Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm back again with responses to a couple of points raised by Neil.

First, I was interested to hear that you also saw parallels between
Christopher Fowler's "Roofworld" and "Neverwhere". I think that the
comparisons are limited to the notion of a hidden culture of mainstream
society's disaffected and abandoned living alongside the London we all
know and love.

Fowler seems to be more concerned with creating a technically feasible
counter-society than with your own more mythic vision, and
"Roofworld"'s plot was somewhat pedestrian, not to mention incongruous
in regard to the apparent care that Fowler had put into rooting his
alternate society in the real world.

Second point, I do concur with your thoughts about online comics. I
enjoyed the most recent "Zot" story but, if anything, my enjoyment was
tempered by constant thoughts of "These pages would load a lot faster
if they were made of paper and somehow bound together so as to form a
sequential narrative."

I am sure it has been said many times before, but the joy of comics is
that all the real action takes place between the panels in the
reader's imagination in the same way, (if this is not too much of a
stretch,) as the action taking place offstage in classical Greek
theatre.

I am sure that there is enormous potential for the concept of online
comics once the bandwidth problems have been sorted out, but I don't
think it is "Zot" any more than it is stanlee.net.

Third, whilst I am convinced there is a conspiracy by the dot com
complex to destroy usenet and drive all online discussion onto
commercial bulletin boards by frustrating the living daylights out of
anyone who wants to post to a newsgroup, I think any attempt at a
thingie forum here on the Well would be doomed to atrophy.

I don't think I'm drawing too long a bow when I say that the key word
in "alt.fan.neil-gaiman" is "fan" and much of the discussion there
would leave the eponymous author completely bemused; (and one would
hope, occasionally amused,)Tuesdays, Tim Tams and trying to organise to
get to a signing somewhere are not subjects to which everyone can
relate.

Having said this, I do not doubt for an instant that, given the
choice, most thingies would post to the forum where they could be
reasonably sure that Mr Gaiman would read, and hopefully acknowledge
their posts, but I suspect that there would be a degree of inhibition
and self censorship

I don't know. Just my thoughts on the issue.

Finally, Neil, I'm thinking of making another trans-Pacific trip next
February. I know it's a long time away, but are there any penciled in
dates where one might bump into you to get a book signed at that time?

Reg 
  

    
And Scott, if you want to know what I'm talking about, there's a copy
of "Roofworld" at my local bookstore if you want it.:-)

Reg
  

    
Neil-  Thanks for the link!  I never realized how much the internet
needed a directory like this, but with my wanderlust, I think this
belongs in the 'essential reference' bookmark folder.
  

    
Linda-- Thanks for the tip-- yes, I've wandered by both conferences,
but never really delved too deeply in them-- though I do spend a bunch
of time in the NY, Jewish and Words conferences.

Neil-- thanks for the sched. info, and double thanks for posting the
book list--I need something good.

Apropos of Promethea, btw, I justread this long-ish interview in
Comics Journal where Alan Moore talks about his belief in/practice of
magic. What's your take on this-- I know you're magic literate, but
have you ever practiced?  Do you have any strong opinions on the
subject?

HAPPY VERNAL EQUINOX EVERYBODY!!!  YAHOO!!!!!
  

    
Neil - It's highly probable I'll go to all three.  I have friends
wanting me to go to Kentucky with them, roommate wants me to go to
Cleveland with him so that afterwards or beforewards he can show me
where he grew up and I want to go to the Dayton signing because it's 15
minutes from my apartment.  Let's see, according to HarperCollins.com
you'll be in Lexington and Dayton the same day.  This should be
interesting.

On Flash stuff - I could've sworn that a couple of years ago someone
put up something out of Death: THCOL.  I can't remember it enough to
describe it and I'm at my parents house so I don't have the link.  I'm
pretty sure I got the link off the thingie back then, any thingies have
any _clue_ what I'm babbling about?  I do remember actually liking it
though.

Jen, trying to type carefully because of the ladybugs crawling across
her keyboard.
  

    
Neil and Emily - I've never actually seen the book, but according to
the Interbooks website, they say that Neverwhere is/was due out 'This
Fall' (it says 'This Winter' next to Dream Hunters) and Stardust was
due 'In the year 2000'. Which begs the question: when did they last
update their site? If Dream Hunters is out, then one would imagine that
Neverwhere probably is too (since Fall comes before Winter), and
Stardust... ^_^; I did a search on Amazon Japan, but couldn't find the
novels (The Sandman stuff was there though). So either the info on the
site is erroneous and the books haven't been published yet, or Amazon
doesn't carry them. ^_^;

Jen - Sophomore year in college, I lived in a room with trees / bushes
etc under my window. Man did I have a run in with lady bugs! Didn't
even open my windows and they'd still manage to get in (there were so
many of them on my window screen, it looked kinda like an aerial view
of the main hall at a con). Problem is I didn't want to kill them, so
it was a bitch to somehow coax them back out, without letting the other
ones in...

-- Mimi
  

    
Email from Jouni:

Neil - Thingie-topic. That would propably mean I would have to become a
Well member (right now I'm just a hang-around Weller)...

Oh, and talking about self promotion... I've tried to build a (very) small
site for my illustration/ fan art -stuff (quite hard when you don't know
shit about HTML or java or anything). It has (if it works) all those
pictures that were in my thingieclub folder, and also few extra ones I
found on my hard drive.

So, since I'm not able to post to afng right now, I thought you lovely,
cool, nice people wouldn't mind if I mention about it in here...

The address is http://www.geocities.com/jouniac/ or
http://www.geocities.com/jouniac/pics.html (straight to the pictures) and
I would really like to hear if you can enter it.

Also opinions about the pictures are welcome...

...that is if you can enter the site, ofcourse.

Jouni, another shameless self-promotion whore.
  

    
Email from Cindy Speer:

Dear Neil,

     I have a bit of a silly problem I'm hoping you can give me some
insight on.  Last August, (the first)  I sent a proposal to Vertigo, then,
having heard nothing, sent a very nice letter to the editor at the end of
November, then sent another letter with a sasp (so they could just pop it
in the mail with no problem) last February.  Since you've dealt with
Vertigo, I wondered if, a) There's always a huge backlog and this is
common, so hold I should just hold my horses, b) Editors, especially busy
ones, (I chose an assistant editor from a title I felt most closely
resembled mine) don't have to communicate with want to be writers, I
should wait until the year runs out and try some one else, or c) should I
write some one else in the orginization and ask them what's going on?  
These questions sound very silly and amaturish, but I don't want to ask
any of the trade magazine people, for fear they publish my letter in a
colum and the poor editor reads it and gets annoyed with me.  I realize
that you are out of touch with that area, but I thought I'd ask for your
advice before doing something like bugging the editor again, or going up
the chain of command, both options which usually do more harm than good.
Anything anyone here has to say on the subject would be really great.  
I'm just...worried, probably over nothing.

Thanks for listening!!!!

Cindy
  

    
Jouni --  I tried to get to your page but Yahoo says it doesn't
exist.(?)  I'd love to see it when it's up, though...

Mimi -- I'd bet that Neverwhere is out there somewhere... if you see
it available in translation I would love to get it for my library. 
(I'll let you know if I find it, too.)  I wanted to do Sandman because
then I could get the first two or three books in Japanese and then
switch to English... sort of a bait and switch.  Simultaneous
introduction of Neil's work AND an incentive to study English... but
you're right that some of the images may be a bit disturbing to make it
past library censors.  Plus, I want the translations for myself, and
buying multiple copies of so many books would put something of a strain
on my budget.  My school is not well enough off to afford too much in
the way of "nonessentials", so it'll be me doing the buying.

I'm becoming more and more fascinated by Japanese television... if
London has an underside and America has something even more
complicated, I think Japan has become its own peculiar shadow.  I'd
love to see what Neil would have to say about Tokyo or Kyoto or Osaka.
  

    
Madman – I think that was talked about in Hy Bender’s Sandman
Companion.

Trev – if you never got the boxed prints, you should drop Charles a
line at greenmanpress.com and see.

Linda, yes, Harlan is a very provocative writer. Although he no longer
seems to write with the volume cranked up to a hundred any more, which
is probably a good thing. Also, I think that Susan has mellowed him,
in the nicest sense. If you ever see a copy (or can order it from the
library) try getting his book MIND FIELDS. Very short stories, each
illustrating a painting, but many of them surprisingly gentle and
tender.

Martha – I think it’s a goatee, but it’s probably something else
technically. I look more like Alan Rickman playing a minor villain on a
bad day than I do like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.  It may live until
tomorrow evening, though: I figure Kelly Link will be amused by it, for
a start.

Reg – as I said, I’ve never read it and don’t intend to, as I plan to
go back to Neverwhere and would hate to not be able to do something I
wanted to do. I only thought of it as I saw one of those Amazon reviews
of Neverwhere the thrust of which was “Great book, but of course he’s
just ripping off Fowler’s Roofworld”. 

Reg – you are welcome to point this out to Scott. We’ve had long
(friendly) arguments about it, which tend to end with him sighing and
saying “Well, you may be right” and then Sky or Winter wants to tell me
something, so we leave it at that.

On the idea of a Well place for thingies, I certainly wasn’t
suggesting anywhere that I’d come and leave messages, or even read. As
I’ve said before, afng has nothing at all to do with me, as far as I
can tell, and is more like a bunch of people together in a signing line
who rapidly exhaust me as a topic and rapidly get down to some serious
flirting. Or even marrying. (How is Sherri, by the way? Did she marry
her young man and move to England successfully?) I always feel vaguely
guilty when people who met in signing lines turn up with their babies
(none, as far as I know, actually conceived in a signing line).

I just figured that, given the number of thingies here with their own
well accounts, they might as well start a conference somewhere which
would be more reliable than the weirdness of usenet, per Jouni’s
comments.

Oddly enough, I checked it out via the miracle of compuserve’s usenet
thing the other week, when someone mentioned there was an AG proof up
on ebay, and before Bill had posted the URL. Was pleased to see that it
seemed just the same as the last time I looked (probably about a year
ago) although a bit quieter. 

(Later I thought that it would have been easier to have gone to ebay
and type in American Gods. Which was how I found the US version.)

BTW, someone posted that the Germans who own Hensons have sold it.
Yes, they certainly are German, and they will be selling Hensons but
have not yet; and there are a number of options as to what will happen,
including a management buyout.

No idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in February 2002, Reg. If
you go for October, you get World Fantasy, though.

Len – never had any desire to practise magic: what I love about
writing fiction is that I can practise every kind of magic I want, and
have it work when I need it to, and I never have to worry about looking
ridiculous or how to pronounce Enochian wossnames. So I leave the
magic to Alan and Grant and those guys.

Mimi – thanks. I suspect they’ve not published it yet, then. I think
they also bought the rights to SMOKE AND MIRRORS.

Jouni – which is where my theory completely falls apart, I suppose.

...

NEWS – CORALINE has just sold in the UK. I was thrilled. It’s sold for
the money I wanted to the publisher I wanted. Which makes me very
happy (that the publisher I wanted also offered the most money,
otherwise it would have been a dilemma-weighing exercise).

...

Out of interest, does anyone out there know any ways to fix a
lithium-ion notebook battery that’s gone wonky? Since it did that
forced sudden discharge the other day, the battery now goes from 87%
full to empty automatically, giving it about a 12 minute battery life.
Which is a bit wearing.
  

    
Cindy -- I'd suggest sending it to someone else: Heidi MacDonald
perhaps. Or Shelly Bond.

I'd not suggest sending anything to an assistant editor at DC -- they
are sometimes amazing people who will one day be editors, and sometimes
glorified and barely competent office helps, but either way they
mostly aren't much use when it comes to getting something onto the
chain of places that would lead to publication.

And having heard nothing, I think that you can send it on now to
whoever you like. If they'd done more than look at the cover letter and
put it into a pile you'd know by now.

Does that help?

Emily -- I suspect that a lot of the violence in Sandman, and most of
the sex, occurs between the panel borders. You should be safe getting
the library to order the books, if you can.
  

    

If any Thingies are interested in starting a private conference here on
the WELL, let me know...I can give you more details.  The advantage, of
course, is that it's not Web-readable like inkwell is, and you can host it
yourself and control who can get in.  

Neil, thanks for the pointer to Harlan book.  I will look for it...
  

    
(Or it's Web-readable but you need a password.  Sepends on your definition of
the Web!)
  

    
There's nothing wrong with Alan Rickman playing a villain, even on a bad
day.
  

    
e-mail from Jo:

Hi again

As to talking about Dream Hunters, well I would, but
I'm still too much in the wow phase to actually make
any sort of coherent commentary on it yet <grin>. I'll
have to come back to it later.

I have to agree with Reg on "Roofworld", I found it a
bit pedestrian, and quite laughable that someone could
say you were ripping it off in "Neverwhere". I enjoyed
"King Rat" by China Mieville (which is in the same
kinda style) more, but neither of them has the same
feel as "Neverwhere".

Jen - do you just have red and black ladybugs in the
states or do you get the cool irridescent turquise
ones too? Maybe it is just an NZ thing.

Jouni - I can get to the front page of your website
but no further. If I try to go directly to the pics, I
get a message saying I don't have authority to access
that page from my computer ...

Jo
  

    
Re: Alan Rickman villians - does he ever NOT play a villian? I suppose
there's Dogma, in which he was the Voice of God, but he was a bit
snitty now, wasn't he? I was particularly fond of An Awfully Big
Adventure, with him and Hugh Grant, but everyone else who has seen it
seems to be baffled by the film, although they can see why *I* would
like it. (whatever *that's* supposed to mean).

Neil - Considering the scope of your work so far, and all the various
mediums you've worked in, I suppose it shouldn't strike me that you
don't always know what has happened to it after it has left your
fingers. (i.e. which languages it has been translated into, our
production of Troll Bridge that I am still mildy annoyed at the
publishers for not letting you know about, etc.) Do you ever find it
disconcerting to find that your work exists in forms that you didn't
know about? I would imagine it would be like finding your own face on a
milk carton some day.
... hrm... that could be a neat short story, actually..... I'll have
to make a note of that one.

On the battery issue.. Is there anyone around with a similar laptop
that you can test your battery on their machine and vice versa. It'd be
good to know if it's the battery that has gone wonky or the laptop.

Sidenote on London Rooftops and Japanese Shadows and...
My friend is thinking of taking a class entitled "Western
Underground"... we're not entirely sure what it's about although it
makes me think of what I expect to find in parts of American Gods. the
fact that she originally misread it as Western Underworld probably only
adds to it. (Visions of vampire cowboy mobsters spinning in my mind.)

Final random thought - The same friend is loaning me copies of Lucifer
that she's been loaned, and I'm loaning her my Sandman collection as
she's found herself somewhat mystified by certain allusions in the
spinoff series... she's just finished another friend's copy of
Watchmen, so we're doing her best to get her caught up on the world of
"comic" literature. 

Ok, stick a fork in me... I'm done.
  

    
Jo - I have only ever seen plain ol red and green ones, I am jealous
of you.  :-)  We are currently infested with Asian ladybugs, imported
to eat aphids and whatnot. Looking up at the ceiling in this room I can
see about 20.  I've been stepping on them all day (barefoot) and have
noticed several using me as a chair.

Jen, off to watch Simpsons.
  

    
Sense and Sensibility.  Very much not the villain in it.
  

    
Oops, my barefoot linked to someone.

Is it just me or do ladybugs look like unpopped popcorn?  I have this
terrible urge to eat them...

Jen.
  

    
I'm trying very very hard to quit smoking. Argh. Last night I heard
voices in my head. That's not good is it? I feel extremely out of
sorts..stupid and evil. Is there anyone out there who has ever
succesfully quit? Will I ever go back to normal? I hope so. I can't
afford to be crazy right now...but I can't afford to smoke either. 

Yes, yes. I will have to check out Clarion..it sounds nice. 

I love Alan Rickman evil or not. Very good actor. And Ladybugs
too,though I don't want to eat them...

Now I will go relax with, um, a nice piece of gum. Bleck.
  

    
Re: Alan Rickman-- Don't forget Truly Madly Deeply.  He's not a
villain, and I don't think he has a goatee- but he does have a cello,
which is better than nothing.

Re: Not knowing where ones workshows up-- Neil, have you ever seen an
adaptation of something of yours that you just didn't like?  I ask
because--there was this great musical adaptation of Pinkwater's Young
Adult Novel that he apparently completely hated and took back the
rights to-- and when I once emailed him and asked about it he went kind
of ballistic-- in a warm, gentle way, of course.

Which is not to say that I'm seeking the rights to anything-- just
curious.  
  

    
Jen-- I dunno about ladybugs, but I really like unpopped popcorn...
particularly when the kernels are jes' a little popped... 
  

    
Email from Scott Conner:

Mimi....I belive the Faerie Market went for either $15,000 or $20,000.  I
can't remember which.  Nor the lady's name who bought it.  I did get to
hold it when I was helping Charles break down the art show exhibit ; )  
There's also a Prince Valiant "cameo" in there if you look close enough.

Walker...you're right about the Tree City/airships piece.  And if you
don't hear back from Charles anytime soon, let me know and I'll ask him
the next time we speak.

Reg....spot on about the nature of Thingies.  And I must go over to Scott
McCloud's website and look around sometime soon.  Your local bookshop
sounds like an intriguing place.  We'll talk about the book exchange.

Linda.....Deathbird Stories is one of my favorites as well.  Neil's
recommendation of Mind Fields is heartily seconded by me.  It is a
*goregous* work, and one that holds a place of honor amongst my most
highly treasured books.

And on the subject of both Neil and Harlan, both gentlemen have enriched
my life through various writings and recommendations to things I may have
never been exposed to otherwise.  A gift beyond anything I could ever hope
to repay, and for this I must say thank you.  A million times over.
  

    

Hey erynn, I quit.  I smoked for 11 years, 3 packs a day, and haven't had
a single puff since December of 1981.  Hypnosis.
  

    
Martha -- I never said there was. (My favorite Alan Rickman
performance remains the actor/captain Hook in An Awfully Big adventure
-- but I love him in Galaxy Quest).

Got a real chunk of Death written today. 

I stopped smoking after about 16 years, 8 years ago, by stopping. It
seemed easiest that way. There's still a carton of English marlboros in
the bottom of the freezer, in case I ever want to start again, but
after 8 years they'll probably be pretty old.