It's Ash's first birthday, a bare chin is revealed... (and so are the next three Robert McGinnis covers)

It was Ash's birthday on the 16th of September, and his mother and I went back to the place he was born to celebrate and to get away from cellphones and the world.

He's a delight and I've never loved him more. His favourite books are Goodnight Moon and a book called Chu's Day (I've never been prouder). His eyes really are that blue.

I'm now off writing, and I won't see them for another ten days. I'm loving the writing, loving the exercising and the quiet and the words, and missing them both, especially Ash, I miss singing to him, miss waking up early and going off and reading with him or walking with him (he can nearly walk). Miss feeding him.

Today I shaved off my beard. I also got a FedEx package containing a proof "Advance Reading Copy" of NORSE MYTHOLOGY (it'll be published on the 7th of February) and an early reading copy of Colleen Doran's beautiful graphic novel adaptation of TROLL BRIDGE (out on October 18th).

Here is a photograph of all these things at once. (Well, not the act of shaving.)

...

So, this is a very book-covery day,  because I'm going to do something fun.

For the last few months, I've been showing people I've been talking to or talking about books with or just wind up sitting next to on a plane the Robert E. McGinnis covers for Stardust, Neverwhere and Anansi Boys.

This is because I am so proud of them, and the work Todd Klein did with the lettering and the design for the books.

The American Gods cover (it already came out) is, in my head, a 1968 SF cover. (I wrote about it here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2016/07/robert-e-mcginnis-and-secret-of-new.html. Todd Klein shows all the design work that led to it on his blog http://kleinletters.com/Blog/title-and-cover-design-for-neil-gaimans-american-gods/.)

Would you like to see the next three?

Really?

You don't have to see them. You can wait until you are in some little Indie Bookshop over the next few months, and be surprised...

I love them. The Stardust cover is an early 70s book, and is funny, like the covers I delighted in for books like William Goldman's The Princess Bride -- the lettering style was inspired by the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Line, and  the whole is intended to be sort of heartwarming.

Anansi Boys is done as a late 50s or early 60s paperback – one of those goofy comedies, with an illustration of a scene from the first chapter. (Also glad to finally get Mr Nancy on the cover of his book.) I think this one is Robert E McGinnis's masterpiece, and Todd's as well. 

 Neverwhere – when Robert McGinnis sent over this haunting cover I sent it over to Todd Klein and told him that I thought it was a 1970s gothic romance cover. He looked at the kind of covers I'd suggested, told me that they often have elegant and swirly titles and heavily serifed type, and he produced something as beautiful and haunting as the cover had been.

Ready...?

Oh, hell. Here you go. And I've just gone to Amazon to find out the publication dates so will put the links in...

(And I checked Indiebound and the books are now up there too, so Indiebound links as well.)

Anansi Boys (http://bit.ly/AnansiPulp) comes out on October 25th...  (I loved this one so much I bought the painting from Mr McGinnis.)

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062564337

Neverwhere (http://bit.ly/NeverwherePulp) is published on November 29th. I love the rats in the shadows...

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062476371

Stardust (http://bit.ly/StardustPulp) is the next one to come out -- it will be out in just six days from now on September 27th...

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062564344

Labels: anansi boys, Ash, beards, birthdays, colleen doran, Neverwhere, Norse Mythology, Robert E McGinnis, Stardust, Todd Klein, Troll Bridge

Robert E McGinnis and the Secret of The New Cover

I've loved Robert McGinnis's covers for a very long time. I remember the first one I was aware of (it was the cover of Ian Fleming's  James Bond book DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, when I was about 9. They put the film poster on the book cover, which puzzled me a bit because the plot of the book isn't the plot of the film.) And I assumed that he had retired a long, long time ago.

About a year ago, Jennifer Brehl and I were talking. Jennifer is my editor at William Morrow, and is one of the best, most sensible and wisest people in my life. I am lucky to have her. We were talking about paperbacks, and how publishers put less effort into them these days. I went off about how paperback covers used to be beautiful, and were painted, and told you so much. And how much I missed the covers of the '50s and '60s and '70s, the  ones I'd collected and bought back in the dawn of time.

And somehow the conversation wound up with me asking if Harper Collins would publish a set of mass market paperbacks of my books with gloriously retro covers and Jennifer saying that yes, they would.

A few days later I was in DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis. I noticed a particularly gorgeous cover on an old book on a shelf. "Who did that?" I asked Greg Ketter.

"Robert McGinnis," said Greg. "Actually we have a whole book of McGinnis artwork." He showed it to me. The Art of Robert E. McGinnis. It's gorgeous. Here's the cover:

I was surprised at how recent the book was. It had been published a few months earlier. "Oh yes," said Greg. "Bob's still painting. Must be almost 90."

(He was 90 in February 2016.)

I sent a note to Jennifer asking if there was even the slightest possibility that Mr McGinnis would be interested in painting the covers for the paperback set we wanted to do. He said yes.

I say that so blithely. But he has retired, pretty much, and he doesn't have email, and it was only because the Morrow art director had worked with him, and he was intrigued by the commission... and ROBERT MCGINNIS SAID YES.

He sent in the first painting, the one for American Gods. It was perfect. Now we needed to make everything that wasn't the cover  feel right.

Todd Klein, the finest letterer in comics, came in to create each book's logo and to help design it and pick the fonts, to make each book feel like it came from a certain age.

Each painting from McGinnis was better than the one before. Each Logo and layout from Todd Klein was more assured and more accurate. These things are glorious.

Now... we were planning to announce these in an much more planned and orderly way. I'm not going to tell you what books we're doing, or to show you any covers but the one.

And that's because the upcoming 2017 Starz American Gods TV series has created a huge demand for copies of American Gods. People who have never read it have started buying it to find out what the fuss is about. People who read it long ago and gave away their copy bought new ones to reread it.

The publishers ran out of books to sell.

So they've rushed back to press with the new paperback edition, which wasn't meant to be coming out for some months (and the text is the text of the Author's Preferred edition in case you were wondering).

And that means the version of the paperback with the new cover is going to be coming out a lot sooner than we thought. And tomorrow it will probably up on Amazon.

And I wanted you to hear it from me first.  You aren't going to see the rest of the Robert E McGinnis covers for a little while (and each of them looks like a different kind of book from a different era). But this is the first of them.

In my head, and Todd's, it's probably from about 1971...

Are you ready?
















Okay....




Here goes...

...and wait until you see the rest of them.

Labels: American Gods, paperbacks, Pulp Covers, Robert E McGinnis, Todd Klein

Xmas Roundup With Some Good Links and a photo of an author in it

How the hell did it get to be December the 18th? Ohhh. All the links I meant to post. Arghh.

For a start, I want to repost this little true thing I wrote, from last year's Independent: it's about being an eight year old Jewish kid who really wanted a Christmas tree...

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/neil-gaiman-hanukkah-with-bells-on-1203307.html

I wanted to tell you that you can still get the signed prints of "Before You Read This" I did with Todd Klein -- it's a poem I wrote that Todd lettered -- at Todd's website (along with Todd's other unique signed prints -- collaborations with Alex Ross, Alan Moore and J.H. Williams). http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=6525. (If you're hesitating, order: they're really cheap, and the second printing will be gone soon.)

Also, for signed things and rare stuff, you can Do Good while last minute shopping by heading over to the CBLDF shop website. Here's the page with stuff related to me on it.)

I just got my author's copies of "A Hundred Words To Talk of Death", the poem I wrote that Jim Lee illustrated and Todd Klein lettered. (Someone wrote to me on Twitter pointing out that it is two syllables short, and unable to figure out why. I will leave that as a problem for you to solve.) It's beautiful -- the same size and quality as the print of "The Day The Saucers Came". It's glorious. (Thinks: I can take a photo to show people.)

I didn't used to think of Jim Lee as a glorious and subtle pencil artist, but he really is, and this is wonderful. (You can order them from here, and read about Kitty's adventures in shipping them out over at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/, with bonus pictures right now of my Very Late Guy Fawkes Part of last month.)

Here is a photo of an author who needs a shave holding a print of "One Hundred Words" poem.

Kitty herself is heading off on tour with Lady Gaga early next year, and Maddy is going to see them in Chicago (where, about eight years ago, I first met Kitty, on the road with Tori) (Who will be interviewed tonight on ABC -- Tori that is, not Kitty or Maddy).

Amanda and I have been having something that isn't quite an argument about Lady Gaga for a few weeks. We have really rubbish arguments, because they normally resolve into the discovery that we weren't arguing at all, just saying the same thing from two different points of view. Amanda posted a ukulele video-song-blog she'd written late last night from her Boston flat when she was probably meant to be practising her New Year's Eve Tchaikovsky, and I discovered that our latest argument wasn't an argument and we were talking about the same things again. It's art. You make it.

I don't think I will ever write songs and post them on YouTube instead of blogging. I'm in awe of someone who can. It's a good song, too, not just a funny and wise end-of-an-argument, even if she has to stop and scroll down at the last verse.




Also, she said "aluminium".

And finally, in keeping with the not-exactly-Christmassy-but-sort-of theme of this blog...

Labels: amanda palmer, Jewish Christmas things, Jim Lee, lady gaga, photo of me holding something, Tim Minchin, Todd Klein

Does Anyone Else have Something Further To Add?

Good morning. I cannot stay long as deadlines are happening.

Cat Mihos, in association with the CBLDF, has made the most beautiful print of Jim Lee's glorious pencil-art to accompany my poem "100 Words". It'll be limited to 750 numbered prints, and is lettered by Todd Klein. (Click on it in order to actually see it at readable size.) She decided that the first 24 hours it was on sale at her neverwear.net site, it would be $35, going up to $45 the following day. I linked to it on Twitter and... crashed the site. (Or possibly, crashed the shopping cart. I'm not sure. Different reports from people who couldn't get in.)

So Cat is extending the sale (at http://www.neverwear.net/store/) until the end of Monday, when she gets home from her trip out here, to apologise to people who had problems, and to allow people to get to it. You can read all about it (and see lots of Cat's candid snaps, including one of me in a 20 foot long Tom Baker style Doctor Who scarf I was sent by a reader who knits and likes Doctor Who and thought I needed one) over at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com

And on the subject of photos, KImberly Butler is out at the house right now to shoot photos of me, with her daughter Caitlin as a camera assistant. She is a remarkable photographer (http://www.kimberlybutler.com is her website). She's here because I am the Honorary Chair of National Library Week next year (details at this ALA website).

She's taking pictures of me to find one that could be used as a poster for National Library Week, and for press releases. Here are a few of the photos from yesterday, raw from her camera. I put up a selection at http://twitpic.com/photos/neilhimself. Here are four of my favourites. One of them is not of me.

(Strangest twitter comment this morning was from the person who told me off for surgically trimming my dog's ears. Someone who, I assume, has never encountered a German Shepherd or has any idea what their ears do. His ears are fine -- he just sticks them up when he's interested or listening. )



During the shoot Lorraine brought me tea. I got happy. Kimberly kept shooting.



Princess the cat and deformed bunnies (and a two-headed teddy). Probably will not be a National Library Week poster. (Click to see it full-size.)

Does anyone else have something further to add?

I go. Maddy's violin recital, a short story and an introduction are waiting. Zoom.

Labels: Four Photos, Jim Lee, Kimberly Butler, Princess, R. A. Lafferty, Todd Klein, zoom

Death Wish

I went to Los Angeles, had a sort of a working holiday, came home, and am writing. Working out a lot with the trainer, got a new trampoline. The cherry tree is covered in cherries, and the wild raspberries (red and black) are out in the woods, and I find them when I walk the dog.

Nights here are filled with fireflies. Steve Brust came over for dinner tonight and brought his puppy, and we talked about stories and writing until late. It's a good world.

That's about it for excitement at this end. Lots of people have written in asking stuff about me and Amanda, and I don't really know how to answer them. Either they're really nice and pleased for us and encouraging and don't need answering, or they're the kind of things that leave me deeply puzzled, and to which the only responses are "Isn't that a bit personal?" or "Probably none of your business I'm afraid," or even "Why would you write things like that?"

Hello Neil,

Why don't you blog more often?

Just a death wish I guess. Your blog is a wonderful thing to read.

I have a rare case of skin cancer and your blog cheer me up!

Mostly because I have less to say right now, I think. Or at least, I hate repeating myself. The blog's eight years old, and over one million three hundred thousand words long. That's a lot of blogging: a lot of ideas, a lot of words, a lot of answers. People write to me with questions still, but much of the time they're questions that have already been answered on the blog, usually at some length -- the kind of things that make me think that I should spend the time I could spend writing again (say) how you get an agent into, instead, organising things and getting a really useful FAQ up and running, or just a way of finding things, particularly advice on writing.

Obviously, I'm sorry you have a rare case of skin cancer, and I would be just as sorry if it was a common sort of skin cancer. So here, to cheer you up and fulfill your dying wish: a blog, and a link to an interview http://www.wmagazine.com/w/blogs/editorsblog/2009/06/29/neil-gaiman-on.htm and also to an amazing Daily Telegraph piece in which a bunch of writers and artists suggest books for younger readers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5720639/Summer-Reading-for-Children-Adventures-to-enchanting-worlds.html.

Todd Klein, letterer extraordinaire has the fourth in his series of prints out. The art is by J. H. Williams III, and you can see it here.

Back in November I was interviewed by Chip Kidd at the 92nd St Y. (I talked about it on the blog at the time.) The whole talk, with Karen Berger's introduction and all, is up now on YouTube, and is embedded here for your pleasure. It's an hour and a half.

And finally, there are now more than 666,666 people following me on Twitter. So we had a party. It's still ongoing, the party, over at http://bit.ly/666party and to join in all you have to do is upload a photgraph of you and a Balloon. And once 600 people showed up at the party, the webgoblin made this: a mosaic. Edit to add, and here's a wonderful click to zoom in, shift-click to zoom out version at http://www.uslot.com/neilballoons/

Labels: balloons, blogging about the blog in a strange mirror-like pattern that leads into infinity, Todd Klein, why Chip Kidd ought to have his own chat show

I am not a number...

Still in England. Had a day where I managed to see a lot of the people I needed to, mostly by throwing all the social meetings I wanted to make with friends under a bus. Plans for the Ireland/Scotland/England bit of the Graveyard Book tour are now in place, for a start. Not sure whether I talk about the other three things, but they were fun.

Todd Klein has announced the on sale date for the prints he did -- he points out that the Alan Moore ones sold out in three days, so if you're interested, it's there for you -- http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=1305

I was sent a link to the list of SFX Magazine's compiled-from-lists-sent-in-by-the-public top 100 SF writers. I spent most of it with my eye running down from 100 going "He's better than me. He's a lot better than me. She's much better than me. What's he doing down there, he's better than that..." but it was nice to come in at #3 anyway -- and when they let me know SFX assured me that I was already at #3 by a good margin when I linked to the survey on this blog, so I hadn't skewed it, which always my fear.

Labels: absent friends, bigger on the inside, sfx, Todd Klein, tour

Without fireworks

Advanced Reading Copies of The Graveyard Book have started going out. This is the first review I've spotted.

"The Witch's Headstone", Chapter Four of The Graveyard Book, is nominated for a Locus Award. http://www.locusmag.com/2008/LocusAwardsFinalists.html for the full list -- It would be an excellent reading list, incidentally: I don't think there's a book or story on the list that isn't readable, cool, or doesn't deserve to win its category.

They'll be awarded next month, on Saturday, June 21, 2008 in Seattle WA, during the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Awards Weekend. I was toastmaster for this a few years ago, and it's a wonderful event. https://secure.locusmag.com/About/2008LocusAwardsAd.html (Note that The SF Hall of Fame ceremony, inducting William Gibson, Ian & Betty Ballantine, Rod Serling, and Richard Powers at the SF Museum Saturday evening, will be ticketed separately. Also that some members of the Hall of Fame are no longer with us.)

Rebecca Fitzgibbon interviewed me when I was in Hobart a few weeks ago, and sent me a link to the article at http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23670222-5006544,00.html

Right. Back to signing Todd Klein's prints (in a purple ink called "Tanzanite") -- you can see what they look like, and learn about Todd's process -- at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=1184.

Back to signing. I'll try and make the next blog post more exciting. Sorry.

Labels: I miss the days when I used to make sure that there would be at least one amusing or interesting label, Locus awards, Tasmania, The Graveyard Book, Todd Klein

Woot.

Back from the ABC studios where I was interviewed for Triple J -- it'll be up as a podcast for those of you who were either asleep or not in Australia (which is most of you): http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/ is their website, and I'll put up a link when they send it to me.

I just discovered that Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union won the Nebula as Best SF novel of the year. As Maddy would say, Woot!

Congratulations to everyone else who won -- the complete list of winners and nominees is here (and I'm thrilled that Guillermo got the script Nebula for Pan's Labyrinth, just as I'm sorry that Stephen Moffat didn't get it for Blink, and that Gene Wolfe didn't get it for Memorare -- which you can read at http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/gw01.htm, and which I really, really hope gets the Hugo) (Gene Wolfe has never won a Hugo award. I'm just saying.)

I'm slowly catching up with things I've promised people, one thing at a time. Todd Klein asked if I would do the signed Todd-lettered print after the Alan Moore one, and there was no way I could say no. Then I kept him waiting on tenterhooks until I had an idea, and then I made him tenterhook longer while I worked on it, but eventually I finished something called Before You Read This, which begins

Before you read this familiarise yourself
with the text. Note the position of the escape hatches,
the candles that will light in the event of a forced landing
to show you the way out. The author will make an announcement.

and goes on from there. I'm looking forward to seeing whether it works when read aloud. Todd's got the work-in-progress version of the print up at

http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=1095.

Which I mention here as the first printing of the Alan Moore print sold out in three days. (You can get a second printing at http://kleinletters.com/BuyStuffTop.html).

Since you're travelling I'm willing to bet this message will get lost in the shuffle, but here goes.

So I'm reading the excellent "Lonely Werewolf Girl" which I'm loving, more than "Good Fairies of New York" I think, but I have a bone to pick. Once I started keeping track, I've counted six typos in the first 233 pages. Maybe this seems like a small number of typos but I find it five typos too many! Don't people get paid specifically to ensure that doesn't happen?! It's driving me bonkers...

Anyway, not meant to be any slight against this wonderful, whimsical, punk rock, wolfy book, but seriously; what's up with that?

-J.

Speaking as someone currently proofreading The Graveyard Book, who is only certain of one thing: that typos will lurk and creep and scuttle on the edges of the text and, despite my best efforts, jump out and wave furiously at everyone as soon as I'm done, all I can do is sympathise. But you know, the magic of the internet is that Martin Millar, author of both the above books, has his own blog. It's at http://martin-millar.blogspot.com/ and he has his own website at http://www.martinmillar.com/, where not only can you ask him what's up with the typos, but if you give him a list of them, he can pass them on to his publishers and then they won't be typos in the next edition. Such is the magic of the internet. (Also, you can buy signed books directly from the author at http://www.lonelywerewolfgirl.co.uk/. Which is very nice of him.)

...

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

These are some very simple questions: Do you ever listen to music when you work on something or does it distract you? Have you ever been influenced by a song or peice of music to write a scene?

And last but not least: What are you listening to these days?

Thank you much,

John

Yes, I often write with music on. It doesn't distract me. Anything that makes me more comfortable and keeps me writing is good. And occasionally I'll reread something I've written and know what I was listening to when I wrote it. (I think it's a good bet that Iggy Pop's song Passenger was on repeat a lot when I wrote Sandman 5, for example.) As for what I'm listening to these days, It's mostly up at http://www.last.fm/user/neilhimself/. Here are a couple of Last.fm widgets that might or might not work -- one of songs that seem to have been played more than other songs in the last month, and the other the Last.Fm "My Radio Station", of songs it knows I enjoy...

Labels: last fm, martin millar, Michael Chabon, Nebula Awards, Todd Klein, typos

Kids! Save! Money!

It looks like Odd and the Frost Giants is on sale from Amazon.co.uk at 90% off. They're selling it for 10 pence... It might be a mistake, or it might be a loss leader, and it's not like it's expensive at a pound either. But I thought I ought to tell you, as Amazon tend to honour their mistakes. And remember, it's not out until March. (And it's being illustrated by Mark Buckingham. Hurrah!) (Depending on where you live, it may only be worth it if you get a few copies to spread around to friends.)

[Edit to add, I'm afraid they've just whacked on a 90p "sourcing fee" bringing it back to a pound.]

[[Later: And it's now back to a full pound again.]]


With the money you save you could nip over to Todd Klein's website at http://www.kleinletters.com/and buy a beautiful signed print that Alan Moore wrote and Todd lettered. You can read about it at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=589

(And to add a little colour, here is a picture of the aforementioned Greatest Living Englishman drinking tea on my birthday.)

Labels: Todd Klein, why Alan Moore should be made Wizard of England