"Hunting for rabbits again, Vicar?"

A few months ago my friend Harry Bliss (it's possibly more accurate to say my acquaintance Harry Bliss, as we mostly wave at each other in email and have so far failed to have dinner or save each other from drowning but I like him very much on the basis of not knowing each other very well) sent me a drawing that he'd done that needed a caption. It was a Jack Kirby Monster on the side of a building, with a cheerful Harry Bliss man on the phone inside.

I pondered it, and a month later sent him a suggestion, and he said it was funny but that the New Yorker had already bought the drawing for their caption contest.

I see from Mark Evanier's blog that the New York Post have run a piece accusing Harry of Plagiarism:

Thomas Lammers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, said he thought the cartoon looked familiar. He then dug out the original from his collection, which had the same monster as the New Yorker cartoon and the same background.

He said he e-mailed the magazine about the similarities two weeks ago, but never heard back. He said the editors "probably had no idea what the source" of the image was when they saw the cartoon, but the lack of any credit to Kirby in the piece stuck in his craw.

"This is a guy who was a very popular comic-book artist. He co-created the Fantastic Four and a lot of other things people made a lot of money off of, and never got proper credit then, and isn't getting proper credit now," he said.

And while I'm happy that it now says Drawing by Harry Bliss, after Jack Kirby at http://www.cartoonbank.com/CapContest/CaptionContest.aspx?id=145 it's hard not to feel that Prof. Lammers has sort of missed why it's funny -- it's because it's a Jack Kirby monster and a Harry Bliss man. That's the point. Like the New Yorker spokesman says,

"Harry did it with all good intentions. He thought it was an overt reference, and not an attempt to plagiarize. He thought it was a tribute," Cassanos said. "To people in the comic world, it's a recognizable image."

Which is the magic of Jack Kirby.

Ah well. Speaking of cartoons:

As you probably know, long ago and far away, Phil Foglio did two pages of art for a Good Omens comic he wanted to pitch to you.

That never quite went anywhere, but they still have the art. But not for long: Kaja just announced that they'll be auctioning the art off, with proceeds to go to the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

From memory, it mostly never went anywhere because nobody ever pitched it to us -- Phil showed the pages to me and I thought they were funny, and that was sort of as far as it ever went. Pity.

But glad they'll be going to a good cause.

...

A couple of questions:

1) Would anyone in the UK who hears "She's cooking a roast" be surprised if the thing that was roasted was a chicken?

and

2) is there an internet resource that collects book covers with pictures of ladies (often holding candelabras) running away from ominous houses with one light on in an attic room? Things like http://en.dcdatabaseproject.com/Dark_Mansion_of_Forbidden_Love/Covers

It just seems like there should be, and I can't find one.

...

Here's me being interviewed for the Book Expo America podcast (I'm half-asleep in Australia, the interviewer is not). We're talking about The Graveyard Book (which isn't out in the shops yet, but we're raising awareness of it among the people who will be at Book Expo America -- booksellers and librarians and the like.
http://www.mediumatlarge.net/2008/05/neil-gaiman-interview-get-your-bookexpo.html

(The breakfast I talked about stars Sherman Alexie, Judy Blume and me and will be MCed by Eoin Colfer. Introductory remarks by Jon Scieszka. It's cheap compared to the author lunches or teas but is only open to people who have registered for the Book Expo.)

...

Here's me at seven in the morning on Triple J breakfast radio in Sydney: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/triplej/breakfast/neilgaiman_pod.mp3

...


Here's me with a bruise on my face and a swollen nose (but the black eye is facing away from us) being interviewed at the New York Comic Con last month...

Just above the Bible, but just below Black Beauty

This morning in the Guardian I noticed that, just above the Bible on the list of the top twenty most re-read books in the UK, they listed Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Which is odd, because in the UK it is Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. But I was happy to see it there. (The full list.) And this on a day when a quote from me was on the front page of Google. (Beams foolishly.)

I just went to a small pre-birthday dinner tonight with friends, and it was one of the nicest evenings I've had in ages. Roger Avary saw Jonathan Ross's comics and original art collection and hungered for it, David Walliams apologised for telling me I looked like Lou Reed at the Stardust premiere ("I took it as a compliment," I said, and I did, and I told him the story of how I declined to interview Nico), the food was lovely, Matthew Vaughn told me that Stardust has now made about $118 million worldwide (over $20 million so far in the UK alone) and promised me one of the chandeliers from the witches' lair if I ever have anywhere to put it, and Holly hugged me a lot and told me I was a pretty good dad all things considered, which is as good as it gets.

Was just sent my avatar for the Second Life press conference thingie tomorrow. It looks exactly what I would look like if I was a lantern-jawed enforcer for a motorbike gang. Hurrah.

Sleep beckons. Also waves. Also makes threatening gestures and hops up and down until I notice.

Smelling For Good

Just a little note to thank everyone who's bought any of the American Gods or Anansi Boys related scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy labs -- http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/neverwhere.html. Beth is sending off a cheque for over $6,000 to the CBLDF.

Terry Pratchett and I have just agreed to allow BPAL to do a set of Good Omens scents, the money to be divided between freedom of speech and orang utans. Terry also thinks the Agnes Nutter scent should have gunpowder in it...

American Gods Blog, Post 78

Spent a good part of yesterday trying to compile a bibliography of Books Consulted for American Gods for the not-yet-online neilgaiman.com -- a sort of astonishingly incomplete bibliography, because otherwise I would have had to try and catalogue half a library, so I'm trying just to list the books in the boxes I'd put in the boot of the car (that's the trunk, for americans) when I drove down to Florida to work on the novel, and the ones I tried to make sure were on the shelves in the cabin as I wrote the rest of the book... and the ones I filled my suitcase with when I went to spend two weeks writing in Las Vegas (an anecdote, it occurs to me, that I've not mentioned yet on this blogger. Oh well. Feel free to ask me about it if you are at one of the Q & A sessions between the reading and the signing.) I got down a lot of the myth and folklore books. Lots of mini-capsule reviews.Cannot for the life of me find the box of books on confidence tricks or coin magic.

.....

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jun01/fansf.htm has a review of American Gods up... (the version up earlier was an early draft of the review posted in error).

....

Spent a couple of hours today in the basement, pulling out foreign editions of books for neilgaiman.com. I'm not sure whether I was more amazed by the stuff I didn't know I had -- "Chivalry" and "Snow, Glass, Apples" in Japanese. A box of first editions of Angels and Visitations. A Large Print edition of Stardust. A folder of short stories and poems I wrote in my teens (didn't have the heart to burn them, but the idea of anyone ever actually reading them... ow!) -- or the stuff I knew I had but couldn't find -- The German Hardback of Good Omens, for example -- or the stuff I should have had but had never been sent -- like the swedish editions of Neverwhere, or the Spanish Smoke and Mirrors and Stardust.

American Gods Blog, Post 36

The whole process of getting and giving blurbs is an odd one.

(Minor side note. If memory serves, BLURB as a word was created by American humorist Gelett Burgess (who also wrote the 'Purple Cow' poem). It means, basically, the puff stuff on the back of a book that tells you you ought to read it. The other word Gelett Burgess tried to introduce was "huzzlecoo" meaning, I think, to schmooze. It failed to catch on.)

I've met people who assumed that the whole blurb-giving process was one that authors were paid to do. Not so.

Generally blurbs mean one of two things; either the person giving the blurb really liked the book, or that complex networks of favour and obligation have been called into play.

It's seldom simple logrolling -- normally the reason why two authors say nice things about each other's stuff is that they like each other's stuff. But the process of getting something read, and of getting a quote can mean anything. It could mean that you have the same editor or agent or film producer as the book author, and they pressed you to read it. It could mean that the author is somone who did you a good turn once. And normally the favour is in getting the book read -- anything after that depends mostly on whether or not the reader liked the book.

A very few blurbs make a difference. Clive Barker's career was given a huge leg up by Stephen King's "I have seen the future of horror and it is Clive Barker" , and I think Sandman was given a huger boost than I ever realised from the Norman Mailer quote (although, oddly enough, DC has never run that on anything except SEASON OF MISTS). I doubt that they actually changed anything for either of us; they might have sped up processes that would have happened anyway, though.

Most of them probably don't do a thing. But in book publishing (as with movies) nobody knows anything. So they put them on the book jackets anyway and they hope.

Most successful authors could make a life's profession simply reading books and giving blurbs -- in any given week I get two or three books arriving with nice pleas from editors to read their book and say nice things about it. Also I get a couple of things from authors.

As to what I blurb... It depends a lot on what gets read, what I have time to read, whether it's something portable and booksized or a huge heap of paper, sometimes even if there's anything I have to say after reading something. It also depends a lot on whether or not I liked it once I have read it, if I did read it.

Sometimes I wind up reading something long after it's come out in paperback and just feeling faintly guilty, especially if I did like it a lot. But there is only so much time, and there's stuff I buy to read I never get time to settle down with...

It is good blurb etiquette, as an author, to say, if you cannot give a blurb, "I am sorry, I am too busy." This could mean that you are too busy to look at it, or that you looked at it and wish you hadn't.

It is not good blurb etiquette to do as an unnamed comics genius -- oh, what the hell, it was R. Crumb -- did when sent a reading copy of GOOD OMENS, over a decade ago, which is to write a several page letter to the publisher telling them not only how much you hated it but also imploring them not to publish it. (Or so my editor said. She didn't send me the letter, which I thought a pity, nor did she run it on the back cover, which I thought might have been fun.)

It is good blurb etiquette if you're hoping someone will blurb your book to send it to them (or have your editor send it to them) and then not to bug them, unless you're heading for the deadline and you want to politely point out to them that unless you get a blurb from them soon it won't be used even if they did like it.

It's lousy blurb etiquette to bug an author. Saying things like "Well, why don't you read a chapter and if that's okay write something nice -- one chapter, one lousy solitary chapter, is that asking so much?," and "Hey, no problem, if you're that busy I'll write the blurb, you can just put your name to it" are not usually ways to endear yourself to an author. (And yes, I've had both of them, and yes, I said no thank you.)

Because you're asking for two things -- you're asking for time, and you're asking for some kind of endorsement. Mostly in an attempt to try and tell people what kind of book something is, in a kind of abbreviated word of mouth -- "Gee. Maurice X. Boggs thinks this is an amazing book and Maurice X. Boggs is my favourite author, I should pick it up". This works best, I think, as a kind of positioning -- Stephen King tends mostly to give blurbs to things that adjectives like "Gripping. Relentless" can be applied to. He might enjoy reading a heartwarming novel about a funny skunk named Zonko and how he melts the heart of a crusty old widower... but publishers are unlikely to send him that book with a begging letter asking him to read it and to say something nice about it.

Some authors stop giving blurbs. Every now and again, I stop doing blurbs, and every now and again I stop writing introductions. (And last year I was extremely unimpressed when a blurb I had written was actually printed by someone as an introduction.) The hiatus lasts for a year or two, and then I feel guilty or someone asks me at the right time, and I relent.

Some authors don't relent. Harlan Ellison stopped doing blurbs years ago. If publishers start dunning him for blurbs he lets them know how much he charges by the hour as a readers fee to read the books, and makes sure they understand that there is no guarantee at the end of the reading he will feel moved to say anything at all, and in fact, he probably won't. I don't think any publishers have taken him up on this, which means that Harlan, as he takes great pleasure in telling people, doesn't give blurbs.

There are other problems with the whole blurb thing....

Once I was given a book by an editor I liked, by an author I liked. it was the editor's first major book. It was the author's first book in some years. It was a big deal for both of them. I didn't like the book. I wanted to, but I didn't. But I didn't want to let them down. So I wrote "When Thaddeus Q. Bliggins (not his real name) is writing at his best there's no-one in the field that can touch him" and felt that honour was satisfied.

My favourite how to blurb a book you don't like story was one my agent told me, about a writer she had at the start of her career, who was a good friend of A Famous Author, and was confident of his ability to get a blurb for his book -- and certain that with a blurb from a famous author his manuscript would immediately be snapped up by a publisher after a franzied auction. He handed over the manuscript to his friend, and the blurb came in. It was short, effective, enthusiastic... and entirely unusable, this being the early 80s, and the blurb being entirely composed of profanities, as enthusiastic as they were obscene. The book was never published.

For AMERICAN GODS, the books for blurbs went out to a fairly select band. Authors I thought would like it or respond to it who somehow seemed to map onto parts of the book.

For some of them I wrote personal notes to go with them. Partly because I know I respond well to notes from the author, and partly because it was fun to say some hellos. (In a couple of cases I even got to cheat and write a fan letter, or an "I've not seen you for ten years -- howthefuckareyou?" letter). For some I didn't. For a few people I sent e-mails. The others went out from Jennifer Hershey, my editor, or Jack Womack, the book's publicist at harpercollins (and a wonderful author in his own right).

And, as you've already seen if you're reading this journal, blurbs came in -- most of them accompanied by letters saying that they really really liked the book (just in case I was worried that they were only saying nice things about it from a sense of duty).

As the deadline for the book jacket to be finalised approached, we made a few calls to remind people. (I phoned Terry Gilliam, mostly because I like talking to Terry Gilliam, to discover that he was on holiday for two weeks somewhere far away from a telephone. So no luck there.)

(A minor anecdotal interruption here: in 1989 Gollancz sent Terry Gilliam a copy of Good Omens for a blurb. Somewhere the letter and the book got separated and Terry read the book assuming it was something he'd been sent as a possible movie... and now, twelve years later, he's gone on holiday having just finished the second draft of the Good Omens movie script. Proving that the world is an odd place, but not unpleasant.)

The blurb deadline has pretty much, I think, come and gone on American Gods -- if people say nice things about it now we can use it in the advertising, but they may have to wait for the paperback until people know that they liked it. However, one that I'll really try to get onto the hardback cover arrived out of the blue today, entirely unsolicited. Not just unsolicited but accompanied by a phone call reminding me that the party in question does not give blurbs.

"Gaiman's new novel walked in the door on Friday afternoon. By Saturday
evening I had eaten it in one gulp. AMERICAN GODS: alarming, charming,
even winsome; Gaiman: serially inventive, surprising, purely remarkable.
And, oh, is it well-written."

Harlan Ellison
16 April 2001
...........................................................................................................................

I signed the sheets of paper for the limited edition from the box of 750 sheets. I signed and I signed. Eventually I asked my poor assistant if she wouldn't mind counting them, because I was sure I'd signed a lot more than 750 sheets. Turns out the box contained 2,500 of the things. Mostly I'm just signing them. Sometimes I'm drawing eyes, too. Very occasionally I've started doodling and drawing, mostly so far drawings of a very crusty Uncle Sam. And most of the time I'm using other colour inks than black, so that the people who pick them up don't go "Oh, they just print those signatures". They don't. It's me.