Lisa Snellings has started doing the overhaul of my statue, and is documenting it over at http://slaughterhousestudios.blogspot.com/. I sort of expected a dust-off and a couple of licks of paint and glueing the frog's arm together, and instead I'm apparently getting a full upgrade to Statue 2.0. (I hope she sticks some film up of it moving.)
Meanwhile, Michael Zulli's four foot high painting of Morpheus nears completion at http://www.michaelzulli.com/progress.htm
Good news for Brazilians...
Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I'm a longtime fan and I have been reading you blog for some time now. Never quite got to write to you, since I didn't had much to say. Now I at least have some news, I hope no one has emailed it already ^_^.
Brazilian publisher Conrad is promising a deluxe reprint of Sandman for this year, starting May. It'll be a hardcover, special paper, fully colored version (wich will surely mean costly). The plan is to release the first TPB between May 12th and 22th, at the "Bienal do Livro" (humm... Book fair? Book Con? You pick, it's a big book-related event, all I can say) in Rio de Janeiro.
I find this amazing good news to hear, since Sandman has been fully published only once in Brazil, by Globo Publishing, and it was a quite shabby print, besides being impossible to track down all editions after all this time (it was published while the series was still running, I don't really recall the exact dates). Also, a second publisher, Brainstore, started reprinting the series, but the fact that the publisher broke eventually proved to be a problem to those of us that were collecting the TPBs.
More information can be found (in portuguese) at:
http://www.omelete.com.br/quadrinhos/news/base_para_news.asp?artigo=12387
Oh, I didn't really translated the link, just gave a general idea. I don't believe the guys at Omelete's would be very pleased if I translated their news without permission.
Best luck with all your books/scripts/movies!
Leticia Lopes, from Pelotas - Brazil
I was quite fond of the Globo reprints -- it was the very first translation of Sandman anywhere, which meant I'd look at them and marvel that all these characters I'd invented were speaking Portuguese. Also marvel over the lesson in monetary inflation I was getting, as the price of the comic went up from issue to issue, sometimes doubling from month to month. Globo also didn't have back cover ads, so they'd take a tiny bit of a Dave McKean cover and blow it up for the back cover so it was huge. And I still have a Brazilian "Doll's House" poster over the bath. Anyway, I'm delighted they'll be back in print in Brazil again.
just a quick question: is that true that you�re coming to brasil in august????ada
I don't think so. No-one's asked, as far as I know, and I think the travel plans for this year are pretty much mapped out.
Hi Neil,
I am an aspiring writer. I find your writing advice to be extremely helpful, and I have two questions for you if you have time:
1) Once you've submitted a first draft to your publishers, how many rewrites do you go through with your editor?
2) I am learning to write more concisely. I feel that if I can find the one perfect word, instead of relying on a wordier description, my writing becomes not only more graceful but also more potent. I have always admired this aspect of your writing. Did writing comics help hone this skill, given the space restrictions?
And now a cheeky question - are you really going to do an Anansi Boys signing in England? Where will the first notice be put up? (sorry, two cheeky questions, but I'd like to find out about the tickets before they are sold out)
Cheers,
Elese the questionmonger
Let's see. It depends on what it is -- by the time it goes to the publisher there's normally one round with an editor and then it's done. Sometimes it's a big round, and sometimes it's just a few notes and a tidy. (With the recent MirrorMask novella, it was trying to find US versions of some colloquial British words, of which "punters" turned out to be the hardest to translate.)
And I think that journalism really taught me the strict word-count economies that carried over into comics and then into prose. If you've only got 400 words and you hand in a 500 word article, 100 words will go, like it or not. So you try to deploy each word as best you can.
From what I understand currently, although ANANSI BOYS will be coming out in the UK at the same time it comes out in the US (Sept 20th 2005, lord willing and the creek don't rise) I'll be doing the UK signing tour and promotion in November. I have to talk to Hodder Headline and find out what kind of events we'll be doing for it, but I promise I'll announce them here the moment I know, which should give you some kind of headstart.
...
My assistant, the Fabulous Lorraine, is hopping around the house with a glazed and terrified sort of look on her face, having discovered that her first public gig with her new bandmate Malena is going to at a benefit hosted by Garrison Keillor, who also wants to join in with them on a song. I think it's hilarious.