Rest easy
Dozens of people offering helpful suggestions for me and Roger to link up our computers in dozens of configurations and with every add-on component known to man -- I should probably clarify and point out that it's not actually a problem: we're both on wireless, and e-mailing files is as quick a way to get files across the room as anything else (and a damn sight faster than bluetoothing, in truth). So do not worry, and thanks to all.
Mush! Mush!
Roger Avary and I are writing the new draft of Beowulf. Getting computers to communicate is always interesting -- I can send files to his powerbook via bluetooth but he has to email them back to me, which seems vaguely silly when we're sitting across the table from each other. ("How did we get files back and forth back in 1998, when we did the first draft?" asked Roger, puzzled, the other day. "There were these things called floppy disks," I reminded him. "Oh yes," he said.)
It's going really well -- the writing was a bit slow and odd to begin with, but a couple of days ago it started to work: we did a scene that could only have been written by both of us, an opening that was different and (I think) better than anything we could have done on our own. (And the fortune cookie that I opened immediately after said "Good to begin well, better to end well." Which is very wise.)
Every now and again Robert Zemeckis phones us and asks how it's going, and we tell him, then he says, "Mush! Mush!" whereupon Roger and I put our heads down and go back to hauling this movie across the frozen tundra...
...
Several people wrote from Australia to tell me I should have taken the baggage-handler-being-fired-for-putting-on-the-camel-head news story more seriously as it may be the key to saving a woman's life (news story here). The woman is facing the death sentence for smuggling drugs that may have been placed in her bags by rogue baggage handlers -- on his blog Jonathan Strahan even suggests that it was the same baggage handler...
Which means that it's probably more than my job's worth to point to the latest news on Cane Toads.
It's going really well -- the writing was a bit slow and odd to begin with, but a couple of days ago it started to work: we did a scene that could only have been written by both of us, an opening that was different and (I think) better than anything we could have done on our own. (And the fortune cookie that I opened immediately after said "Good to begin well, better to end well." Which is very wise.)
Every now and again Robert Zemeckis phones us and asks how it's going, and we tell him, then he says, "Mush! Mush!" whereupon Roger and I put our heads down and go back to hauling this movie across the frozen tundra...
...
Several people wrote from Australia to tell me I should have taken the baggage-handler-being-fired-for-putting-on-the-camel-head news story more seriously as it may be the key to saving a woman's life (news story here). The woman is facing the death sentence for smuggling drugs that may have been placed in her bags by rogue baggage handlers -- on his blog Jonathan Strahan even suggests that it was the same baggage handler...
Which means that it's probably more than my job's worth to point to the latest news on Cane Toads.
Small Camel Head thought
Has there ever been a more perfect news story than this?
http://www.boston.com/news/world/australia/articles/2005/04/08/handler_punished_for_donning_camel_costume/
http://www.boston.com/news/world/australia/articles/2005/04/08/handler_punished_for_donning_camel_costume/
That's All He Wrote.
Small proud family thing -- Mike's been accepted to Brown for his computer science grad school stuff. (So it's only another six years until it's "Dr. Gaiman", I suppose. How odd and nice.)
(And Holly told me to let the world know that she will be one of the people showing visitors around at Bryn Mawr this year, walking backwards, explaining the college traditions and telling them how many books are in the library. So if you're thinking of getting a tour of Bryn Mawr, you may get Holly.)
Maddy, looking over my shoulder as I type, just said "Ohh -- ooh. Say something about MEEE." So I shall: Maddy just flew out to the place I'm working with Roger, and we get the weekend together. Which makes me very happy and unstressed, and she seems to be enjoying it as well. She is also now eating a bagel and wearing Capri pants but not in that order. ("Yay!" she just said, still looking over my shoulder, "MY paragraph is longer than Holly's! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!" I am raising a breed of demons.)
And a thank you to the people at Final Draft -- some months ago Final Draft went down and took a chunk of Death with it At the time I sighed, grumbled, and did the work again. Yesterday morning the computer crashed and when I loaded up Final Draft most of the previous day's work had vanished. I called Roger Avary, who was on his way over, and in a few minutes I had people from Final Draft talking me through where the backup autosaved files are kept. And as Roger came through the door I had all the lost work back up on screen. Which made me wish I'd done that for the Death stuff last year, and reminded me how very good and cool the people who make Final Draft are.
Hi Neil,there is a book in the latest issue of the Previews catalogue that�s called "Mirror Mask" scriptbook. Is this the "Mirror Mask" graphic novella you mentioned on your blog or something different ? Chris
There are three MirrorMask books. These are:
1) The MirrorMask Scriptbook. This comes out on May 1st from Morrow -- it's a huge book, with the script, all the deleted scenes, all of Dave's storyboards (which is about 1700 drawings), a colour still section, forewords, afterwords, all the e-mails between me and Dave that shaped the story, song lyrics and all of that sort of stuff. It's laid out really interestingly -- the interaction of the script and the storyboards turn it into a sort of weird new kind of comic. It comes out in the UK from Hodder Headline, and the cover looks rather like this:
2) The MirrorMask Graphic Novella/Picturebook. This comes out from HarperChildrens in September, when the film comes out. It's the story told as a story, from the point of view of Helena (our heroine) with lots of new illustrations from Dave and film stills as well. It'll be the same kind of size and shape as WOLVES IN THE WALLS, although with more words. It's the book for the children's section of the bookshop, is about 80 pages long, and comes out in the UK from Bloomsbury.
3) The Alchemy of MirrorMask (so titled because it was felt that The Magic of MirrorMask sounded too much like a Disney book), out from Harper Design in September, which will be a huge and beautiful book and will contain art. Lots of art -- sketches and paintings and computer models and how they did it and all sorts of stuff. This is the book for people who want to know how Dave did it, or just want to see lovely Dave stuff in colour.
Hi Neil,
Just a short one, since I'm also from The Netherlands, and I've bought both the Neverwhere DVD and "A Short Film About John Bolton" at Amazon.com.
While Neverwhere is a Region Zero DVD, "A Short Film About John Bolton" is Region One, a problem which is easily solved if you don't mind watching the DVD on your computer and buying a DVD-region-free program. Installing such a program does involve a certain risk though; The first program we tried kind of messed up our computer (not only Media Player), but the second one works just fine (and can be tried out and bought at http://www.dvdidle.com/dvd-region-free.htm). I hope this helps.
(Love your work, etc.)
Sincerely,
Marijke Hobo
I use DVDidle myself to ensure my notebook exists in a region-free world, and it's a terrific program. (In addition, most computers allow you to change your DVD region setting a certain number of times before locking down.) Sorry about misleading anyone -- I'm sure that New Video told me that John Bolton was going to be Region Zero, but perhaps it didn't turn out that way.
"(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.)"Does that ever bother you as a writer? I mean, it's one thing to translate entire languages, but the words you used are the words you used. Americans can Google a word like "punters" if they're just that confused, can't they? I think most of us would rather read what you'd originally written than what you and the editor came up with as an Americanized compromise... Your language should only be as Americanized as you are. ;)--jlr
Actually, I'd prefer that the language is as American as the book is -- I was very pleased when the copy editor caught the occasional "car park" that had crept into American Gods and corrected it to "parking lot".
In the MirrorMask script (and indeed, in the film) the word "punters" is used, and it's pretty obvious what it means from context, but I don't have a problem with the American editors asking me if there's a word that would work better for kids (who aren't going to find it in their dictionaries). The only request from the US I'm pondering right now is changing Helena's "caravan" to "trailer", only because in my head a trailer is so much bigger...
Mostly, I want to communicate. And I'm very used to negotiating words in the editing process -- take a look at http://www.neilgaiman.com/archive/2001_03_01_archive.asp where I'm copy-editing American Gods and learning that hessian and burlap are the same thing in the US and two different things in the UK, and so on...
in the end of american gods, what does the line:"That�s all she wrote" means? who or what is shadow talking about? thank you
It's a saying that, if I remember correctly, dates back to World War Two, and it means there isn't any more. The way I heard it, it was the tagline for a cartoon, showing a soldier holding a letter and saying to his friends "It says, Dear John... and that's all she wrote." Let's see -- this is a google moment, isn't it?
Look at http://www.word-detective.com/100699.html (about half way down) and http://www.word-detective.com/090602.html.
...
Right. Maddy time. Then work.
(And Holly told me to let the world know that she will be one of the people showing visitors around at Bryn Mawr this year, walking backwards, explaining the college traditions and telling them how many books are in the library. So if you're thinking of getting a tour of Bryn Mawr, you may get Holly.)
Maddy, looking over my shoulder as I type, just said "Ohh -- ooh. Say something about MEEE." So I shall: Maddy just flew out to the place I'm working with Roger, and we get the weekend together. Which makes me very happy and unstressed, and she seems to be enjoying it as well. She is also now eating a bagel and wearing Capri pants but not in that order. ("Yay!" she just said, still looking over my shoulder, "MY paragraph is longer than Holly's! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!" I am raising a breed of demons.)
And a thank you to the people at Final Draft -- some months ago Final Draft went down and took a chunk of Death with it At the time I sighed, grumbled, and did the work again. Yesterday morning the computer crashed and when I loaded up Final Draft most of the previous day's work had vanished. I called Roger Avary, who was on his way over, and in a few minutes I had people from Final Draft talking me through where the backup autosaved files are kept. And as Roger came through the door I had all the lost work back up on screen. Which made me wish I'd done that for the Death stuff last year, and reminded me how very good and cool the people who make Final Draft are.
Hi Neil,there is a book in the latest issue of the Previews catalogue that�s called "Mirror Mask" scriptbook. Is this the "Mirror Mask" graphic novella you mentioned on your blog or something different ? Chris
There are three MirrorMask books. These are:
1) The MirrorMask Scriptbook. This comes out on May 1st from Morrow -- it's a huge book, with the script, all the deleted scenes, all of Dave's storyboards (which is about 1700 drawings), a colour still section, forewords, afterwords, all the e-mails between me and Dave that shaped the story, song lyrics and all of that sort of stuff. It's laid out really interestingly -- the interaction of the script and the storyboards turn it into a sort of weird new kind of comic. It comes out in the UK from Hodder Headline, and the cover looks rather like this:
2) The MirrorMask Graphic Novella/Picturebook. This comes out from HarperChildrens in September, when the film comes out. It's the story told as a story, from the point of view of Helena (our heroine) with lots of new illustrations from Dave and film stills as well. It'll be the same kind of size and shape as WOLVES IN THE WALLS, although with more words. It's the book for the children's section of the bookshop, is about 80 pages long, and comes out in the UK from Bloomsbury.
3) The Alchemy of MirrorMask (so titled because it was felt that The Magic of MirrorMask sounded too much like a Disney book), out from Harper Design in September, which will be a huge and beautiful book and will contain art. Lots of art -- sketches and paintings and computer models and how they did it and all sorts of stuff. This is the book for people who want to know how Dave did it, or just want to see lovely Dave stuff in colour.
Hi Neil,
Just a short one, since I'm also from The Netherlands, and I've bought both the Neverwhere DVD and "A Short Film About John Bolton" at Amazon.com.
While Neverwhere is a Region Zero DVD, "A Short Film About John Bolton" is Region One, a problem which is easily solved if you don't mind watching the DVD on your computer and buying a DVD-region-free program. Installing such a program does involve a certain risk though; The first program we tried kind of messed up our computer (not only Media Player), but the second one works just fine (and can be tried out and bought at http://www.dvdidle.com/dvd-region-free.htm). I hope this helps.
(Love your work, etc.)
Sincerely,
Marijke Hobo
I use DVDidle myself to ensure my notebook exists in a region-free world, and it's a terrific program. (In addition, most computers allow you to change your DVD region setting a certain number of times before locking down.) Sorry about misleading anyone -- I'm sure that New Video told me that John Bolton was going to be Region Zero, but perhaps it didn't turn out that way.
"(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.)"Does that ever bother you as a writer? I mean, it's one thing to translate entire languages, but the words you used are the words you used. Americans can Google a word like "punters" if they're just that confused, can't they? I think most of us would rather read what you'd originally written than what you and the editor came up with as an Americanized compromise... Your language should only be as Americanized as you are. ;)--jlr
Actually, I'd prefer that the language is as American as the book is -- I was very pleased when the copy editor caught the occasional "car park" that had crept into American Gods and corrected it to "parking lot".
In the MirrorMask script (and indeed, in the film) the word "punters" is used, and it's pretty obvious what it means from context, but I don't have a problem with the American editors asking me if there's a word that would work better for kids (who aren't going to find it in their dictionaries). The only request from the US I'm pondering right now is changing Helena's "caravan" to "trailer", only because in my head a trailer is so much bigger...
Mostly, I want to communicate. And I'm very used to negotiating words in the editing process -- take a look at http://www.neilgaiman.com/archive/2001_03_01_archive.asp where I'm copy-editing American Gods and learning that hessian and burlap are the same thing in the US and two different things in the UK, and so on...
in the end of american gods, what does the line:"That�s all she wrote" means? who or what is shadow talking about? thank you
It's a saying that, if I remember correctly, dates back to World War Two, and it means there isn't any more. The way I heard it, it was the tagline for a cartoon, showing a soldier holding a letter and saying to his friends "It says, Dear John... and that's all she wrote." Let's see -- this is a google moment, isn't it?
Look at http://www.word-detective.com/100699.html (about half way down) and http://www.word-detective.com/090602.html.
...
Right. Maddy time. Then work.
...and nail 'em to the wall...
Currently trying to finish the very last Anansi Boys bits while also working with Roger Avary on our Beowulf revision (most of which is about taking what we wrote as a live action movie and re-imagining it as a motion-capture/animated thing). Roger discovered that I have a hitherto undiscovered aptitude for writing rugby song lyrics, so whenever there's an obscene mead-hall drinking song to be written, I get to do it. Yesterday was a song about Hrothgar when young, called "Nail 'em to the Wall".
Nothing much else is happening -- I'm getting further and further behind on emails and suchlike. Dave McKean just finished the MirrorMask "graphic novella" art and design.
I just drew three different seven-legged spiders and fedexed them to my editor at Harper Collins, who will, I hope, like one of them. They want to use a drawing by me as part of the advance stuff, and there's a very brave and noble seven-legged spider in Anansi Boys (who starts out as clay, rather like Eblis O'Shaughnessy in Sandman did) so I decided to draw it. I hope they like the drawings (I get much more nervous about drawing than I do about writing).
Two quick things: First, did you use "rube" instead of "punter" for the Mirrormask book? It's a bit ruder, implying a lack of culture or a backwoods origin, but I've known carnies who used "rubes" to describe the customers.Second, you might want to consider capitalizing Creek, since the original phrase refers to the fear that the Creek Nation might rise in battle and not that a small stream might flood. http://ngeorgia.com/letters/03dec.htmlThe usual thanks and fannish gwee,Peg.
I couldn't really use rubes or marks instead of punters, mostly because they're such US specific slang (and they sort of imply a "them and us" relationship that "punters" doesn't, not really), and of course, Helena isn't American. I'll do the last tidy on the text in a few minutes and I think I'm probably just going to keep "punters" as it is.
Learning that the Creek in question were the Indian nation and not a stream was a wonderful thing. Thanks.
Hi Neily:
(You've answered a question from me earlier, which in my book offically allows me the privledge of giving you a nickname) I need your help! I't's disastrous, It's terrible! Only you can help!
I reaaaaaally want to read the Hill House edition of "American Gods," but alas, I must eat. While gazing longingly at the Hill House site, I noticed that the book comes with a "Reader's Edition." A glimmer of hope! I immediately contacted them to find out if i could purchase just the Reader's Edition, and they said no. Terrible! These folks need to remember when they were struggling twenty-somethings, lacking the funds to buy $200 novels.
What is a poor girl to do if she wants to read those extra 12,000 words, barring going hungry or taking an unsavory job dancing on tabletops?
pre-emptive thanks,
cynthia silvestri (again)
www.pie-eyeddesign.com
Neily? (Raises eyebrow. Thinks. Raises other eyebrow.)
Er. If you're after the Reader's edition some of the bookdealers who bought copies of the HillHouse edition to re-sell have split them up (which on the one hand is a bit dodgy, as they got the Reader's Copies for free, and on the other hand is something that they can obviously do as booksellers to earn an honest profit). Best bet is to check the websites for online bookselling -- www.bookfinder.com, www.abebooks.com and so on.
Simply put, I would like to include this site in my links section on my website. I run an English Language Academy in Spain and would like to direct users to something more entertaining and less didactic than what they are used to.Is it possible? Thankyou. John Parker
Of course.
Dear Neil,I've just finished reading Neverwhere, and I enjoyed it enormously. A few of my friends told me that if I liked the book, I also had to watch the BBC series. And thus I went in search of the DVD. Which I found at Amazon.co.uk. And then it turned out they only had the Neverwhere DVD available in region code 1 (US & Canada). Since I live in the Netherlands, I need a region code 2 DVD. I've browsed the net and every online DVD shop I know (including the BBC shop) in search of the region code 2 DVD, but unfortunately, I'm beginning to suspect it was never released as such. I did find one used copy of the Neverwhere series on video at Amazon.de, but honestly, I'd much rather have the series on a brand new DVD.And thus my question to you: has the Neverwhere series ever been released as a region code 2 DVD? If not, are there any plans of releasing it as a region code 2 in the near future? I surely hope so, because I'm getting rather frustrated about this whole ordeal. Thanks for your time!Best regards,Helenr.
This is definitely one for the next round of Frequently Asked Questions: whatever it says on the Amazon.com site, the US DVD of Neverwhere (and the DVD of "A Short Film About John Bolton") are both Region Zero. As far as I know, it plays everywhere.
Heya Neil,Michael Zulli's website seems only to have a contact for the webmaster, which is apparently not the best way to get a question to Mr. Zulli, so I was wondering if you could find out for us if he's planning on making the Last Morpheus painting available as a print or poster for the thousands of people who will not be lucky enough to hang the original masterpiece in their parlours.Thanks,Shawn McBee
I doubt it -- Morpheus belongs to DC Comics, who would not look kindly on Michael selling prints or posters. (And the next question is Well, Why Don't They Do It? I'll certainly suggest it to the powers that be.) There's a fun interview with Michael Zulli up at http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/features/michaelzulli/default.asp
And finally, I need to find Graham Linehan's e-mail address. I know I have it somewhere, and he badly needs to know that Father Dougal Maguire of Craggy Island is currently 1,000 to 1 to be Pope. People have done things with worse odds.
Nothing much else is happening -- I'm getting further and further behind on emails and suchlike. Dave McKean just finished the MirrorMask "graphic novella" art and design.
I just drew three different seven-legged spiders and fedexed them to my editor at Harper Collins, who will, I hope, like one of them. They want to use a drawing by me as part of the advance stuff, and there's a very brave and noble seven-legged spider in Anansi Boys (who starts out as clay, rather like Eblis O'Shaughnessy in Sandman did) so I decided to draw it. I hope they like the drawings (I get much more nervous about drawing than I do about writing).
Two quick things: First, did you use "rube" instead of "punter" for the Mirrormask book? It's a bit ruder, implying a lack of culture or a backwoods origin, but I've known carnies who used "rubes" to describe the customers.Second, you might want to consider capitalizing Creek, since the original phrase refers to the fear that the Creek Nation might rise in battle and not that a small stream might flood. http://ngeorgia.com/letters/03dec.htmlThe usual thanks and fannish gwee,Peg.
I couldn't really use rubes or marks instead of punters, mostly because they're such US specific slang (and they sort of imply a "them and us" relationship that "punters" doesn't, not really), and of course, Helena isn't American. I'll do the last tidy on the text in a few minutes and I think I'm probably just going to keep "punters" as it is.
Learning that the Creek in question were the Indian nation and not a stream was a wonderful thing. Thanks.
Hi Neily:
(You've answered a question from me earlier, which in my book offically allows me the privledge of giving you a nickname) I need your help! I't's disastrous, It's terrible! Only you can help!
I reaaaaaally want to read the Hill House edition of "American Gods," but alas, I must eat. While gazing longingly at the Hill House site, I noticed that the book comes with a "Reader's Edition." A glimmer of hope! I immediately contacted them to find out if i could purchase just the Reader's Edition, and they said no. Terrible! These folks need to remember when they were struggling twenty-somethings, lacking the funds to buy $200 novels.
What is a poor girl to do if she wants to read those extra 12,000 words, barring going hungry or taking an unsavory job dancing on tabletops?
pre-emptive thanks,
cynthia silvestri (again)
www.pie-eyeddesign.com
Neily? (Raises eyebrow. Thinks. Raises other eyebrow.)
Er. If you're after the Reader's edition some of the bookdealers who bought copies of the HillHouse edition to re-sell have split them up (which on the one hand is a bit dodgy, as they got the Reader's Copies for free, and on the other hand is something that they can obviously do as booksellers to earn an honest profit). Best bet is to check the websites for online bookselling -- www.bookfinder.com, www.abebooks.com and so on.
Simply put, I would like to include this site in my links section on my website. I run an English Language Academy in Spain and would like to direct users to something more entertaining and less didactic than what they are used to.Is it possible? Thankyou. John Parker
Of course.
Dear Neil,I've just finished reading Neverwhere, and I enjoyed it enormously. A few of my friends told me that if I liked the book, I also had to watch the BBC series. And thus I went in search of the DVD. Which I found at Amazon.co.uk. And then it turned out they only had the Neverwhere DVD available in region code 1 (US & Canada). Since I live in the Netherlands, I need a region code 2 DVD. I've browsed the net and every online DVD shop I know (including the BBC shop) in search of the region code 2 DVD, but unfortunately, I'm beginning to suspect it was never released as such. I did find one used copy of the Neverwhere series on video at Amazon.de, but honestly, I'd much rather have the series on a brand new DVD.And thus my question to you: has the Neverwhere series ever been released as a region code 2 DVD? If not, are there any plans of releasing it as a region code 2 in the near future? I surely hope so, because I'm getting rather frustrated about this whole ordeal. Thanks for your time!Best regards,Helenr.
This is definitely one for the next round of Frequently Asked Questions: whatever it says on the Amazon.com site, the US DVD of Neverwhere (and the DVD of "A Short Film About John Bolton") are both Region Zero. As far as I know, it plays everywhere.
Heya Neil,Michael Zulli's website seems only to have a contact for the webmaster, which is apparently not the best way to get a question to Mr. Zulli, so I was wondering if you could find out for us if he's planning on making the Last Morpheus painting available as a print or poster for the thousands of people who will not be lucky enough to hang the original masterpiece in their parlours.Thanks,Shawn McBee
I doubt it -- Morpheus belongs to DC Comics, who would not look kindly on Michael selling prints or posters. (And the next question is Well, Why Don't They Do It? I'll certainly suggest it to the powers that be.) There's a fun interview with Michael Zulli up at http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/features/michaelzulli/default.asp
And finally, I need to find Graham Linehan's e-mail address. I know I have it somewhere, and he badly needs to know that Father Dougal Maguire of Craggy Island is currently 1,000 to 1 to be Pope. People have done things with worse odds.
Be careful what you wish for...
Right. I queried the people who had e-mailed me to tell me we'd moved to the Court Theatre, pointing out that we were already in the Court Theatre, and got an e-mail back explaining that they'd got confused and what they actually meant was it may or may not be moving to Mandel Hall. Sorry for adding to the confusion. So either they'll have a few tickets to release in a few weeks, or they'll have lots of tickets.
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
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.
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.
small happy things
You know, I was in a lousy mood -- I'm way behind on everything, I only get two days at home before getting on a plane and plunging into more Beowulf and one of those days has already gone, I've an injured cat, unopened mail, unanswered email, a year that's already too full (and it's only April), I really really need a quiet week at home and to finish a few things that are almost done, and tomorrow's going to be eaten up with phone calls that have to happen...
...and then, when I'm at my testiest, I get an e-mail from Henry Selick, containing a bunch of art designs for his Coraline movie and demos of four They Might Be Giants songs in MP3 for it, and all of a sudden, the world is a great deal less stressful, and I'm not anywhere nearly as testy as I was before. Actually, I'm pretty cheerful.
I think I'm going to play those songs again now.
...and then, when I'm at my testiest, I get an e-mail from Henry Selick, containing a bunch of art designs for his Coraline movie and demos of four They Might Be Giants songs in MP3 for it, and all of a sudden, the world is a great deal less stressful, and I'm not anywhere nearly as testy as I was before. Actually, I'm pretty cheerful.
I think I'm going to play those songs again now.
quick ones
Thank you all so much for the Spider information. Please, no more. I've now got about a hundred weblinks to read and digest, along with a number of useful summaries of conversations with museum and hospital personel, not to mention emails from the occasional researcher. I'll summarise it all for the interested as soon as I'm sure I've got it all straight (some of it is contradictory).
Meanwhile, a rumour that Life, the Universe and Douglas Adams may be a DVD extra on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film at http://hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy.blogspot.com/2005/04/documentary-rumor-there-is-unconfirmed.html. (This was the documentary on Douglas for which I did the narration.)
Yes, I spelled Trekkie and Trekker wrong yesterday. This was a very bad thing to have done, and has upset some people. I trust that those who have written in about it will consider this a formal apology.
Had a long conversation with Ginger at Writers House, who will be coordinating Singapore and Philippines trip, followed by the Australian visit for Continuum in Melbourne, followed by some Australian signings in July, filled with discussions of the "But if I'm flying in via Sydney surely it doesn't make any sense for me to fly from Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane and then back to Sydney to fly out..." variety, along with a brief debate on the merits of round-the-world tickets and on what exactly constitutes a day off. I'll announce it all here as soon as I can.
And finally,
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/news/032005_APstate_publicrecords.html
is a little bit scary.
PS: Fred the Unlucky Black Cat is currently confined -- grumbling and limping -- to a bedroom on painkillers while we find out whether he's going to recover on his own from what the vet thinks are the effects of a nasty fall.
Meanwhile, a rumour that Life, the Universe and Douglas Adams may be a DVD extra on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film at http://hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy.blogspot.com/2005/04/documentary-rumor-there-is-unconfirmed.html. (This was the documentary on Douglas for which I did the narration.)
Yes, I spelled Trekkie and Trekker wrong yesterday. This was a very bad thing to have done, and has upset some people. I trust that those who have written in about it will consider this a formal apology.
Had a long conversation with Ginger at Writers House, who will be coordinating Singapore and Philippines trip, followed by the Australian visit for Continuum in Melbourne, followed by some Australian signings in July, filled with discussions of the "But if I'm flying in via Sydney surely it doesn't make any sense for me to fly from Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane and then back to Sydney to fly out..." variety, along with a brief debate on the merits of round-the-world tickets and on what exactly constitutes a day off. I'll announce it all here as soon as I can.
And finally,
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/news/032005_APstate_publicrecords.html
is a little bit scary.
PS: Fred the Unlucky Black Cat is currently confined -- grumbling and limping -- to a bedroom on painkillers while we find out whether he's going to recover on his own from what the vet thinks are the effects of a nasty fall.
HP sauce as a coin cleanser and so on
I'm answering questions on writing for a few days over at backspace.org -- http://www.bksp.org/ -- which is a writer's resource. (Even if you don't subscribe to access the forums they've got an awful lot of useful information for people who want to write.)
Lisa Snellings is currently interviewing Dagmara Matuszak on her blog. Dagmara's a fabulous Polish artist who illustrated a book I wrote that was meant to be a sort of Christmas Card and got out of hand (which was, in hindsight, not a bad thing) called Melinda. It's an art object much more than it's a book. It's probably Melinda Part One in reality, as I need to write the next bit of the story. While twenty or so people already got their copies from me, I still need a couple of days to address and get out to friends the couple of hundred copies sitting at home on my kitchen table. And with luck I may get those days at some point in May. Or not. Anyway, Lisa got her copy and began corresponding with Dagmara. She's put up the first part of the interview at http://slaughterhousestudios.blogspot.com/2005/04/dagmara-matuszak.html and the Q&A is in the previous seven posts.
I met Dag a couple of years ago in Krakow, having seen her artwork as part of a small exhibition of art inspired by stuff I'd written, and I knew on seeing it that I wanted to work with her. Melinda started as a conversation between us about me writing something that she could do as a comic, but she then took what I wrote and pushed it to some very strange places.
Hey Neil,I was just wondering if you could tell us if you've written a little piece for Tori's Original Sinsuality tourbook like you did with previous ones? Cheers Neil.Alex.P.s. You're getting me very excited about the Mirrormask books! I can't wait til May for the script book!
Sort of. What they're printing as a foreword is a bit of a correspondence between me and Tori about gardening, tomato names, why an old house needs pumpkins, the failure of last year's plum crop, the rosemary bushes in her Irish house and a load of other stuff besides. It will be very familiar to anyone who reads this blog, but Tori thought it would be fun to put into the tourbook, fitting in with the garden-y theme of the CD and of the tour. So it's not a short story this year, or an essay about Tori, or anything like that. It's gardens, and what I've been growing in them.
Hey - you're on Slashdot!Or rather, your auction is/was here http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/02/1454252&tid=214&tid=192Nice to see the worlds of Geekdom and Literature coming together occasionally - although from a quick browse of the comments it seems that most of the aforementioned geeks have missed the 'Supporting a Charitable Organisation that defends Author's Rights' part and skipped straight to the 'Heartless corporate bastards tattooing their copyrighted images on the soul of popular culture'. I for one hope that, like you mentioned before in the blog, it is the USS Fucko Bazoo - there's something whimsical and charming about the name that seems to expiate its more egregious origins as an expletive.Sincerely, Guy Edwards
Well, I looked the Slashdot thread over and, like you, felt that many of the posters had an almost world-class ability to miss the point.
Auctioning off character names for charity's something that's been going on as long as I've been an author -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1056931.stm is a pretty standard sort of news story about it from 2000. Some authors are happy to play, some aren't.
In this case it seemed like a good way to raise some money for a good cause -- and it was successful enough that Michael Chabon and I are going to try something similar with more authors for the First Amendment Project (http://www.thefirstamendment.org/news.html), which needs money, following an expensive legal case (which they won).
Hi Neil, Long-time reader, first-time correspondent. This has nothing to do with your work, but as a wise soul familiar with UK cuisine, I thought you might have an answer: Could you tell me just what HP Sauce (sometimes called "brown sauce") is? I have a recipe that calls for it's use, but as an ignorant American, I can't seem to find any or learn what exactly it is. I've found many mentions and photographs of it on the internet, but nobody seems willing to describe it. Is it like steak sauce? Worcestershire sauce? Do you have any personal experience with it? Would you recommend it? Thanks for your time, Steve
It's like a savoury steak sauce, brown with a ketchupy consistency. I remember discovering as a small boy from one of those "1000 things a Boy Should Know" books that you can also clean coins with it, and promptly cleaning all the coins I could find with HP Sauce. For months afterwards it seemed like all the copper coins in the house were very shiny but smelled faintly of fruity vinegar.
Neil, Is there something up with the Sandman books? I recently started reading your work, but I have to accumulate books slowly, since I'm a poor college student. I usually order from Amazon, but they're out of the second book as well as several others. I've checked other places, but no one seems to have it. Will they be coming back?Thanks! Emily
I don't ever remember Amazon at any time in the last nine years having all ten of the Sandman books in print and available at the same time. Sometimes they've gone out of print briefly at DC (who are always reprinting them and always surprised when the books sell out before they expected them to) and sometimes it's just a screw-up at Amazon's end. Try ordering from your local book or comics shop, or (I say this a lot, don't I?) going to DreamHaven's www.neilgaiman.net online shop: they try to keep everything in stock -- and they've got all the Sandman books in, in hardback as well as in paperback, along with cool things like Dream Hunters signed by me and Yoshitake Amano, with a sketch by Amano. (The shop's main website is http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/ which I mention because they sell an awful lot more than just stuff by me, and people might enjoy poking around it.)
Incidentally, on http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ I ran into this online comic about selling books -- http://www.sob-story.com/2004/pre2004/09.html. It's an excellent comic (and book people may enjoy some of the other retail hell comics he has up -- check in at http://www.sob-story.com/2004/september/06.html and go forward).
And to close a few more windows: I love this. A review of a book called Leah's Way by Richard Botelho -- not because it's a bad review, but because of the correspondence that follows it. http://www.stephsbookreviews.com/html/Leah_s_Way/leah_s_way.html It's a lesson to publishers and to any authors who've ever wanted to do respond to a bad review that perhaps it's best simply to let these things lie. (I love the suggestion that it would be more "professional" for Steph to take the review down.)
No, I don't -- at present anyway -- know anything about the stage play of Stardust they're doing in Chicago, although I wish them luck, and hope it's good.
And people who didn't get tickets for my talk in Chicago in a few weeks should know that according to http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050331/gaiman.shtml While tickets for the event have already sold out, a limited number of tickets may become available after 10 a.m. Monday, April 18. The key words there are probably may and limited, but those who were disappointed already can have another go.
I go home today. Then I get two days at home before plunging off into the Beowulf rewrites with Roger Avary. And yes, I'd rather stay at home, and really don't want ot have to go anywhere. (Roger was meant to be coming to my part of the world, but events at his end have made that plan impractical.)
...
One final PS --when I was in Tasmania a few years ago, I was told about a Tasmanian spider whose bite could induce necrosis (where the flesh dies and rots) anything up to a decade after the actual bite. Having prodded around on places like http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/resources/general.htm I can't find any evidence that this is true. Anyone got any useful links to confirm or debunk it?
...
Hello,I just finished reading American Gods and while I'll save space by saying I really enjoyed it, I do have one complaint that's nagging at me:You used the term Yoopie to describe someone from Upper Penninsula Michigan. The correct term is Yooper. Having lived and visited there most of my life, it's just something that made me cringe at each occurance of the word while reading the book.And hey, maybe you knew this to begin with and just decided to use Yoopie to make it more fictional.. but it just bugged me so much I had to mention it.Either way, please excuse my complaining and thank you for the great story!Joe
I used yoopie because I'd heard people use it, people who obviously didn't know that the correct term was youper. (I suppose this is one of those treckie/trecker things, isn't it?) Having said that, the people I heard use it were in Northern Wisconsin, and not in the Upper Peninsula itself.
Mr. Gaiman,
Hi, I'm a University student taking a (very very cool) class in Pulp Fictions and Graphic Novels, and our end assignment is to take a graphic novel and break down what the author is saying, and how they're saying it. Our Prof. encouraged us to track down living authors if at all possible, because, well, who knows better than they do what they were trying to say? That, and I suspect, knowing one of his students got a response from one of his idols anyway. I've chosen your "Murder Mysteries" as my subject, so: What Were You Saying? Anything? Nothing? "Angels and Hebrew myths are kinda cool"? Can I really draw a parallel between God and Dr. Manhattan in "Watchmen" the way I want to?
Thanks much,
Aria
Surely your professor ought to be more interested in what you think than about what I have to say. I could be wrong, or I could lie. It's like the twelve year olds who send me e-mails that say WHAT IS THE THEME OF CORALINE PLEAEE EMAIL ME BACK I HAVE TO KNOW, where writing desperate letters to the author is no subsitute for having an opinion, an argument, or an idea. So read Murder Mysteries and say whatever you have to say.
Read: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/09/dictionary-of-miracles.asp and http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/09/de-gustibus-and-how-to-reply-to-bad.asp for more on academia and responding to reviews. And flying rocks. it was the first place I ever wrote:
By the way, lots of messages keep coming in which fall under the general heading of, "I have to write something about you or something you've written. Please will you do my homework for me/ answer the following fifteen questions for my paper on you and Restoration Theatre/ explain why you did or wrote A with especial reference to B and I get extra points if you mention either Virginia Woolf or the invention of the printing press."
And the answer to all of them is honestly, I think you can all write your essays without me. Pretend I'm a dead author. I won't mind. I promise I'll never come to your place of education and say, in the hearing of your teachers, "You do not understand me or my work! Your essay on the solar myth and rebirth in Sandman and American Gods with especial reference to the pagan themes and the use of Pan in the works of Kenneth Grahame was utterly and completely wrong. Hah!" Honest I won't.
And I think I'll put that up above the FAQ submission box on the next version of the site.
Lisa Snellings is currently interviewing Dagmara Matuszak on her blog. Dagmara's a fabulous Polish artist who illustrated a book I wrote that was meant to be a sort of Christmas Card and got out of hand (which was, in hindsight, not a bad thing) called Melinda. It's an art object much more than it's a book. It's probably Melinda Part One in reality, as I need to write the next bit of the story. While twenty or so people already got their copies from me, I still need a couple of days to address and get out to friends the couple of hundred copies sitting at home on my kitchen table. And with luck I may get those days at some point in May. Or not. Anyway, Lisa got her copy and began corresponding with Dagmara. She's put up the first part of the interview at http://slaughterhousestudios.blogspot.com/2005/04/dagmara-matuszak.html and the Q&A is in the previous seven posts.
I met Dag a couple of years ago in Krakow, having seen her artwork as part of a small exhibition of art inspired by stuff I'd written, and I knew on seeing it that I wanted to work with her. Melinda started as a conversation between us about me writing something that she could do as a comic, but she then took what I wrote and pushed it to some very strange places.
Hey Neil,I was just wondering if you could tell us if you've written a little piece for Tori's Original Sinsuality tourbook like you did with previous ones? Cheers Neil.Alex.P.s. You're getting me very excited about the Mirrormask books! I can't wait til May for the script book!
Sort of. What they're printing as a foreword is a bit of a correspondence between me and Tori about gardening, tomato names, why an old house needs pumpkins, the failure of last year's plum crop, the rosemary bushes in her Irish house and a load of other stuff besides. It will be very familiar to anyone who reads this blog, but Tori thought it would be fun to put into the tourbook, fitting in with the garden-y theme of the CD and of the tour. So it's not a short story this year, or an essay about Tori, or anything like that. It's gardens, and what I've been growing in them.
Hey - you're on Slashdot!Or rather, your auction is/was here http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/02/1454252&tid=214&tid=192Nice to see the worlds of Geekdom and Literature coming together occasionally - although from a quick browse of the comments it seems that most of the aforementioned geeks have missed the 'Supporting a Charitable Organisation that defends Author's Rights' part and skipped straight to the 'Heartless corporate bastards tattooing their copyrighted images on the soul of popular culture'. I for one hope that, like you mentioned before in the blog, it is the USS Fucko Bazoo - there's something whimsical and charming about the name that seems to expiate its more egregious origins as an expletive.Sincerely, Guy Edwards
Well, I looked the Slashdot thread over and, like you, felt that many of the posters had an almost world-class ability to miss the point.
Auctioning off character names for charity's something that's been going on as long as I've been an author -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1056931.stm is a pretty standard sort of news story about it from 2000. Some authors are happy to play, some aren't.
In this case it seemed like a good way to raise some money for a good cause -- and it was successful enough that Michael Chabon and I are going to try something similar with more authors for the First Amendment Project (http://www.thefirstamendment.org/news.html), which needs money, following an expensive legal case (which they won).
Hi Neil, Long-time reader, first-time correspondent. This has nothing to do with your work, but as a wise soul familiar with UK cuisine, I thought you might have an answer: Could you tell me just what HP Sauce (sometimes called "brown sauce") is? I have a recipe that calls for it's use, but as an ignorant American, I can't seem to find any or learn what exactly it is. I've found many mentions and photographs of it on the internet, but nobody seems willing to describe it. Is it like steak sauce? Worcestershire sauce? Do you have any personal experience with it? Would you recommend it? Thanks for your time, Steve
It's like a savoury steak sauce, brown with a ketchupy consistency. I remember discovering as a small boy from one of those "1000 things a Boy Should Know" books that you can also clean coins with it, and promptly cleaning all the coins I could find with HP Sauce. For months afterwards it seemed like all the copper coins in the house were very shiny but smelled faintly of fruity vinegar.
Neil, Is there something up with the Sandman books? I recently started reading your work, but I have to accumulate books slowly, since I'm a poor college student. I usually order from Amazon, but they're out of the second book as well as several others. I've checked other places, but no one seems to have it. Will they be coming back?Thanks! Emily
I don't ever remember Amazon at any time in the last nine years having all ten of the Sandman books in print and available at the same time. Sometimes they've gone out of print briefly at DC (who are always reprinting them and always surprised when the books sell out before they expected them to) and sometimes it's just a screw-up at Amazon's end. Try ordering from your local book or comics shop, or (I say this a lot, don't I?) going to DreamHaven's www.neilgaiman.net online shop: they try to keep everything in stock -- and they've got all the Sandman books in, in hardback as well as in paperback, along with cool things like Dream Hunters signed by me and Yoshitake Amano, with a sketch by Amano. (The shop's main website is http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/ which I mention because they sell an awful lot more than just stuff by me, and people might enjoy poking around it.)
Incidentally, on http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ I ran into this online comic about selling books -- http://www.sob-story.com/2004/pre2004/09.html. It's an excellent comic (and book people may enjoy some of the other retail hell comics he has up -- check in at http://www.sob-story.com/2004/september/06.html and go forward).
And to close a few more windows: I love this. A review of a book called Leah's Way by Richard Botelho -- not because it's a bad review, but because of the correspondence that follows it. http://www.stephsbookreviews.com/html/Leah_s_Way/leah_s_way.html It's a lesson to publishers and to any authors who've ever wanted to do respond to a bad review that perhaps it's best simply to let these things lie. (I love the suggestion that it would be more "professional" for Steph to take the review down.)
No, I don't -- at present anyway -- know anything about the stage play of Stardust they're doing in Chicago, although I wish them luck, and hope it's good.
And people who didn't get tickets for my talk in Chicago in a few weeks should know that according to http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050331/gaiman.shtml While tickets for the event have already sold out, a limited number of tickets may become available after 10 a.m. Monday, April 18. The key words there are probably may and limited, but those who were disappointed already can have another go.
I go home today. Then I get two days at home before plunging off into the Beowulf rewrites with Roger Avary. And yes, I'd rather stay at home, and really don't want ot have to go anywhere. (Roger was meant to be coming to my part of the world, but events at his end have made that plan impractical.)
...
One final PS --when I was in Tasmania a few years ago, I was told about a Tasmanian spider whose bite could induce necrosis (where the flesh dies and rots) anything up to a decade after the actual bite. Having prodded around on places like http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/resources/general.htm I can't find any evidence that this is true. Anyone got any useful links to confirm or debunk it?
...
Hello,I just finished reading American Gods and while I'll save space by saying I really enjoyed it, I do have one complaint that's nagging at me:You used the term Yoopie to describe someone from Upper Penninsula Michigan. The correct term is Yooper. Having lived and visited there most of my life, it's just something that made me cringe at each occurance of the word while reading the book.And hey, maybe you knew this to begin with and just decided to use Yoopie to make it more fictional.. but it just bugged me so much I had to mention it.Either way, please excuse my complaining and thank you for the great story!Joe
I used yoopie because I'd heard people use it, people who obviously didn't know that the correct term was youper. (I suppose this is one of those treckie/trecker things, isn't it?) Having said that, the people I heard use it were in Northern Wisconsin, and not in the Upper Peninsula itself.
Mr. Gaiman,
Hi, I'm a University student taking a (very very cool) class in Pulp Fictions and Graphic Novels, and our end assignment is to take a graphic novel and break down what the author is saying, and how they're saying it. Our Prof. encouraged us to track down living authors if at all possible, because, well, who knows better than they do what they were trying to say? That, and I suspect, knowing one of his students got a response from one of his idols anyway. I've chosen your "Murder Mysteries" as my subject, so: What Were You Saying? Anything? Nothing? "Angels and Hebrew myths are kinda cool"? Can I really draw a parallel between God and Dr. Manhattan in "Watchmen" the way I want to?
Thanks much,
Aria
Surely your professor ought to be more interested in what you think than about what I have to say. I could be wrong, or I could lie. It's like the twelve year olds who send me e-mails that say WHAT IS THE THEME OF CORALINE PLEAEE EMAIL ME BACK I HAVE TO KNOW, where writing desperate letters to the author is no subsitute for having an opinion, an argument, or an idea. So read Murder Mysteries and say whatever you have to say.
Read: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/09/dictionary-of-miracles.asp and http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/09/de-gustibus-and-how-to-reply-to-bad.asp for more on academia and responding to reviews. And flying rocks. it was the first place I ever wrote:
By the way, lots of messages keep coming in which fall under the general heading of, "I have to write something about you or something you've written. Please will you do my homework for me/ answer the following fifteen questions for my paper on you and Restoration Theatre/ explain why you did or wrote A with especial reference to B and I get extra points if you mention either Virginia Woolf or the invention of the printing press."
And the answer to all of them is honestly, I think you can all write your essays without me. Pretend I'm a dead author. I won't mind. I promise I'll never come to your place of education and say, in the hearing of your teachers, "You do not understand me or my work! Your essay on the solar myth and rebirth in Sandman and American Gods with especial reference to the pagan themes and the use of Pan in the works of Kenneth Grahame was utterly and completely wrong. Hah!" Honest I won't.
And I think I'll put that up above the FAQ submission box on the next version of the site.