lunchblog

Thirteen interviews into the day and I'm trying hard not to repeat myself -- most popular questions so far this morning are What Are the Themes of Stardust, What Are the Origins of Stardust, and What Is Your Favourite Miyazaki Film?

The hardest bit about doing interviews in foreign languages is the long bit where you wait for your answer to be translated into the tongue of the person interviewing you. I noticed that words like Fantasy and Comedy and Cast seemed to be unchanged, and loanwords in the Japanese, which I can understand -- was more puzzled when a list of colours I'd given was transliterated.

Anyway -- links I've meant to put up here for a while...

The Guardian Great Interviews booklets are also on line:

The Dennis Potter Interview is up at the Guardian Website. Best interview in the world, although it's strange to see it written down. Art and death.

I enjoyed the Francis Bacon interview as well (and enjoyed the Damien Hirst introduction). Also art and death.

(The Sex Pistols interview was great TV, especially when you haven't been 16 for three weeks, but I can't see the point of transcribing it really... still, it's at http://www.guardian.co.uk/greatinterviews/sexpistols/0,,2154659,00.html. Art and swearing.)

more later...

the circus drums in the distance...

This coming Monday the interview media circus for Stardust begins, or it does for me anyway. So I went in to Minneapolis yesterday and got a haircut from Wendy at Hair Police, so I will look less like a man with a honey badger growing on his head in the photographs, then I nipped down to DreamHaven and signed stacks of books for them (some that people had ordered and some so they could sell them over at their www.Neilgaiman.net shop). The circus starts Monday and then, with a few outbreaks of Beowulf on the way, it barely stops until about August the 3rd. Argh.

Let's see... Actor Doug Jones talks about me and Miss Maddy visiting the Hellboy set over at his blog, and the day the three of us went to Margaret Island. His blog is just like him. http://dougjones.wordpress.com/2007/07/08/i-think-im-still-alive/

(Here's Maddy and Doug -- sans Abe or Faun or Silver Surfer makeup -- on the bridge the Sunday of fountains and Viggo Mortenson, with Margaret Island in the background. The next time we saw Doug he had shaved off most of his hair, because it's more comfortable, and cooler, to have your head encased in latex if you look like a marine recruit.)

Film Ick reviews the script to Hellboy 2 at http://www.filmick.co.uk/2007/07/all-hellboy-2-you-can-handle-for-one.html.
From the bits they quote, it's obviously an earlier draft of the script than what's being shot currently in Budapest, but you definitely get the flavour. I enjoyed the first Hellboy film, but didn't think it was a major Guillermo Del Toro work. I'm pretty sure, from all I've seen and from reading the script, that the second film will be one of those sequels that improves and deepens and is seriously better than the first film in the sequence, rather than being one of those films that gets knocked out quickly to try and get people to buy tickets for something not quite as good as the thing they liked the first time around. Guillermo sees it as an upbeat, comic-book-based companion piece to Pan's Labyrinth, anyway.

...

I keep meaning to write about, or at least link to, Heather McDougal's Cabinet of Wonders

http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/

which is fast becoming one of my favourite stopping off points on the web. It's a blog of essays and pictures of things I either know a bit about and wish I knew more, or about things I know nothing about and really really needed to. Everything from Ossuaries to astrolabes, automata, orreries and shadow-puppets, and even short films of stop motion beetles, like this one.

Start back in March and come forward, or just poke around the coolness...

And not far behind it for sheer interesting stuff, if a little more narrowly focussed, is

http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/

yesterday's future, today.

The link stolen from Eddie Campbell's blog, 1947 comic artists drawing their most famous characters blindfolded... http://a-hole-in-the-head.blogspot.com/2007/07/eyes-wide-shut-in-1947-life-magazine.html

And finally, for when you need a complete trilogy of movies condensed into one tiny pill (like those retro-future "instant roast beef dinner" pills from Just Imagine):

http://xkcd.com/c254.html

be vewwy vewwy quiet...

I think, after doing readings and doing interviews and suchlike for two weeks, talking the whole time, I've just lost my voice. So I shall spend tomorrow being as quiet as possible, and saying as little as possible, because, since I am being interviewed and have a signing on Friday, and it would behoove me to have a voice back.

I finished the short story (a fictional love letter) today, at least in first draft. I think it needs some tweaking before it works, so I shall try not to read it until tomorrow, and then when I read it, I will pretend that I have never read it before...

(The Forbidden Planet signing on Friday is -- according to http://www.timeout.com/london/books/events/381731/neil_gaiman.html -- from 5.00 pm tp 6.30. Lots of signing. If you're in London, come and say hullo, and I trust I'll have a voice to say hullo back...)

National Characteristics

It was one of those moments when you know you're in another country. Specifically Germany.

10:53 am – I'm in my hotel room answering a written interview questions when the phone rings. A woman's voice says,

"Hello. Mister Gaiman. This is reception. You must come down right now. There is someone here to interview you."

I say, "Er. He's actually a bit early, and I'm doing something..."

"Very good," she interrupts, firmly. "Then you will be down here in exactly seven minutes."

And she puts down the phone, leaving me bemused and leaving the interviewer, standing in front of her downstairs, fairly mortified.

I took nine minutes to get downstairs, thinking "Hah. That'll show her," as I did so, which really wasn't very fair on the interviewer.

The day's interviews were fun, the reading (in a Toyota Showroom, of all places) was very enjoyable, and I got to see the outrageously talented Dagmara Matuszak briefly and to learn what's going on with the Hill House Anansi Boys she's designed.

(While I can't tell you when Hill House will actually publish it, I'm happy to be able to say that I just learned from Peter Schneider at Hill House that he's set up a gmail account, with a person who will reply to all emails checking it, at hillhousepub@gmail.com. If you've had problems getting hold of him or anyone at Hill House, send an email there. If there's still problems, feel free to drop me a line.)


Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I had been thinking about the Subterranean(sp?) Press version of "M is for Magic" and it got me wondering. Does it ever bother you that sometimes these beautiful editions of your work are released and a great deal of your number one fans will never get to hold them, let alone own them because of the price tag? I am in no way saying these editions aren't worth the asking price, just wondering if you ever
wished they were more accessible. Hope your trip, family, and cats(especially Fred) are all well.
Thanks,
Troy

Not really. It would bother me if the expensive edition was the only edition of something that there was, that I wanted lots of people to read, but normally the expensive edition is expensive because it's a smaller print run, of a much higher quality, with special illustrations or similar, and they cost money. The Harper Childrens edition of M Is For Magic will be in a loverly affordable hardcover edition, priced for school libraries, and the first printing will be somewhere between 70,000 and 150,000 copies. The Subterranean edition will be in a comparatively tiny edition, and made for people who love books. I quite like the limited editions of things, mostly because I like beautiful books.

In your recent post you mentioned wanting a catapult as a child. In jest I am sure, but it reminded me of a time I was traveling through Europe and happened to be stranded at Heathrow for quite some time. In my boredom I happened upon a funny sign that listed among the things you most certianly could not bring on a plane, a hand catapult. I am not British, and was curious if that is what us Yanks refer to as a slingshot, or if it is something entirely different and much more destructive. =)
-Sean

An English catapult (or hand catapult) is an American slingshot, yes.


Dear Mr. Gaiman,There is a description for this contraption which says that it was made by an eccentric millionaire living in Utah. Seeing as you are eccentric, and at least assumably well-to-do, and living in my state, I was wondering if you could make one? And if you do, could you invite me over? I would bring deviled eggs, and curried chicken salad. http://geekologie.com/2007/01/girl_in_human_sling_shot.php
Much love,Rain

I don't have anywhere to set it up that wouldn't send her crashing into a tree, though...

American Gods Blog, Post 86

So, just as everything gets REALLY exciting, and I have a day to finish organising everything for the next 6 weeks, do several interviews including an NPR one and an online chat at excite.com tonight...

...comes the news that this blogger may have to be frozen for a couple of days, as the changeover to the still-nascent neilgaiman.com happens behind the scenes. Keep checking in here, as I'll post as soon as it goes live again (and this page will automatically take you over to its new location).

Also just discovered that the old Avon neverwhere pages are completely lost, which is a pity, as they were lot of fun.

And Powells.com have put up that journal entry that got out of hand -- you'll find me talking about it in the archives, fairly early on. It was me trying to explain the book, and it just sort of grew. it's at http://www.powells.com/features/gaiman.html

American Gods Blog, Post 65

I've spent the last few days doing occasional chunks of interview with a journalist named Janet Kornbluth from USA Today, about the Scifi.com Seeing Ear Theatre production of SNOW, GLASS, APPLES. The article/interview's in USA TODAY today, which means it's at

http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ebrief.htm

(if you're reading this in a week or so, of course, it'll have crept off to some other place in the USA Today archives and you'll have to go and find it yourself.)

And if you don't know what Snow, Glass, Apples is, then you're better off going straight to the scifi.com website and listening to it. (To be honest, every site gives you more information than you need, going into it. I think when Harper do it as a CD, then all they will know is that it's a retelling of an old story..)

And -- as an additional note -- the play of Snow Glass Apples is in two parts, and they've only posted the first part this week... I can't see anywhere on the site where it says when the next bit goes up. Next week? In two weeks time?

The USA TODAY article also gives a link to americangods.com. (We actually spent more time talking about this journal, why I was doing it, what I got out of it, why I was doing it as a blog, all that, than we did about Snow, Glass, Apples. Janet may be doing an article on authors and online journals, so this place may pop up again.)

With American Gods coming out, I was hesitant to do the interview, to be honest, mostly because I remember what it was like to be a journalist. Most of the time, it felt like when I wanted to do an article or an interview, I would approach the editor and the editor would say "Mm. We've already done it/him/her." Particularly irritating when I'd wanted to write an article on Alan Moore or Art Speigelman, to be told that the paper in question couldn't do it because they'd "already done comics this year" -- and "already done comics" would normally mean they'd done an article on the 40th birthday celebrations of Desperate Dan or Korky the Kat, complete with a quote on the character's perennial popularity from a junior director at publisher D.C. Thompsons.

So let us hope that we can still get one of those nice USA Today articles on the book, when the book itself comes out.

American Gods Blog, Post 56

Actually there are two other UK signings on Saturday the 14th of July: Ottakers in Norwich at 11:00am and Waterstones in Canturbury at 7:00 pm. I'll post the details when I get a chance.

Sorry about the silence. I went to Brazil and have had a difficult time getting online. Right now I'm in an office in FNAC, a book and stationary store in the heart of Sao Paolo. There's a noise coming up the stairs like the low susurrus of a horde of vandals on their way to sack a city, or possibly just the crowd at a rock concert, which seems to be the people here to get their books signed. I'm meant to do a reading first, and may perversely do an American Gods reading, or less perversely a Sandman:Dream Hunters reading (in English, not in Portuguese, although the Brazilian edition is the one I'm here for.)

Sore throat, mostly from shuting to be heard at the Rio book fair, where the background decibells were scary, and from continual interviews ever since.

Did an MTV interview today that was enormously fun.

And I have to go as the TV crew are here to interview me (45 minutes late. This is Brazilian Time, and it no longer causes me to turn a hair, although if this were the US I'd be having kittens.)