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| lisabird's Friends 13 most recent entries |
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Hi, Guys. I know a good many of the S2 themes are kinda hosed right now. Something changed with the LJ migration to their new data center. The Bloggish and Style Contest themes have their CSS hosted at LJ. That's by LJ's design, with how the code is distributed. The code is set to use LJ's CSS proxy to handle the access and display of the CSS settings. Since LJ's move, though, the CSS proxy has been kaput. But the CSS itself at LJ is still working. Until we can find a way around all this, a couple users have a way that you can use the Custom CSS in your customization area to get your layouts pretty damn close to the original for that layout and theme.
Nothing exciting to report, or rather, I cannot remember any of the things I'd planned to write once I had a brain again. The auction has eleven hours to go. Right now you can have afternoon tea with me for eleven hundred dollars. I suspect that if there's no way that you can make it to New York, and are prepared to wait, the tea could be made to happen somewhere else. Coraline was all over USA Today yesterday, which was nice. My only concern is that the images that are getting out all look really sweet, and not creepy... I liked The Other Mother and the Omelette though. http://www.usatoday.com/life/l081116_Cor On the other hand, Coraline.com (and theothercoraline.com ) have both got spookier, and have strange and marvellous little films up. With keys to access... one of which I found at http://www.despoiler.org/2008/11/17/my-f Hi Neil! I'm a huge fan with 2 quick questions. Absolute Sandman Vol 1 appears to be sold out on Amazon and Chapters / Indigo with no mention of availability. Is there going to be another printing soon or should I be desperately searching bookstores for a copy before it's gone forever? On a related note, are there any plans to release an Absolute Absolute Sandman containing all 4 volumes, with any special content? Thanks so much! Love your books, love your blog! I checked, and when you wrote this Absolute Sandman #1 was indeed out of stock everywhere. But before I could write to people and ask, it was already back in print and back up on Amazon. (This is the link) (I notice it's now at full price, not 37% off, like the others, which may well mean that once they sell out of the first printings of Absolutes they'll stop discounting them. Which, if you're putting off buying them for the future, might make a difference.) (And in the half hour between my checking it was there and now it's already gone Temporarily Out Of Stock at Amazon. I assume they didn't order enough to cope with back orders.) There are definitely no plans to ever do one 2500 page book. (I feel guilty enough watching people carrying two of the Absolutes in signing lines: a 36 lb book would just be wrong.) However, I can assure you that the Sandman and Death bookends are heavy enough to cope with holding the Absolutes in place. (I'm using mine for other books, but they're definitely working bookends, not ornaments.) (And brain has trickled back enough to remind me to post this: http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/11/16/upd .. Stop Press: My assistant Lorraine just walked into the office with a G1 phone, for me to play with... post a comment
(A quick search found it up on the web at http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/2 Anyway, the Moth is a marvellous thing, and needs to be supported. Tomorrow night is the annual Moth Ball. You can read all about it at https://www.themoth.org/ball . If you're in New York, you could go. It is hosted by John Turturro and Garrison Keillor and Salman Rushdie will be getting an award. It looks like a marvellous evening of storytelling. There will be wonders and things in a silent auction as well. And then, in conjunction with the ball, there's an online auction, to support the Moth. Nine things are up for auction. One of them is me. Not literally. I mean, you don't get to keep me. It's afternoon tea. At The Players Club. Enjoy Afternoon Tea with Neil Gaiman at The Players in Gramercy Park There's two days to go on the auction -- it ends at Nov. 19, 2008 at 11:59 PM EST. Right now you can get afternoon tea with me for a bid over $350. I hope whoever wins it is nice. [Edit to add: Hi Neil, I am seriously considering bidding on the afternoon tea at the Players in Gramercy Park, and I was curious as to when this event would occur, to make sure I can attend (and not be out of the country due to work). Perhaps I'm blind, but I didn't see it indicated in the auction. Help? Thanks, Jeff P.S: I'm fairly confident that I'm a nice person, and can probably even get a few friends to vouch for me! That's because the actual when-it-happens of it all is something that will get figured out between the winning bidder and me, and depend on where they are and where I am. The idea is to be able to make it work for whoever bids.] post a comment
This is the dead person. I think this may be the funniest 8 minutes of someone staring at you and telling you about his experiences as a coal miner and novelist ever filmed. post a comment
I finished typing the Dying Earth story for Messrs Martin and Dozois, who were sitting on an otherwise completed book drumming their fingers against their tabletops in a worried manner and waiting for me to finish touring. It's an odd story but it made me happy, and, while I get to do some Jack Vance impressions (no-one but Vance can do Vance properly) I got to do me too. Again, tabs to close and plenty of them. Or in one case, tabs to keep open. I'm now hooked on http://www.oldbaileyonline.org , reading my way through the ancient legal cases, loving the details and the names, occasionally marvelling at the difference in times and moral codes and modes of justice. (Like this: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.js A slightly odd Batman article in http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2 (I don't think I've ever had an Alex Ross cover on anything I've done, and it was lovely to see it...)  ....and, now that it's been shown full size on the back of Previews, I don't think there's any harm in putting up Andy Kubert's cover, in its original uncoloured version. (which is the one I can find on my computer.) (If anyone grumbles I'll take it down.)  ... I've been pondering the word prevaricate on and off for a number of years. I'd used it once in Sandman to mean someone not making up their minds, and Emma Bull, reading it, said "You mean procrastinate. Prevaricate means to lie." And I changed it before it saw print, realising that if she thought it was being misused, so would many other readers. Then, eighteen years later, I read an article on how to hang Rothkos which contained the sentence "Rothko was always prevaricating over how his art should be shown," said Waldemar Januszczak, art critic for the Sunday Times, and decided to research. I think it's a word with shades of meaning, and while in the US it tends to get used simply as "to lie" (as in "All politicians prevaricate"), in the UK it's more often used as a synonym for Equivocate -- i.e. to avoid giving a straight answer... even to tergiversarate. And it's the equivocation, with its implications of putting off a decision that then shades over into meanings that aren't simply "to lie". And after writing that I just found some people arguing with each other about that on a French/English board, as if it's a new meaning that's just come along. It isn't. The Big Oxford English Dictionary that I need a magnifying glass to read lists as Prevaricate definition #2 "To deviate from straightforwardness; to act or speak evasively; to quibble, shuffle, equivocate." And it gives examples going back to 1651. (Squints. Checks with magnifying glass. Nope, 1631.) ... Joe Gordon asked if I could mention this excellent Vertigo Encyclopedia interview up at the FPI blog, which I do, partly because I still feel guilty for not ever reading Alex's book A Scattering of Jades, copies of which were pressed on me in proof by friends, and which, like so many books people give me, never made it off the to-be-read pile. Berkeley Breathed's favourite strips are up at http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/fa A few people have sent me links in to the Io9 article on How Sandman Changed the World. It's over at http://io9.com/5086663/5-ways-that-sandm On the other hand someone sent me a link to this article on children's literature at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?i Also ran into this article by Roseanne Cash on songwriting (which I suspect applies equally to writing of all kinds) which I really enjoyed: so much of the magic is made by turning up and crafting something, simply by doing the work, and it's so hard to convince people of that, and it doesn't make the magic any less for it. The Independent has its 50 best books for Winter up as a slideshow at http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indy And Meg Cabot says nice things about The Graveyard Book, and dispels rumours on her lovely chatty blog. ... About seventeen years ago the phone rang. "You're nominated for a World Fantasy Award for best short story," I was told. "You should make sure that Charles Vess is nominated too," I said. "He drew it. And as a comic, it's not just the writer. It's both of us." There were a couple of phone calls, and when the nominations were announced, Charles had been added to the list. Which was something I found myself remembering when I read, The Canada Council for the Arts won't add Canadian illustrator Jillian Tamaki's name to the official list of nominees in the text category for this year's Governor-General's Award for children's literature. It's for Skim, a graphic novel [Jillian] created with her cousin, author Mariko Tamaki. The book, published by Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, is one of five titles short-listed for the $25,000 G-G prize in children's literature (text), with Mariko Tamaki cited as the sole creator. If you give a writing award to a comic and ignore the art, you're being foolish, short-sighted and fundamentally failing to understand what comics are or what comics writing means. And it's never too late to fix things. Now, before I head off on some barking mad Jeremiad against short-sighted Canadians, I shall drink some chicken soup and go to sleep. post a comment
Slowly coming out of a too-much-travel induced haze, a day at a time. The weather is vaguely evil -- spatters of frozen rain patter and tap against the window-glass. Am typing this in bed, and truly, it's just an enormous link-dump, higgledy piggledy with little rhyme and less reason: A Publishers Weekly summary of the 92nd St Y event: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/C The Bookwitch interview with me: http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/interview Pat Nugent's interview -- and review of The Graveyard Book -- in the Irish Sunday Tribune http://www.tribune.ie/arts/ http://www.tribune.ie/arts/ An audio review of The Graveyard Book at Green Man Review - http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_ The second of my 2000AD Future Shocks (from September 86) is up at http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=101 I think it was the fourth comic story I'd ever written, and for quite a while it was the only one I was satisfied with. Looking it over now, I'd noodle the dialogue a bit, but it's still a nice idea. People sometimes ask me where they should start with my stuff. Geeks of Doom has a suggestion list: http://geeksofdoom.com/2008/11/10/a-begi A while ago I mentioned that I started my day by checking Locusmag.com, the online version of Locus, and got this question: Why is locusmag.com such required reading? Caveat: I've been an sf pro for nigh unto two decades (ye gods! can it truly be 20 years?), and when I started (before this pesky internet thing existed), Locus (the magazine) was definitely where the news was. But with the growth of the web sites and blogs (and not to break my arm patting my own back, but SFScope.com, too), it seems to me that locusmag.com is sort of a backwater, occasionally posting links to items elsewhere. Their indexes of past information are great, but why do you find it the first stop to find out what's going on? --Ian It's mostly due to taste -- I mostly like the links they point to, their news although sparser than other places tends to be real news (I assume they learned their lesson about ever using Wikipedia as a source for anything last week), I'm of an age where when Locus says someone died it's probably someone I know or have met, and partly because it's still the online segment of an SF oriented magazine done by actual journalists with real reporting and criticism in it. SFscope (since you mentioned it) seems to reprint every press release vaguely having to do with SF or fantasy -- it's stuff to winnow through, and I don't want to winnow. There's too much winnowing to do on the web already. I assume that on most days there won't be any news on Locusmag, and I like it that way. Also, it has essays by Cory Doctorow, reprints of bits of interviews and criticism, bestseller lists (within the field and without), and links to things that mostly aren't stupid. Incidentally, they've put the last issue of Locus up online as an experiment -- you can read the whole interview with Ursula K LeGuin, of which the online extract is merely an extract: it's up at http://issuu.com/locusmag/docs/1k45kdsx8 Back to links... Paul Levitz tells you how to do a letter-writing campaign that has a chance of working. Probably applicable to fields other than comics as well... Authors and Cats in the Guardian: this blog gets a shout out (and then, there's the famous photo of Princess and me in the back of the illustrated STARDUST). I am a children's librarian on our local county mock newbery committee. We have all read and loved The Graveyard Book, but are wondering if it can be included, due to Mr. Gaiman's status as a British citizen. We have heard a recent rumor that he has become an American citizen. Is this true? If so, you'd make a large group of librarians very happy. Sincerely, Sharon Kalman Children's Librarian Paramus, NJ Public Library Nope, I'm not an American citizen. We've had to apologise to the American Book Award people a couple of times for this one, but I'm glad to say that librarians can be as happy as they like, for it's irrelevant to the Newbery. According to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/a TERMS See point two? I'm an American resident. Do not worry. A few people sent me the link to http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1392-c A video review I was sent of Coraline: http://kidsknowstuff.com/2008/11/coralin A reminder that many of the shops I signed in on the last tour still have signed copies of The Graveyard Book (and, sometimes, other books) -- and here's an online store with some signed ones as well. Todd Klein's Blog has the details of his next print on it -- with another entry with more details at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=2268. (I have to sign the second edition of my Todd print today... Green Ink sounds good.) It also has the picture of the actual cover of Absolute Sandman 4 (as opposed to the one on Amazon). Right. Enough for now... post a comment
Much lemon-and-honey and chicken soup is being drunk. And The Graveyard Book (and the P. Craig Russell Coraline Graphic Novel) are on Kirkus's 2008 Year's Best list. Hi Neil, My 4th grade class has created a quite splendid (if I do say so myself) mural of The Graveyard Book. I've a post with some images from it and their responses to the book here: http://medinger.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/i I loved the mural -- and even more than that, I loved the description of reading The Graveyard Book to a fourth grade audience. Thanks so much! Hitmouse wrote in to say: Ursula Vernon, writing on The Power of Comics: http://ursulav.livejournal.com/831148.ht She was at a reception for Ahmed Fadaam. And it was an astonishingly powerful entry that I think everyone should read. http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2008/n Hey Neil, I wanted to let you know that a review and photos I took at the 92Y discussion with Chip Kidd are up at QuietColor.com A Conversation With The Dream king: http://quietcolor.com/qc/?p=1790 I am a longtime fan and have had the pleasure of meeting you on several occasions at various NYC reading and signings over the years. I had to skip the post discussion signing this time to cover another event (Conor Oberst at Terminal 5). Therefore, since I didn't get to say it in person... Thankyou, to you and Chip for an enlightening, entertaining, and inspirational evening! If you have a chance I would love for you to take a look at my website www.maniacpumpkincarvers.com I carve really intricate, custom pumpkins each fall. Thanks again, Marc Evan Those are some remarkably carved pumpkins. (Even a pig!) Thanks Marc. We get to see what Chip was wearing in those photos, which I think is important. Posterity needs to know. (There's a wonderful description of the event up at Tor.com -- http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_ Have any of your books been translated into Chinese and if so, where can I get one for my son-in-law for for Christmas? I've searched the web with no luck and also checked in 2 bookstores in Hong Kong last week with no results. Thanks. He and my daughter are huge fans and have been at a couple of your book signings in the Twin Cities. Yup. They're now pretty much all out in complex Chinese characters, and are in the process of coming out in simplified Chinese. Let me look... Here's a DangDang.com link to Stardust. And here's an Amazon.cn link to some books by me. (Simplified Chinese). And here's a link to Coraline and American Gods in Complex Chinese characters (and another to books by me). Does that help? ... Nearly forgot: An interview with me about Coraline and the upcoming in February Coraline film from Wired online: post a comment
She's a wonderful performer, is assisted by the mysterious Australian dancy-performance-arty foursome The Danger Ensemble, and will be signing for everyone after each show (where you could tell her that I sent you and thus impress her with the magical power of this blog). Also she is very likely to perform "I Google You" and (perhaps more importantly) to do some Dresden Dolls songs as well as solo songs from the Who Killed Amanda Palmer CD. The tour details and links and suchlike are all up at http://amandapalmer.net/tour but, in case you were idly wondering if she was going to be anywhere near you: Fri Nov 14 '08 (8:30 PM) Asheville, NC The Orange Peel Sat Nov 15 '08 (8:30 PM) Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theatre Sun Nov 16 '08 (7:30 PM) Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse Tue Nov 18 '08 (6:30 PM) Washington, DC 9:30 Club Wed Nov 19 '08 (8:00 PM) New Haven, CT Toad's Place Fri Nov 21 '08 (7:30 PM) New York, NY Webster Hall Sat Nov 22 '08 (8:30 PM) Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts Boston two-night stand: Mon Nov 24 (7:30) & Tues Nov 25th '08 (7:30 PM) Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club Sat Nov 29 '08 (8 PM) Millvale, PA Mr. Small's Theater Sun Nov 30 '08 (TBD) Toronto, ONT Mod Club Theatre Tue Dec 2 '08 (8:30 PM) Ferndale, MI The Magic Bag Wed Dec 3 '08 (7:30 PM) Chicago, IL Metro Fri Dec 5 '08 (9:00 PM) Minneapolis, MN First Avenue Sat Dec 6 '08 (9:00 PM) Denver, CO Bluebird Theater Sun Dec 7 '08 (10:00 PM) Aspen, CO Belly Up Aspen Mon Dec 8 '08 (8:30 PM) Murray, UT Murray Theatre Wed Dec 10 '08 (9:00 PM) Vancouver, BC Richard's On Richards Cabaret Thu Dec 11 '08 (9:00 PM) Seattle, WA Showbox at the Market Fri Dec 12 '08 (8:30 PM) Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom Sat Dec 13 '08 (9:30 PM) Sacramento, CA Harlow's Night Club Mon Dec 15 '08 (8:00 PM) San Francisco, CA Bimbo's 365 Club Tue Dec 16 '08 (9:00 PM) Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda Theatre ... Dear Mr. Gaiman (or the man behind the curtain holding Mr. Punch's strings): I have been a big fan of your work for many years, especially your collaborations with Dave McKean. I was very pleasantly surprised when Signal To Noise was recently re-issued, as my old paperback copy was becoming more than slightly battered. If I had to pick a favourite work of the two of you collaborating, that would be it. Such a wonderful book. Okay, now that I've finished with that, I have a question: I have never heard the BBC adaption, and would very much like to -- is it still available for purchase anywhere? I've searched the internet and don't seem to be able to find it. Are there any plans to re-issue it? Hopefully yours, Ken Abell There are some left at http://www.allenspiegelfinearts.com/prod
I have oodles of links to post and tabs that need closing, but I think I'll save that for a post later tonight, and now take the dog for a walk in the snow: I realised, this morning (at the Dentist's, being fitted for a new sleep apnea mouth-thingummy) that I've been on the road since July, and that my exhaustion is my own silly fault, and that Next Year, except where unavoidable, or where already committed, I will stay in one place more or less and write. Miriam Berkley (http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/mem  (Me, twenty years ago, wearing the first of a long line of black leather jackets.)Ever since the Compleat Death was announced, people have been writing in wondering why it wasn't an Absolute Edition. People really like the Absolute Sandmans (and I was reading through Absolute Sandman Volume 4 last night, and being really impressed by the size and detail -- particularly on reproduction of the Michael Zulli pencils in The Wake, which are remarkable -- and I could really see why). And, because people kept writing in to me and asking about it, I started wondering why we'd have an edition that would be a different size and shape again from the Absolutes. Recently I talked to people at DC about it (especially as, following the critical and commercial success of the Absolute Sandmans, it was becoming apparent to them that it might make sense to keep these things in the same format) and, at the last possible moment, Paul Levitz came down on the side of keeping the editions consistent and keeping me -- and, I hope, you -- happier (thank you Paul). So, no Compleat Death in March. But there will be an Absolute Death later in the year... post a comment
And on Sunday morning I slept until I woke up. Which was a wonderful, happy-making thing. ... Argh. And that was as far as I got on this yesterday (Sunday). So the best bit was Chip Kidd interviewing me at the 92nd St Y. Best interview ever -- partly because it was the very last thing of the tour (hurrah) and partly because Chip is a brilliant interviewer. He's funny and smart and makes a comfortable space to talk in -- I'm not sure how to explain it beyond that. If you're a TV network looking for an interviewer, you should hire Chip Kidd. (http://www.goodisdead.com/index.php?/chi And then was a signing that went on for a very long time, but again, the knowledge that it was the last one of the tour kept me going -- and everyone was so extremely nice... but I was sort of trashed by the end, and very happy this is now over. My Nokia N73 started randomly turning itself off last week. It now seems to have more or less given up the ghost. When I get home I'll try updating the software, but I think it's definitely New Phone time. (Hoping that the G1 that Google offered to send is waiting for me when I get home tonight...) So thank you all so much for all the Birthday Wishes -- all the individual ones, and the ones at http://www.groupcard.com/c/neil_gaiman... And before the end of my birthday, I will get home. Hurrah. post a comment
Then I spent most of the day on a plane. (I was meant to be working. Instead, in what is becoming a familiar refrain on this blog, I slept.) Last night I saw Thea Gilmore and Nigel Stonier supporting Joe Jackson (they were wonderful), and met their son Egan again: he's now bigger and blonder. Now typing in Logan airport -- I've flown up for a family event. Hoping that everything goes according to schedule and I can make it (my cousin Scott's bar mitzvah) and get back to New York in time for the event tonight. I bet I can. It just adds a little excitement to the day. Charlie Fletcher did the kind of interview in Scotland last week that left me worried that he wouldn't have any interview material as we'd spent the whole time chatting happily. I shouldn't have worried -- his interview is up at http://living.scotsman.com/features/Neil-G The Dangerous Alphabet confuses the New York Times reviewer (well, she describes it as "funny, frightening and confusing all at once"). "The humor seems better aimed at older kids than the publisher’s recommended “5 and up.” Call me a goody-two-shoes, but I won’t be reading the words “Q is for Quiet (bar one muffled scream)” to my kindergartner anytime soon," she says. Still, it seems like the kind of mixed review that would let people who would like the book know it was out there... Here's a complete version of the Manchester Creepy Doll (although I am a bit invisible, for reasons that will become obvious): post a comment
 Thank you for all who voted. Consider me retired now from the Hottest Daddy Blogger and Blogitzer categories. A fun cartoon of Michael Chabon and me at http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/nov/0 An interview with me at The Scottish Book Trust: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/ My friend-the-Emmy-award-winning-writer Michael Reaves talks about how much he hates me on his blog. But I'm linking to the whole blog, and not just that entry (it's called "Why I Hate Neil Gaiman" and is easy to find) because it's all fascinating: Michael is battling Parkinson's Disease, and talks about that, and about other things. http://waretheblog.blogspot.com/ ...and here's a tidbit that may help unravel some of why I was in China in September. I don't know if that's a final title (probably not) and the second two books are probably going to be solidly based in this blog (on the theory that of the 1,212,333 words I've written since it began, some of them might be of interest to the world. I think one may be partly about writing) and in case people were wondering, it doesn't mean I'll now write three non-fiction books; it'll probably be a non-fiction, then an adult novel, then an all-ages book, then another non-fiction book... And more on the subject from MTV: http://splashpage.mtv.com/2008/11/06/nei ... Michael Crichton is dead. I read and liked some of his books (mostly the pre-1980s ones), some of his movies, and the first season of ER; I don't have any real anecdotes or insight -- we chatted a few years ago at a Harper Collins party, I liked him and oh my god the man was tall. He towered above a room of authors as if we were children. Over at the Guardian Maxim Jakubowski pens a much better appreciation than that, although I knew what he meant when he said, we once shared a lift in the Random House building in New York some 15 years ago, and I was too dumbstruck by his sheer height to even introduce myself as he had to bend over at 90 degrees to fit his frame into the elevator. ... The Dave McKean "Mythical Creatures" stamps are slated for June of next year according to the Royal Mail website. (I wrote short-short-stories to accompany them.) ... If you're in the UK you can listen to me reading on the audible.co.uk podcast (but not if you're not). And Keplers video- interviewed me (while I signed books) and are giving away a Headstone... post a comment
HELLO Next time, pleasepleaseplease don't explain that you were moving a beehive around. I never would then have realised that you were in fact wearing a beekeeping outfit and not actually parading around town dressed as a giant bee. Thank you! Right. Sorry. Dear Mr. Gaiman (or the people looking after him), I have just finished reading The Graveyard Book, which I enjoyed immensely. While reading it though, I believe I came upon a small blunder, which you might want to fix: On chapter 5, when Bod is talking to the Lady on the Grey, she says: 'He is gentle enough to bear the mightiest of you away on his broad back, and strong enough for the smallest of you as well' Surely the words gentle and strong were switched? Unless the switch has some poetical meaning that I missed. I hope this helped in some small way. The book I read was the hard cover adult version, ISBN 978-0-7475-9683-7, mistake was on page 161, if it helps any further. Thank you for making the world a bit more pleasant with your words, Yonatan It's the idea of "the people looking after me" I like. And that's not a typo, I'm afraid. It's what she said. You'll have to take it up with her, when you see her. (Someone did send me a terrific list of typos in the author's edition of Neverwhere -- thanks!) Dear Neil, It was your mention of NaNoWriMo that finally convinced me to participate for the first time. I'm now the proud creator of 6686 words (and counting), a magical wood, a main character I despise, and a squirrel named Nimrod. I just wanted to thank you. Now off to continue the adventure. You're welcome. Good morning Neil, Because today is such a monumental day in America's history I was wondering if you voted. Well actually, more specifically are you a citizen of the U.S.(and can you vote?) and what prompted you to move here from your native England? Get lots of rest! Tricia Nope. I'm still English and cannot vote in US elections. I can vote in the UK kind, though, and sometimes I do. As to why I moved, it's now lost in the mists of history, but I think it was mostly because I liked the house. Marrying Fictional Characters request: Just in case that bloke in Japan gets the law changed I want to get in first so here goes…(takes a deep breath) Dear Mr Gaiman please may I have Silas’s hand in marriage? (well all of him if you don't mind, not just his hand)^_^ Thanks in anticipation, Liz Taylor. But if you can marry fictional characters, then... well, you can certainly marry Silas. But so can everyone else. And, well, there could be some bigamy, or trigamy or googlamy involved here. That's all I'm saying. And of course, you'd need to get his consent, not mine. Dear Neil, while you are bouncing around, I am wondering if (given your history of also bouncing around between clean shavenness and scruffiness) you would consider giving a shout out to this site that encourages people to grow mustache in November for a good cause: http://www.movember.com/ Mustaches are, after all, "one of the best things to put on your face" and sported by such mustache as Frank Zappa, Mark Twain, and G. K. Chesterton, and they get even better when worn for charity. No. Trust me. No. There are things that no-one should ever see, and me in a moustache is one of them. I've seen it from time to time, in the mirror, when shaving off beards, and even I shiver at the memory. Since you've often said no one noticed when Violent Cases was dropped in price, I noticed that the Coraline audio book has significantly dropped in price, from $22 to $9.95, so, Yay! -Shield Yay indeed. It's the new "Movie tie in" edition, although it's the same book, with me reading the same story. They still have some of the old audio CDs (with all the Dave McKean art) on Amazon, at a hefty discount, but not quite that hefty. Also, thanks to Amazon for putting The Graveyard Book on their ten best Teen books 2008 list. I think that's the first Year's Best list it's made. (And thank you Amazon for keeping it at 40% off.) Hi Neil Being back in blighty, you can't have missed the astonishingly bizarre furore over Jonathan's radio show with Russell Brand. I just wanted to show some support for Jonathan, he's an amazingly funny man and if they take him off the air permanently, I for one will no longer listen to BBC Radio. I know he's a friend of yours so I thought you could pass that on. Cheers Helen It was bizarre, a very small storm in a teacup blown up to monsoon level by the Daily Mail -- I found myself agreeing with Charlie Brooker in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2 *** There. I got on a plane, flew to Las Vegas, got off the plane, discovered that Penn and Teller were doing a "corporate gig" in my hotel, so ate some sushi and then went in search of them. I gave Penn (who wants to keep bees) a round of honeycomb from my hives, and talked about bees and beekeeping, and they in their turn filled me in on the view backstage from Las Vegas magic world, describing an appalling magic show they had seen recently with a angry delight in eviscerating it that made their descriptions sound a hundred times better than enduring the show in question would have been. And then up to the room to write. Where I am now. If you remember Beanworld, or even if you don't, go and read this interview with Larry Marder at http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2008/10/24/i An amazing interview with the amazing Lisa Snellings at http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/?p=1 A review of the first issue of P. Craig Russell's lovely Sandman: The Dream Hunters at http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2 If you're in Las Vegas, come along to the talk tomorrow night -- details at http://lasvegascitylife.com/articles/200 |
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