The US cover of ANANSI BOYS has, beneath the spider's web, a shot of Eros (which I am reliably informed isn't really Eros but the statue of Christian Charity) in Piccadilly Circus on it for no particular reason other than it's a nice stock shot that says urban and, to a lesser extent, London. The day after it came in, I was writing a scene set around the back of Leicester Square, and the scene after it, in which something weird happened, was set at the entry to Leicester Square tube. And it seemed just as easy to have them turn left instead of right, head for Piccadily Cicus tube and have the scene now occur by Eros, thus making it look as if the cover was much more relevant than it was before I wrote that scene. I felt very proud of myself but suspect that you had to be there.
Life's quiet too -- the most glamorous thing I did today was attend a parent-teacher meeting at Maddy's school, the best bit of which was telling the teacher about the Publisher's Weekly praise for her interviewing skills.
(Which reminds me -- I've talked to my agent and to Harper Collins, and we're going to see what we can do to make the various books available through audible.com and through iTunes internationally. I'll announce something here as soon as it's sorted. Harper are also looking at bringing out AMERICAN GODS as an MP3 CD, later in the year.)
Proofread some MirrorMask photo captions this morning. ("No, it's not 'Helena surrounded by sphinx'. The plural of sphinx is either sphinxes or sphinges, and we're using sphinxes because nobody would know what 'surrounded by sphinges' meant." First time I've ever said "sphinges" aloud.)
I liked this MirrorMask review... Think "Alice in Wonderland" meets "Time Bandits" on an upside down street in a parallel universe which is I think more or less what Dave and I were aiming for.
If you didn't read the IGN Filmforce interview with Dave Mckean (http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/585/585797p1.html) you should probably read it before you read the one they just posted with me (http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/586/586421p1.html), as they were done back to back and Dave went first.
Several more queries about the Locus photo, some asking more questions about the mysterious bleeding lips, one asking about why I had green stubble and one asking about the strange hair products I must be using. Someone also wanted to know about whether you get a stylist for a Locus photo shoot. As far as I recall the photos were taken immediately after the interview, by photographer Beth Gwinn, in the middle of the World SF Convention, with me sitting on the floor in Locus publisher Charles Brown's hotel room, and entire the extent of stylist and grooming (and hair products) was my trying and failing to find a comb. Trust me, the actual magazine photo is much duller than the one that made it on line. (The Locus people are very happy, though.)
I've tried to cut down on the things I put up soliciting help for things, mostly because each one I put up prompts a flood of other people who are sure that I ought to post something for them. But this one's for Poppy.
Neil --
Doubtless you get millions of requests like this, but since the dog in question is a neighbor of yours, I wondered if you might consider reposting this in your journal:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/prime_liquor/27798.html
Hope this finds you well and mostly book-recovered. I'm just getting started on my new one, and the first frankly shocking thing I never saw coming has already happened.
Love,
PZB
Website: http://www.poppyzbrite.com
Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/docbrite/
There. I hope the dog finds a home.
Hey Neil, I had a question for you about Fiddler's Green. I'm looking to do a master's degree study on The Sandman and its fan culture and I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for the convention's site (I seemed to have misplaced the link). Do you know if it's going to be an annual event? Or if there will be any other places where Sandman fans will congregate in numbers in the next year or two?Thanks,Beau RosselPrince George, BC Canada
The site is http://www.fiddlersgreencon.org/ although you'll probably get a lot more information from http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fgcon (which is http://www.livejournal.com/community/fgcon/). There was also a large, vocal, and extremely friendly contingent from the Neilgaiman.com bulletin board at http://neilgaimanboard.com/eve/ubb.x.
I think that it was just that once, mostly because of the herculean efforts to put it on from the committee, many of whom had to forget about things like having lives in order to make Fiddler's Green happen. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me at all if lots of the people who met at Fiddler's Green didn't try and meet up again on their own steam. Ask them.
(Incidentally, I just learned that over 9,000 people are subscribed to the livejournal feed of this blog (http://www.livejournal.com/users/officialgaiman/). Blink. Blink. Blink. It says so at http://www.livejournal.com/syn/list.bml?page=1.) (Waves nervously at 9,368 people.)
...
On the birthday of this blog, I thought I'd remind people of one of the odder things it's spawned: the ineffable Johnny Theremin site -- there are now at least two complete Johnny Theremin stories up for you to read, and many incomplete variants, including the first three pages of a comic. http://www.johnnytheremin.net/news.html will give you news. The front page is http://www.johnnytheremin.net/index2.html which looks very Christmassy, and which I expect theremin webboss Laurie will probably give a Valentine's day theme to, unless she doesn't bother with it and goes straight to Easter or Guy Fawkes.