neil Gaiman coffee ought to taste like, and what ought to be in it. Probably not peanut butter, anyway. If any of you have ideas, twitter them to me @neilhimself (edit to add, use a hashtag of #coffee) or send them in to the blog on the FAQ line if they are more than 140 characters. For that matter if any of you run coffee shops, especially the kind that are also bookshops and want to try out Neil Gaiman coffee on innocent coffee-drinking humans, let me know.
Meanwhile, I'm starting to get tired of carrying an 80lb dog (36 kg, 5.7 stones, and if he was distilled water he would be a bushel*) up and down stairs. Which I only have to do for a couple of days.
I don't recall if you addressed when you set off on your trip, but why DID you take a convalescing dog with you? Wouldn't he be "better off" resting up at home? Couldn't whomever was left at home (Lorraine, Maddie or anyone else at Chez Gaiman) taken care of him?
Actually, it was because of him I hit the road. He'd just had ACL surgery. It was minus 20F outside at home, and getting colder, and he had a shaved back leg with a freshly stitched incision on his back leg, and taking him outside to pee was starting to seem like an act of cruelty.
* I know. Volume not weight. Please don't write in and tell me. It was a joke. It wasn't even a good joke. Do not waste the time you could be spending to make the world a better place telling me why my dog is not a bushel.
...to mark the passing of Edd Cartier (and the nearly-done-ness of 2008). Of all the pulp magazine artists of the 30s-50s, including such masters as Virgil Finlay and Kelly Freas, Cartier was my favourite, particularly his work in Unknown Worlds. Marvellous stuff. If I had known he was still alive, I suspect I would have written him a fan letter. Instead, I discovered the other day, from Locus, that he (and James Cawthorn, who was, with Mal Dean, the definitive Moorcock illustrator) had just died, and now I know that Mr Cartier was alive, it's too late.
...
Michael Dirda is a wonderful essayist, and his appreciation of Hope Mirrlees' novel Lud In the Mist is up at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/note.asp?note=20755255&cds2Pid=22560. I loved the essay, because, I think, the qualities that Michael is talking about are the same ones that are in the book when I read it. (I've had people complain to me that they've read it on my recommendation and that it was boring, or pointless, and I'm sure the version of the book they read was. But the book that I love, and Michael Dirda, and Michael Swanwick loves, is described in Dirda's essay. You bring yourself to a book, after all; every book is collaborative.)
...
Today's mail brought a Wii, and a Wii fit: an evil white box that mocks me with its opinion of my distance from an ideal BMI and an unflattering opinion of my age. But it's cold and snowy outside, and I can't imagine anything else making me jog on the spot with apparent pleasure, and it should be a fine supplement to my trainer (who comes in a couple of times a week and makes me work much too hard to get back into shape).
And Maddy likes it.
...
Someone sent me a question asking if there would be any Coraline toys or figurines. It looks like a yes. I found a link to them here...
...and it only seems a bit strange, in my head, that there should be Coraline toys.
Watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special with the kids on Boxing Day. I liked it, but kept expecting it to turn a corner and for me to love it, which it, and I, never did. Possibly because the clanky high tech Cybermen have no hold on my heart in the way the silent bacofoil ones did and do, and possibly because of spoilery reasons having to do with never really buying the David Morrisey plot to begin with. Loved the moments of David Tennant-as-companion though, and that Miss Hartigan can come to my funeral in a red dress any time she wishes.
The sun is out. The sky is blue. It's still a couple of degrees below freezing. Bugger. Let's see. A couple of Christmas Day photos -- here's one of me and my small but significant daughter collection. Yes, I have Christmas morning bed-hair, and yes, I am wearing my Christmas Sweater with the black Christmas trees on it.
I've left the hunting-season collar on Cabal because sometimes he vanishes in the snow, and a flash of orange is useful.
For those of you who worry about the blog getting Coraline-the-movied-out, there's only thirty-six days to go until the film comes out in the US. Then there will probably be a week or two where I blog about how it's doing, and then it will recede into the background, as is the way of all things.
In the meantime, expect updates -- mostly because I'm really enjoying what henry and his team are doing to promote the film: http://www.youtube.com/coralinethemovie is the YouTube channel for all the Coraline mini-films released so far, where you can watch how things are made, built and knitted. (I was half-amused and half-appalled to see people on the imdb Coraline chat forum and on the Aint it cool talkback thingummy confidently explaining, as if they knew what they were talking about, that this was actually cunningly disguised to look like stop motion CGI, or that Henry Selick had used computers to do the inbetweening, or something, while occasionally people who had actually worked on Coraline would go "No, it was all done by hand," and were mostly ignored in the squalling democracy of the internet. What's nice about the little films is that you can see how it's done; and it's done by people making things and moving them, a little bit at a time.)
More stuff keeps showing up at http://www.coraline.com/ -- it occasionally doesn't load for me, or gets stuck, but refreshing it seems to take care of that.
I loved the posters available for download in the living room. This is one of them. Click on it to see it full size.
(I was amused by the people who equated sending a blogger a box with the '50s payola scandals, which seems rather to miss the point: there's no quid pro quo here, and, as far as I can tell, nothing you can do in order to get a box, apart from have a cool blog, nor anything you are obliged to do if you get a box, not even write about it.)
For those keeping track of the fifty boxes: I did not get one of those fifty boxes-for-bloggers. There are still 28 in the wild.
I got a one-off box-for-an-author.
It looks like this:
Like this in close-up.
It opens to reveal red-velvet padding...
Incidentally, photographed because they were also on the kitchen table* -- the US edition of the Steve Jones CORALINE: A Visual Companion arrived here a few days ago. It's lovely. Steve tells the history of the book, the history of the film, shows how it came to be, tells about the various other versions of Coraline -- the puppet ones, plays, the upcoming Stephin Merritt musical** and so on.
I also got the new UK edition of Coraline the book with the film tie-in cover, and I discovered that they seem to be seriously using the "Coraline looking at us poster" as the cover, with "An Adventure too Weird For Words" as the tagline.
Truth to tell, I don't like the "Too Weird For Words" line -- it's like someone went "Uhh... I have no idea what this is or how to describe it," and, combined with the poster picture, makes me suspect that the UK film people are worried about telling people that it's a beautiful, funny, sometimes scary little movie. Personally, I think you should sell things for what they are, because that way the people who do like them will find them. If you try to give the impression that it's a ... well, something else (from the poster and tag line, a cute silent movie about a little girl who lives in a house?) you'll miss the people out there who would have liked it, and the people who go wanting the thing they think you're selling will be puzzled and disappointed.
But the film doesn't come out until May in the UK, so there's still plenty of time to hope they change it, I guess.
I'm hearing wonderful things from people about the imaginative ways Laika/Focus are promoting it in the US right now, including trains that go past posters that appear to move -- real life animation, which turns the subway walls into a giant flip-book. (And look! A storefront in New York that seems to have become a Coraline world.)
I'm digressing. Below, you will see the Coraline that wasn't in the box. She was a gift a couple of years ago from Henry and his team -- a painted model.
This is the one that was in the box. See the lines on her face? That's where you can replace eyes, mouths and so on. At the beginning of the film-making process Henry wanted to keep the lines, but was outvoted, so they were digitally erased.
She has the cat in her satchel and they are both fully articulated.
*Also on the kitchen table in this shot, the edge of a few copies of the George Walker Writer's Prayer print I found while looking for something else, artist's proofs which I'm going to send over to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund to auction.
And while I think of it, this is a small reminder that, for late presents, or for What To Do With Holiday Gift Money things, the CBLDF shop at http://www.cbldf.com/ is filled with wonderful signed goodies, including books and posters and suchlike, along with memberships, and fragrances, and even t-shirts.
As I type this my house is filled with a film crew who keep making rooms into very similar rooms that are actually film sets, as chairs and rugs and tables and lamps move around, and corridors fill with cameras and crew and monitors and teleprompters and such. I've done an Alfred Hitchcock Presents style monologue about buttons, been interviewed about the origins of Coraline, and been filmed walking in the snow with the dog. The dog turns out to be an excellent actor. One more interview to go tonight...
Some of it is going to be on the Coraline website, and it will be used for other things too.
I saw Coraline last night with Henry Selick, and an invited audience of family, friends and acquaintances. I'd never seen anything from the last half hour, and I hadn't seen any more than clips in 3D before now. It was lovely, and, once it got going, really creepy. I have visions of terrified parents having their hands squeezed by solicitous children who will have to remind them that it's only a movie.
Also, I have now stopped being jealous of the people getting Coraline boxes, because Henry brought me a Coraline of my own. An original puppet, from the movie, in orange pajamas, with a cat in her satchel.
People say to me, Neil, you have extremely unlikely hair. Why is this?
And I say, probably it is genetic. Here is a photo of my great aunt Bertha, my grandfather, grandmother, and great aunt Dora, in 1920. Note the strangeness of the hair. My grandmother may or may not have strange hair, although she definitely has a strange hat. (You may disapprove of the cigarettes if you wish. I do not know why my grandmother is holding a cigarette -- I don't think she ever smoked. Perhaps it is my grandfather's.)
(I started a family tree at Geni.com, and invited various family members to it, and the most amazing pictures have been coming out of the woodwork. Or at least, out of my Aunt Janet's box of old photographs.)
Hi Neil,
Just wanted to let you know that the keycode "OTHERWORLD" can be used to access all of the video content thus far on the Coraline website, at least to my knowledge. You might want to post this so other people don't have to bother with the passwords (which are very cool, but somewhat cumbersome). Thanks Neil, - Peter
That's very useful -- thanks. And there are several new videos up there as well. (I am excited. I get to see the finished film in a week.)
This from Andrew Burday:
Regarding the Australian Simpsons parody case: the judge doesn't appear to be confused about the existence of fictional characters. He's saying that a depiction of Bart Simpson is a depiction of a person as opposed to a depiction of a dog or a space alien. He is quoted as saying that the crime would be more serious "if the persons were real".
What's really frightening is the motivation the judge gives to the law in his interpretation. In the USA, the usual motivation given for suppressing child porn is to protect actual children who may be involved in producing it. Apparently that is also a motivation for the Australian law, but it obviously can't apply in this case -- again, the judge contrasts this case to one involving real children. However, the judge goes beyond that to claim that the government has a legitimate interest in suppressing material that could "fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children."
The scary thing about that is that almost any expression that concerns child porn without condemning it could be read as "fueling demand". (Really, so could condemnations, in that they create forbidden fruit.) This email and your blog post could be said to fuel demand for child porn by criticizing some laws against it. You and I could be prosecuted as child pornographers merely for having spoken out against this attempt to criminalize it. On this understanding of the law, the law legitimately can suppress its own opposition. So much for any democratic process.
(I have tried to keep this short, but to forestall one obvious objection: suppose you had included a link to the Simpsons parody so that readers could see for themselves what was being suppressed, or suppose that a linguistic description can count as a "depiction" under Australian law. Then your post and my email would include depictions.)
Thanks so much.
Dear Neil Gaiman,
Is "Odd and the Frost Giants" out of print? Because I wanted to put it on my Christmas wish list, and amazon.co.uk doesn't seem to be selling any more themselves; it just has links to other sellers.
Thank you for writing, I love your stories. Emily
P.S. I was one of the too many people who got "The Graveyard Book" signed at the National Book Festival in DC, and I wanted to thank you for drawing the headstone in my copy, because I got to show the picture too my kindergarten class even though the book is a bit too old for them. (They agreed that it is "cool.") I also read them "The Wolves in the Walls" and "The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish," which went over well, so I was wondering if "Crazy Hair" has been or is going to be published as a picture book.
Crazy Hair comes out late next year, in the US and the UK.
It looks like Odd and the Frost Giants is out of print, yes. That's part of the thing of it being a World Book Day book. Everyone did things for free so it could be a one pound book, but that only happens once.
Harpers should be publishing it in the US in 2009, and Bloomsbury will republish it in the UK eventually, although they may wait for me to write another Odd story first. (Odd in Jerusalem, perhaps. I'm pretty sure that he went there.)
Hello my name is Andrea bucy I have seen the movie stardust and I intend to read the book by you I was wondering if I could possible write a spinoff book that has some of the same characters and setting. But I wanted to get you permission first because if i were to get it published i don’t want someone coming after me cause i stole their ideas. I am prepared to offer you a deal if the book does sell i will offer you royalties of 60/40 50/50 or 40/60 i don’t write just for money but i realize that for some people like Jane Austen do and did go along in life and pay for many things by the money they make from their books. So i am asking you if we can maybe make a contract that says you have given me permission, only if you do give me permission, to use your ideas and work in my story and you will get credit for it.Pleas get back to me.
I'm not really sure where to start on this one. If you want to write fan fiction, you can. I don't mind. Sequels and prequels and meetings and pairings and what have you. You can put it up on the web. But you can't publish it commercially. You need to stay on the non-commercial side of the street, which means you can't sell it, not even if, like Jane Austen, you're in it for the big bucks. Otherwise bad things would happen, involving lawyers from publishers and lawyers from movie studios, and your week would be ruined. Trust me on this.
A basic CBLDF membership is $25. http://www.cbldf.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=44 and there are people who really would like them as gifts. Honest. You get a membership card and everything.
And seeing I'm now recommending gifts -- Todd Klein documents the end of the story of his Alex Ross print at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=2295 (and it's fascinating watching how something goes from not quite right to really very right), and then tells you how to order it -- or the third printing of Alan Moore's print or the second printing of my print (all signed in dark green ink) at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=2385.
Well, it is if you love the macabrely funny, or the funnily macabre...
...
Meanwhile in another part of the forest, I'm simultaneously more impressed, and sometimes more frustrated with the G1.
No blogger app, yet? Not a problem. According to blogger you just send a text -- no content specified -- to go@blogger.com and it'll send you a code to allow you to claim your blog... so that should be simple. Except that if you send a text message from the G1 to blogger you get a message back telling you that you haven't registered and to send a text message containing the text REGISTER to go@blogger.com. And if you send a text message containing the word REGISTER you get another message back telling you to send a message containing the word REGISTER... You do this a few more time, with no change.
So you give up and log in to Blogger using the G1's browser, and discover that the ability to upload photographs to Blogger has been disabled, and then you give up.
The voice recognition software doesn't always recognise that I've even said anything, and its choices, when it does think I've spoken, aren't just mishearings, they're positively perverse:
Me: Call Mike Gaiman.
Phone: (offers me a choice between) Dial 508 0972 Dial 508 9721 Dial 508 9720
Me: Call Dad Cell Phone: (offers a choice between) Call Hilary Bevan Jones at Work Call Hilary Bevan Jones at Home
...it's not even like there's a match up between the vowels, the consonants, or the number of syllables. Mysterious.
But the things that work work so well. I'm now using it as my bedside clock-alarm and GPS. It's a great phone. I cannot wait for a Slingbox app, or a RealPlayer app so I can use it to stream BBC Radio. The Sky Map app, which shows the night sky and stars and planets and constellations of where you're standing and what you're pointing at, using the GPS system and a compass so that the screen shows what you are seeing, only with stars and planets named and constellations drawn in, is magical...
... And finally, LEEDS UNITED: A musical video by Miss Amanda Palmer.
It's out in English, but this version of it is it in Italian. Because everything sounds better in Italian.
A few of you have written in asking if I'd done an Alan Moore and taken my name off the film, or if I'd had a falling out with the studio, as my name isn't mentioned in this trailer, just Henry Selick's -- and no, not at all. Nobody's name except Henry's is mentioned in the trailer, and that has more to do with Focus wanting to make sure that if they invoked The Nightmare Before Xmas, people wouldn't then assume this was a Tim Burton film, and go and see it -- or stay away -- based on that. (On the international poster -- above -- you won't find my name or Henry's.) I suppose it's a marketing decision.
I chatted to Henry today, and am really looking forward to seeing a finished film -- the last twenty minutes of the thing weren't done the last time I was sent anything. And it has music...
Incidentally, the Coraline Movie edition is now out, with an essay by me in the back, and another by Henry Selick...
I've started playing with the T-mobile G1. First reactions -- I like it, mostly. It feels good in your hand. It's reasonably intuitive. (Bizarrely, when it isn't intuitive and I've had to head into manual land, the phone's software and the PDF of the manual do not always agree with each other.) I've had fun making ring tones, creating galleries. The way that your contacts list is also your Gmail contacts is mostly terrific (although it won't let me create entries that have the same email address as someone already on the list).
The things I don't like about it so far seem huge and obvious: no Blogger app (when there's a LiveJournal app and several others) seems a huge omission, seeing it's from Google; it can't read or open PDF files yet; you can send it pictures and watch them as a slideshow, but you can't save them; the built in Gmail app can't do anywhere near the things that the gmail program on my N73 can do; the camera is about the same standard as the iPhone's, which is to say, a bit meh. I like having a real keyboard but wish it was a tiny bit bigger -- I find myself typing with fingernails. Battery life is fine unless you've got Wifi on.
More reactions after it's been on the road with me and been used for a bit.
...
Hi Neil,
I just had a quick question on the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book. I have the album already (and have listened to it countless times. It's beautiful).
I was going to go and order the book, but when I went to the site, I found that the book seems to only be in packages. I was wondering if there are any plans to sell the book alone, or whether I should buy one of the packages. The extra CD could make a nice gift.
Thanks, Nate
Let's see... the book is being designed right now, then it goes off to the printers. The people who bought the package version will get theirs first. Depending on where in the world it's printed, this could be a couple of months before anyone else. Then, when copies come in from the printer, they'll go on sale -- probably in the early Spring. I think.
Neil!
I'm re-reading American Gods, and I'm at the point where Shadow first meets Sam. At the diner, Shadow reads a newspaper story saying "local farmers wanted to hang dead crows around the town to frighten the others away; ornithologists said it wouldn't work, that the living crows would simply eat the dead ones. The locals were implacable. 'When they see the corpses of their friends,' said a spokesman, 'they'll know we don't want them here.'"
Neil, I don't have Time Enough for Love here at school, but wasn't there something very similar to that in that story? Was your dead crow story a little Heinlein homage?
And OMG - just realized that Sam's last name is Black Crow, and that story was about crows. Wow. Sneaky of you.
Chris
When I'm driving through small-town America I make a point of buying local papers in towns where I stop, and reading them, preferably in local coffee shops. I read that in a small town as I went, and thought "It belongs in my book". So I put it there.
Dear Mr Gaiman, I recently finished reading M is For Magic, and I have a question about the story Chivalry. Sir Galahad was considered the holiest of Arthur's knights; so, how coul he have obtained an apple from the garden of the Hespiredes? The Hespiredes were a part of greek mythology which was actually a religeon based on monotheism. So, how could he get something that his religeon said didn't exist? I am sorry to bother you with this question, but it has sparked my interest.
- a young and curious reader
He had to travel a long way.
I don't think that the existence of mythical things would have been a problem for a mythical early Christian, of whom Galaad would have been one, or even a huge problem for real early Christians: in The Golden Legend, which was the most popular book of stories about saints, collected in the thirteenth century, Saint Nicholas (the one who became Santa Claus) went up against the Goddess Diana.
Then again, Narnia, a most monotheistic world, had, in addition to a Leonine Son of God, more than its share of nymphs (just like the Hesperides) not to mention such gods as Bacchus and Silenus (and Santa Claus again) wandering around. So I would not worry about it, were I you.
I loved the link to the Sandman Death 20th Anniversary Bookends you put up. When should they be coming out and how much of a dent will they put on my wallet, please?
According to a quick Google, http://www.toymania.com/news/messages/9960.shtml says they came out in September, and they will cost a wallet-twinging $295. (Ouch.) There are only a thousand of them.
This one has almost nothing to do with you Neil, but since his website is still in the makings I thought you could perhaps forward this to him. I was very sad (like a child whose told there won't be a Christmas this year) to learn that Dave McKean's appearance this weekend in BuenosAires was canceled. In the event's blog they posted Dave's email in which he mentioned he couldn't make it because a date was changed (which sounds reasonable). But it remained unclear if it was the date of ANIMATE (the BuenosAires event) which was changed, or if it was one of Dave's previous engagements.
Dave McKean said...
Hi Neil,
Please post this, as I certainly do feel very bad letting people down:
I agreed to go to Animate in the summer and had to organize a military operation of friends and family to take care of our son Liam during the proposed week, as he is appearing as Gavroche in Les Miserables in London and has to be accompanied to and from the theatre each day he's on, and also be available on 12 hours notice every day in case another actor drops out. We managed this, so both Clare and I could make the trip to Buenos Aires, a city we've always wanted to visit. Unfortunately, the date was changed by the organizers, and so we had to re-arrange. More importantly, it became obvious that the festival was now colliding with a variety of previous commitments falling in the latter half of November, so I decided with great sadness to withdraw this year. I hate letting people down, and I was really looking forward to the trip (though not the 24 hours travelling each way, I admit!).
Hopefully there will be another event, an animation or film festival, that will allow me to visit the city in the future. Or maybe we'll just go for a holiday, and do a signing in a bookstore.
Thanks, Dave
(I think it's worth pointing out that ten-year old Liam McKean -- owner of the original Pig Puppet -- is in Les Miserables in London. If you happen to go and see it, check if he's in your performance. Get his autograph. Mention pigs. Make his day.) And that reminds me...
Hi Neil,
I thought you might like to let people know that Dave McKean is on the BBC4 programme "Picture Book" talking about his illustations for David Almond's 'The Savage' and how he was inspired by Comic Book's art. The programme is airing (again) at 19.10 on Saturday and 3.30 on Sunday, and is also currently available on the BBC i-player. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fhnb6/comingup
Thank you again for all the stories,
Marjorie
You're welcome.
Hi,
Just read that you completed "the Dying Earth story." Huh? Is there a new collection of Dying Earth stories coming out? Is it an homage to Jack Vance's work, or what?
Did a search for "dying earth" on your website and saw no other mention of it.
There. After a few days of mostly sleeping I'm alive again, although I feel a bit like someone took a glue gun to my lungs. I just threw a whole peeled lemon, a dried cayenne pepper from the garden, some honey and hot water in a blender, and drank it all down, and I think it helped.
Nothing exciting to report, or rather, I cannot remember any of the things I'd planned to write once I had a brain again.
On the other hand, Coraline.com (and theothercoraline.com ) have both got spookier, and have strange and marvellous little films up. With keys to access... one of which I found at http://www.despoiler.org/2008/11/17/my-funny-coraline/. (Yes, I suppose I could just have called Focus and asked, but how much fun would that have been? Also I'd feel guilty about posting the info here if I did.)
Hi Neil! I'm a huge fan with 2 quick questions.
Absolute Sandman Vol 1 appears to be sold out on Amazon and Chapters / Indigo with no mention of availability. Is there going to be another printing soon or should I be desperately searching bookstores for a copy before it's gone forever?
On a related note, are there any plans to release an AbsoluteAbsolute Sandman containing all 4 volumes, with any special content?
Thanks so much! Love your books, love your blog!
I checked, and when you wrote this Absolute Sandman #1 was indeed out of stock everywhere. But before I could write to people and ask, it was already back in print and back up on Amazon. (This is the link) (I notice it's now at full price, not 37% off, like the others, which may well mean that once they sell out of the first printings of Absolutes they'll stop discounting them. Which, if you're putting off buying them for the future, might make a difference.)
(And in the half hour between my checking it was there and now it's already gone Temporarily Out Of Stock at Amazon. I assume they didn't order enough to cope with back orders.)
There are definitely no plans to ever do one 2500 page book. (I feel guilty enough watching people carrying two of the Absolutes in signing lines: a 36 lb book would just be wrong.) However, I can assure you that the Sandman and Death bookends are heavy enough to cope with holding the Absolutes in place. (I'm using mine for other books, but they're definitely working bookends, not ornaments.)
