Mysteries and evil buttons

I should be writing and not blogging, so I will put up one panel of pencilled Andy Kubert art from the first part of the Batman two parter I'm doing, and hope nobody tells me to put it down again...

Dear Mr Gaiman
The black Coraline keys around, is it true that if you have one you can participate in a scavenger hunt? or are they just something cool you can collect?

I don't know. I'll ask. I suspect the "scavenger hunt" thing may have been made up by someone selling them on eBay, though, as no-one has mentioned it to me. The impression I get is that they are simply mysterious keys that sometimes appear on walls. Yup, I checked. The keys are just keys. No competition there.

There will, however, be a limited edition of 1000 pairs of Coraline Nike Dunks, winnable from watching the film and through the website, though, and they will look like this, with black buttons and stitching and such...



The fake Coraline box Other Mother doll was taken down from eBay, and the person selling it seems to have vanished too -- seeing that he had a few "he took my money and never sent me anything" complaints on eBay, I do not think he's a great loss to the world of online retailing, and will probably be back there soon enough under another name.

I don't mind people making their own dolls. I just mind when they do it to try and screw other people. I liked this one...

Hi Mr. Gaiman-

Huge fan of Coraline here. I didn't get a mystery box, unfortunately. But, I didn't want to miss out on the excitement, so I created my own handmade fully-articulated Coraline doll.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t163/waistworks/doll2.jpg

Lovingly hand-made with kitchen gloves for the raincoat and boots, do-rag for the skirt, beenie baby for the pink top, knit sock for the stockings, twist-ties for the boot bows, blue paper for the hair, lots of super glue and of course, buttons for the eyes and raincoat.

Thought I'd share. Happy New Year!

Philip

...although mysteriously, according to the Evil Buttons blog, which seems to be keeping track of all things Coraline (so I don't have to) this doll seems to have also been offered for sale by the person selling the Other Mother doll, not as something recently made but claiming it "...comes as a trip swag from someone who went to Siggraph this past Dec."

Oh, such mysteries.

Where is the teacher's guide to Coraline that I keep reading about? I can't find it anywhere...I plan on having my students (9-10 year olds) read the book in Lit Circles and then see the movie. Will it be rated PG or PG-13? We have restrictions in our district. Also, if I order copies of the books for the kids do I want the regular version or the movie tie-in version? Thank you for the reply...just trying to prepared for the February release.
Vickie Weiss

I went and asked, and the Coraline teachers' guide is at http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/HarperChildrens/Teachers/BookDetail.aspx?isbn13=9780380977789&BDMode=7

I also discovered this widget:

...

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/67364-popmatters-best-of-books-2008-fiction is a terrific Best of the Year round up, and what the reviewer said about The Graveyard Book made me happy.

The Weird Tales 20th Anniversary rereading of Sandman begins at http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2009/01/05/recurring-dream-an-anniversary-re-reading-of-neil-gaimans-the-sandman/
and http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2009/01/05/recurring-dream-the-sandman-vol-i-—-preludes-nocturnes/

Hi Neil!

I was wondering what fountain pens you're using in this picture (I didn't take it--just stumbled across it).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrho/2896616160/in/photostream/

I am guessing that it is a Namiki Falcon and a Lamy Accent on the table.

It's seriously been plaguing me. Thanks a lot!!!

Spot on. For some reason, most of my pens skipped badly on The Graveyard Book, but the Namiki Falcons worked. That one held up valiantly and then the nib died after a heavy bout of signing in Chicago, and I never really replaced it.

...

Oh, all right. Since you asked. Or you would have. Another four panels of Andy Kubert's pencils...

Labels: Coraline keys, eBay, Killing Batman - it's like killing Amanda Palmer, stranger than Coraline Boxes are Coraline not-boxes, the Coraline teachers' guide, why yes that is a different utility belt

it was just meant to be some snow photos but i kept adding to it...

A handful of photos from the last two days. The first two were taken while it was snowing, the others the next day, after the snow had stopped. They tend to have a dog in them, because if I'm walking anywhere, he's off ahead, scouting for danger and potential rabbits.

 

 

 

 

 

...

Hi!

Have you seen/heard about the Coraline keys yet? I was on my way to work yesterday and walked past a boarded up building that is usually covered by posters and pretty wonderful street art.

Yesterday it was covered with keys. I looked closer and realized that the tops of they keys were buttons, and grabbed one because they were lovely looking. They were also made of metal, and had a good heft. Once I realized that they were for Coraline, I grabbed a BUNCH (there were literally at LEAST a hundred).

I can send along a picture if you like.

Just wanted to let you know! (I'm in Chicago, by the way). I also have a couple to customers at the bookshop where I work, and was especially happy to give one to the couple who bought a copy of Coraline. That was nifty.

-Lauren

So I wrote back and said, No, this was a new one on me, and yes, I'd love to see pictures.

Hi again!

Here are links to the last few keys left on the wall. Also, a photobooth picture so you can see the key up close (albeit backwards).

http://flickr.com/photos/bibliogrrl/3122751843/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/bibliogrrl/3122756337/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/bibliogrrl/3123571466/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/bibliogrrl/3123563662/in/photostream/

Hope you're not buried in too much snow up there - we keep getting waves of it here.

Thank you again for everything you do. You are one of my favorite authors to handsell at the shop where I work (and have been for years) - I'm always trying to convert new people.

Happy holidaze!

-Lauren Vega
bibliogrrl.livejournal.com

Thank you Lauren.

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At the end of the Coraline screening, two code words turned up on the screen. I learned from http://www.sneakerfiles.com/?s=coraline&x=0&y=0 that they have to do with a limited edition of a thousand pairs of Coraline sneakers, that you win, rather than buy.

...

Dear Neil

if I click on your name in Amazon.com, I get one set of bestselling books. If I type your name and search for you I get a completely different set of bestselling books.  Why is this?

Joe

That's a bit mad, I thought. So I tried it. Clicked on my name as the author of The Graveyard Book, and got this set of books (with Absolute Sandmans 3 and 4 in the top ten), then tried typing in my name,  which gave me a whole Amazon Store of me, with no Absolute Sandmans to be seen anywhere, and a completely different bestselling order.

As to why is this... I have no idea. With luck, someone at Amazon is reading this and will write and enlighten us all.

...

Jouni Koponen's amazing prints arrived. I thought about it, and decided that I'd have enough to send out as New Year gifts, and, given that a lot of people were about to be disappointed, I could forego the copies that would go into my basement (or possibly attic) to be pulled out in the years to come as gifts to charities who need things to be auctioned. So I've sent 250 of the Jouni prints to Cat... (she blogs it at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/, 

and you can order them at http://www.neverwear.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=27)

Meanwhile, my Xmas card from Jouni arrived. And he's put it up on his blog...

http://jounikoponen.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-x-mas-2008.html

...

When things get quiet I'll sign things. (I ought to do it while I'm on the phone. Sometimes I do.)  http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/472660.html

is the saga of one man's autographing Odyssey.

Over on the FPI blog, I am interviewed and eat lunch. 

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=10826

Also you get a nice link to Todd Klein's wonderful prints. Todd has now sold the last of the first printing of the print we did together, and is on to the second printing. He's selling them signed (by me and by Alan Moore and Alex Ross respectively) for $20 each. Details at http://kleinletters.com/BuyStuffTop.html

...

Hi, I was sort of wondering about your thoughts of 'literary fiction' and 'genre fiction' and the mixes of both. I would classify your work as something of a mix, leaning towards the literary side.

This has actually been something of concern to me. I'm writing stories and I'm working on a novel (that hopefully I'll complete) and I've sort of been thinking about that a lot lately, about how such a work as mine would be received and looked at critically and all those sorts of things.

Thanks.

I don't worry about it. I don't think about it. It's not something I feel I need to bother with. People put the books where they want to put them, but the books don't change. As long as I have covers that make the books like they might be pleasant reading experiences, as long as people mostly find out about them from other people who liked them rather than being told they needed to read them as a chore, I'm happy. (I'm easily satisfied.)

From where I stand, worrying about how something you are writing is going to be received critically while you're writing it is a whole lot of wasted worrying: there's nothing you can do about it anyway. Why not worry about making what you're writing the best thing that it can be, which is something you can do something about?

Labels: amazon mysteries, Coraline keys, Dog, posters and prints, signing sheets of paper, snow, worrying