Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I shall look for Martha's book on Amazon immediately.

The Herring Song reminds me-- once, in college, I was wandering around
the bookstore and found, in the remaindered/forgotten section, a book
called "The Lammas Drave and the Winter Herrin': a history of Herring
Fishing out of East Fife."  I promptly bought it, and while I found it
to be astonishingly boring, it did have a long (12 stanza) poem abut
herring fishing, wherein each stanza ended with the word, "Herrin'."
The poem was written by the author's father, an East Fife herring
fisherman.  I will reprint the first stanza here (I have memorized all
12.)  I am doing this WITHOUT the author's permission, so please DO NOT
reprint this stanza for profit.

The shades o' nicht were drappin' fast
When oot o' Anster Harbor passed
A fleet o' craft o' various sort
A'keen to catch, but nae for sport
The herrin'.
  

    
That ranks up there with "Nevermore" for Taglines Capable Of Being Spoken In
A Sepulchral Voice....
  

    
"the herrin'..."

booga booga booga!
  

    

I keep hearing Lorne Greene saying "Ringo, Ringo" when I read that.
  

    
Mary Roane e-mails and solves a mystery...
 
Post # 923, the mystery post, was from me.
 
Mimi & Randi--the crowd laughed at "Nicholas was..." in Chicago, too.  It
was a sort of 'light dawning' laugh as they figured out who Nicholas
was.  I was sort of surprised, too--it had always creeped me out.  I
laugh, but it's a laugh with a shiver in it. 
 
Neil--Well, this is it.  I hope it's a great night tonight.  And I hope
that although this is the Last Angel Tour, it won't be the last
reading.  You're too good at this not to do it occasionally.   Break a
leg tonight!
 
                                                          Mary Roane 
  

    
From Tree:

Hi Neil, thingies and Well people

Neil, it's official, you are going to have to tour Australia with the Guardian Angel Tour. Australian customs just banned the importation of 'From Hell' by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.

Apparently a female customs officer in Perth, Western Australia, took offence at a scene in the book and called for it to be banned. Apparently Sandman and Preacher have been investigated closely as well. You can read more about it here:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/comicbrief/

You have spoken before about how lucky the US is to have the first amendment, what do us poor suckers outside the US need to do to defend our right to read comics? Do you (or the CBLDF guys) have any suggestions?

Thanks for being such a gracious guest to all our endless (pun intended) questions. I look forward to saving up all my pennies and ha'pennies to drag myself over to your part of the world and seeing you read again (not to mention playing with thingies).

Tree
(Hi Rocky! Drop me an email sometime, girl!)
  

    
Oh, Hell.
  

    
No pun intended.  That is just aweful.
  

    
Back from LA reading...

It's 1:30 am and I haven't eaten for a long time, and I hope that room
service starts answering their phone soon.

I think everybody had a good time.

Tree, I wish I knew what you could do. My immediate suggestion would
be to form an Australian Defense Fund. The trouble is that my
experience in the UK indicates that Customs have infinite, fickle,
powers. 

Meanwhile, pass the word around. Have people write to their MPs and
complain. Couldn't hurt.

Nobody laughed at Nicholas Was tonight, but it was a strange sort of
evening. Very different to the last ones, as well... Some nice bits for
the CD, I think.
  

    
ps: http://www.eddiecampbellcomics.com/  is the place to get updates
and information.
  

    
What made it strange?
  

    
It was the last one, and it felt like it: an odd tone, strange, sweet,
almost elegiac.
  

    
Did it give you a sense of regret that this was the last tour?
  

    
Nope. No regret at all. It was like running a marathon every couple of
nights for two weeks.

But it will have raised about $60,000 for the Comic Book Legal Defense
Fund. Which can't be bad. And that's not counting whatever we do with
the audio CDs and the Video.

...

Yesterday was an impromptu take your daughter to work day, as the
friend of ours who was going to look after Holly had a family
emergency.  And it was great -- Much of the day was spent at Hensons,
and Lisa Henson's attitude was "My Dad always let me come to
meetings..."  So Holly did. 

We had a great time.

Today I took Holly, and my god-daughters, Sky and Winter, to Universal
Studios, along with their mum, Ivy McCloud (and Scott McCloud joined
us for dinner). We only had a couple of hours there, but I was VIP
enough to be given a magic Go To The Front Of Any Line pass, which
meant we did the park in a little over two hours instead of a day.
Which is about my limit anyway.

Home tomorrow. I'll catch up soon on everything, including The Well.
Promise.
  

    
My friend Cory is too decent a person to hate you for getting to go to the
front of the Disney lines, but I'll bet he'd like to go with you the next
time--
  

    
Dunno if it'd work at Disney any more -- my Disney folks have, most of
them, long since moved on. I had a memorable behind-the-scenes at
DisneyWorld, some years ago, though.
  

    
This sounds crazy, but I used to have a recurring nightmare in which I
went to Disney and there were NO LINES.  So instead of waiting
forever, there were no waits at all and it was kind of abrupt and
creepy.  

I've always seen the lines at Disney, since they were unavoidable, as
being an integral part of the experience-- a kind of foreplay.

A... boring kind of foreplay.
  

    
btw, my wife thinks it's really cool that you're godfather to the
McCloud kids.
  

    
I know it's a bit old, but I just wanted to forward a thank you from
Chris at Eddie Campbell Comics for sending people to that site for
info; the CBR link was probably my fault, not Tree's, cos that's what I
posted to newsgroup. Apologies.

-randi
who wonders if the fact that Henson allows young people at their
meetings is telling statement on why their stuff seems to respect
children of all ages (including mine) more than much of what is out
there. 
  

    
Howdy Neil, (and Thingies and Other Well-folk)

Just wanted to thank you muchly for the Blueberry poem. Totally didn't
expect you to share it and even bit my tongue back to request it when
you asked what I'd like to hear. So thank you. :) The new batty
additions to the stuffed animal shelves also appreciated the visuals in
the lemon-fresh bat story. :) (Cassie suggests that perhaps you should
find a bat-scented solvent for future occurences)

-michelle
ps - Have you ever before noticed the startling resemblance between
Geoffrey Sonnabend and Charles Fort?
  

    
The scariest thing about Disneyland is no matter how cynical you are
about the very idea of a theme park, once you catch sight of Micky
Mouse it's like you're programmed to start screaming "MICKEY!" at the
top of your lungs and begin shoving startled toddlers out of the way in
a mad rush to meet the world's most notorious rodent.  

For the life of me..I can't explain what came over me. 
  

    
Possessed by Cory Doctorow.
  

    
It is a check-your-so-called-sophistication-at-the-door sort of place.
  

    
Randi -- I think a lot of the respect is Jim Henson's legacy. I'm very
grateful that Lisa's there.

Hensons is delightful. They even have a book club, which has been
reading NEVERWHERE, so I talked to them for a bit and answered
questions.

And you -- and the Eddie Campbell web site -- are very welcome for the
link. 

I find it ironic that while I was stumping around the US trying,
mainly, to tell people that the first amendment is a good thing and
that they should work to protect and maintain it and not take it for
granted, especially where comics are concerned, some idiot jobsworth in
the Australian Customs Department just made the case for the first
amendment much better than I did, by making sure that Australians are
denied access to what is probably the most significant work of graphic
fiction in the last fifteen years.


Michelle -- I was always more intrigued by the similarities between
Karl Marx and Charles Fort, but it's a book/story/comic I'll probably
never find the time for.

Thanks so much to you and to all the mob of thingies for turning up
and helping out in Los Angeles.

The thing that made me happiest about the Blueberry poem was the
clicks of tape recorders from all over the hall as I asked anyone
bootlegging it not to tape that bit.

Rocky -- I dunno. Many years ago I had to do a photo shoot at
Disneyworld, and I could swear the Mickey i was posing with was coming
on to me... it made it very slightly surreal. (Most of the Mickeys and
Ducks are girls, btw -- they have to be for the size of the costume.)

Home again, and happy to be home.
  

    
I am both saddened and infuriated by the "From Hell" situation. I had
always believed that we Australians did not need our right to free
speech enshrined in law because we have always had the implied right of
freedom from self-righteous gits dictating what is good for everyone.
I am embarrassed at my own naivete.

I am not sure what I find more disturbing about this case: That such a
decision could be made on an arbitrary basis, by a single person whose
anonymity can be legally protected in this country, (and well done
Comics Journal for naming names and not being cowed,)or that it sets a
precedent whereby historical fact is now considered fair game for
censorship.

I understand that the Campbell camp are taking a softly softly
approach in this case, and I would do nothing do jeapordise that, but
my initial response was to beat down the door of every media outlet in
the country demanding the public humiliation of those involved in this
appalling misuse of power by someone who goes by the title of "public
servant". 

Reg

"Dort, wo man Bucher verbennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."
-Heinrich Heine