Volume 1.2 Neil Gaiman News and Information Transit Authority July, 1993
Contents:
This is an alarming issue, for me - I have pages and pages of interview with Neil, and of course I don't want to cut any of that! So I had to put off a couple of essays that members sent in until next issue, sorry guys... Here's some news: First of all, I hope you managed to catch Neil on either his signing tour or at the Chicago Comics Con, cause you won't have a heck of a lot of opportunities to see him, after this! If you were at the Chicago Con, you will have undoubtedly seen the "Roast and Toast Neil Ashcan" as well as Neil's midnight readings. The ashcan was done by Moondog's Comics, the same people who did the Heliogabolus, and it's a fantastic bit of business with contributions by Dave Sim, Karen Berger, Jill Thompson, Todd McFarlane, Michael Zulli, Mike Dringenberg, Mark Buckingham, lots of others. For those of us who didn't make it to Chicago, there will be 2500 signed copies available through mail order or retailers. Magian Line will be functioning as one of the retailers, and we'll have all the ordering information in the next issue (they won't be available anywhere before September or October, anyway). For those of you who didn't get a Heliogabolus (the last 150 of you to join Magian Line), you can send $10 and $2 s&h to Moondog's directly at 1201 Oakton, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007, or call them at 708-806-6060 and charge it. Sorry - the free Helios were only for the first 300 members, cause we only got 300 of them! Speaking of $12, a few of our Canadian members sent $12 Canadian instead of US money. My bank charged me a $5 fee and the conversion rate isn't terrific, so I wound up with about $5 from each of you - barely enough to cover expenses on the initial mailing! If those of you who did that could send me another $7 in Canadian cash, I can get it converted with no fee, and I'd very much appreciate it. And next time you order something from the US, use US money! For those of us who didn't go to the Chicago Con, a video was made of one of the midnight readings, and hopefully will become available mail order - we'll keep you posted! Mage Linian corrospondant Skippy (Sean Aune of Splash Page Comics in Missouri) was at the readings, and says "The biggest shocker had to be the Little Mermaid t-shirt and NO SUNGLASSES! He started off with an extremely enjoyable short humor story called "Chivalry", and changed gears somewhat with the second item which was a poem entitled "Cold Colors". It was the story of what if black magic was stored on computer systems. The final piece was an unreleased graphic novel called "Mr. Punch"." Sounds like a must-have video... Next issue, we'll also have all the information on the impending collection of Neil's lesser known (or less widely available) short prose works. Called Angels and Visitations, it will be published in late October, and will contain 12 stories, 8 poems and 3 reviews, as well as original art by Dave McKean, P. Craig Russell, Charles Vess, Bill Sienkiewicz and Mike Zulli. It will be in much the same physical format as Now We Are Sick, so it's going to be a very nice piece of work, indeed. "Chivalry" and "Cold Colors" are among the pieces, as are an appalling number of works that we didn't have in our "official, complete" bibliography, because Neil thought that they were so obscure and hard to find that we shouldn't tease people... So much for comprehensivity! Some Linians down under (Helen Reilly and Simon McGill) are trying to put together a complete list of Neil's really old articles in Knaves (some of them pseudonymous, apparently), and Kerrin Jones from New Zealand has done a list of interviews that appears in this issue. Naturally, that one will need periodic updating... We'll hear more from the fantastically completist Kerrin in future issues.
Magian Line: So tell me, what have you been up to in the last three months? Neil Gaiman: I don't know, Sadie, what HAVE I been up to in the last three months? I must have done something... ML: I know that you've definitely been out on the road and done signings. NG: I've definitely done that. I've been to Oakland - you know that, cause I saw you there and rode around in your van. I did WonderCON. I also did ProCon and gave a talk about writing comics. I've been on tour - where did I go to? I went to Philadelphia, I went to Washington DC, I went to LA and Dallas and San Francisco, and I gave a talk at the University of Santa Barbara, where they actually have a course that's currently studying Season of Mists. ML: No kidding! NG: No kidding. ML: What's the name of the course? NG: I have no idea. But it's at the University of Santa Barbara, under a terribly nice, terribly bright professor named Frank McConnell. It was really strange, talking at a university. I felt as though I should have been very old and very dead. No one should study you when you're alive and can answer back.. But I was pleased, it was a full auditorium, so there were about 600 or 700 people there. And they asked intelligent questions. I was talking for 50 minutes, which was a pity, because I was just warming up, by the point I had to stop and go down to LA to do a signing. I saw you in San Francisco, of course I did, we sat around in the garden behind Brian's shop. ML: You mentioned that LA had been a very nice signing. They weren't all trotting up with copies of Spawn! NG: There was only one signing where there were a preponderance of little Spawnees. The problem with the Spawnees is that they throw the line off. I know roughly how long it takes to get through a line, only you can get through Spawnees in the amount of time it takes to sign their comics - most of them. I find myself asking them questions that I would never dream of asking someone who turned up with a copy of Sandman. Like "Do you read them, or do you just collect them?" And I actually wind up with people saying "Oh, I just collect them" - but WHY? Why don't you read them? I mean, put some effort into life! ML: When I talked to Gary Colabuono [publisher of Neil's ashcan], he mentioned that you'd almost single-handedly made the author a reputable force in comics. Authors just don't get much attention paid to them, people only pay attention to artists, which I would never have guessed. NG: There's still a level of puzzlement on the part of most people, where they can't quite understand what writing comics - what is involved. You say "I write comics" and they want to know if you letter in the balloons. Luckily, all the Magian Line people will be ok, because they've seen the Midsummer Night's Dream script and they know there's lots of words. Anyway, I went from San Francisco to Berkeley, which wasn't a huge trip, and from there I went to Las Vegas, which was very strange. I had a volcano outside my window. Every 35 minutes, the volcano would erupt. ML: I've seen it! It's wonderful! NG: The strangest thing, actually, in Las Vegas was going down to a little restaurant. Now, in LA I was given that little Neil doll that I think you saw. I had just done a signing, so I was carrying this little doll with me and I was with an English writer named James Robinson, an old friend. And we went into the little Japanese restaurant in the Mirage Hotel, and the waitress looks down at the little doll and looks at me and says "You're HIM! You're HIM!!" I said, "Uh, I'm sorry..." She said "You're HIM! You're - JOHN LENNON'S SON!! You'll sign this for me?" and she offered me her little pad. I said "No, look I can't - I'm not John Lennon's son!" ML: You're spiritually John Lennon's son, though! Heh! NG: Well, I'm definitely not Julian! Convincing her that I was neither Julian nor Sean - it was very strange... It's the nose - English people with big noses. ML: There must be thousands of John Lennon's sons... NG: It was a strange thing, Las Vegas. Then I went to Denver and came home. I relaxed, did a little recovering, and began to write. I was just about writing again, then I went down to Atlanta. Went to the Diamond thing. ML: I heard you won an award there. NG: I did, actually, and that was really nice! The thing is that Diamond Comics have these awards, and Diamond Comics awards are - not to put too fine a point on it - to ram two fingers down the throat. The Diamond Awards are basically a panel of incredibly highly trained Diamond people, whe select things that qualify for the award ahead of time. Now, these things qualify for the awards based on sales. So for their Best Comics of the Year, they send out a list to retailers of comics they can pick between, which are the three or four or five comics that sold the most. It's a popularity contest based solely on sales, in a way, and not on quality. Except they had one write-in category which retailers could write in on, which was for the "thing which had done the most to get comics out into the wacky world out there, the world without comics, that year." And, uh - ML: And that's what you won! NG: And I won that, yes! I was delighted - when I realized this was the write-in thing, this wasn't set up, it wasn't anything, I was pleased about that. I gave them a speech about comics, which I expected to be very unpopular. I stood up there and I said things that people don't ordinarily say in public, like I pointed out to them that investing in comics is wrong [laughs], and stupid. I gave them a speech about the Dutch tulip investing of the 1630's, and the Great Tulip Disaster. And I explained to them that just as the Dutch were wrong in considering the tulip the perfect investment item, in exactly the same way, the whole world of comics was every bit as wrong. ML: It seems, from what I've seen over the last year, that whole investment thing is starting to implode . It's the junk bonds of the teenage set. NG: Luckily - I don't know if luckily is the word, luckily is probably the wrong word, but it's true to say that currently a lot of stores are going out of business. It's true to say that a lot of stores bought far too many Superman... I was talking to the head of Capitol the other day - who are the other retailers - and he was saying that according to their calculations, there are roughly a million copies of Turok 1 floating around. It doesn't take a genius to realize that there is a problem there. So I sat up there and told them that and expected to be booed, and instead they cheered me wildly, and then there was an Image presentation which they promptly - you know, I was expecting that they'd be cheering wildly, and instead they booed it. So, I don't know [polite cough]... ML: I don't think it's so odd! I think anyone who cares about this business, who is more than a teenager, is going to realize that the only way to save this industry is to get out of the speculation market and stop relying on hype and polybag and die-cut covers and actually deal with some quality - that's a pretty simple notion! Well, maybe over the last decade it hasn't worked for many industries, but it will, dammit! NG: So, what else - I took my kids to see Jurassic Park, this evening, which was very interesting. ML: Did you enjoy it? You want to do a review of Jurassic Park? NG: Well, let's see. Holly was scared, Mikey thought it was neet... ML: I would have thought that Holly would be scared of nothing! NG: Holly was a LITTLE bit scared... I thought Richard Attenborough was very interesting - his first scene, Richard Attenborough decided that his characterization could be accomplished by means of a limp and a Scottish accent. And then in later scenes he obviously decided that they weren't paying him enough for the Scottish accent and the limp, so we just got the limp. And a lot of the time he was sitting down, so you didn't really know whether you were getting the limp, you just assumed you were getting the limp. The other thing that left me terribly puzzled was where the thousands and thousands of people working in Jurassic Park - there are all the scientists, all the cleaners, all the people putting the scaffolding up - where did they go? They definitely didn't get eaten by dinosaurs because there weren't bones all around. I've never read the book, and I hope the book is better than the film. ML: Speaking of books, inquiring minds have wanted to know who your five favorite authors are. NG: Really, have they? Living or dead? ML: I don't think it matters. An author is an author. NG: I tend to break them up into living and dead. ML: Let's have your five favorite living and five favorite dead, then. NG: Um... Dead authors are easier. Let's see. Ok, we've got James Branch Cabell, obviously - ML: And by the way, we got a letter from a fan to whom you had recommended Cabell, and she sent his entire bibliography, in case I wanted to print it! NG: That's the kind of thing you probably OUGHT to print, just because it's kind of a neet, strange thing. Who else. G.K. Chesterton. Robert Aickman, short story writer, English. ML: Glad you clarified - I've never heard that name. NG: He's kind of obscure, but I think he's wonderful. Let's see, we're still on dead blokes... ML: You had mentioned Saki before, has he fallen from grace? NG: I don't know - there's a whole little axis of Saki and John Collier and Lord Dunsany -and Shirley Jackson. The trouble with saying "pick five" is that you're always discounting people. You're much better off just pointing me at an author and getting me to talk about him! OK, living, who do I like living. I will drop everything to read anything by Jonathon Carroll. I will drop anything to read anything by Gene Wolfe. I will drop - I'm trying to think of who else I would drop EVERYTHING for, I might want to eat or sleep or something... Currently reading a book by a guy called Michael Lesy, called "The Forbidden Zone", which is actually a gift that somebody gave me when I was signing in San Francisco. Michael, the guy who was guarding me up by the table. And the guy wrote a book that was called "Wisconsin Death Trip" - oh, it's brilliant. It's one of the great books. It's photographs and newspaper extracts from small-town Wisconsin in the 1880's. It's this horrible account of people dying, basically, and going mad. ML: Huh! I think Wisconsin's rather nice! NG: Well, I highly recommend "Wisconsin Death Trip" - I think you'd like it. What else. There are authors whose work I hugely enjoy - Clive Barker, Steve King, John M. Ford - Mike Ford, who doesn't write anywhere nearly enough. Steve Erickson, whose new novel I haven't read yet, but I'm greatly looking forward to. But generally I tend to read - currently I'm reading "The Forbidden Zone", as I said, with is basically a book about death [said with some relish], I'm reading a huge book on funeral customs round the world - actually more mortuary customs. ML: Cool! Sort of like "The American Way of Death", but taken around the world? NG: Oh yeah - it's huge. This was written in the 50's - I'm enjoying it. I'm suspecting that the fondness for death right now stems from the next story I have to write, which is the one for Shea [Anton Pensa], set in the necropolis. I'm also reading the Annotated Mother Goose right now - there's some INCREDIBLY nasty nursery rhymes! ML: We only seem to learn about two of them here - we learn about Ring Around the Rosie, and we learn about Georgie Porgie. And that's as far as Americans know - and most Americans don't seem to know that much! NG: Well, the thing about nursery rhymes that I find strange is that in some ways it often doesn't matter what the meaning is, you just look at them for what they are - "Die, Pussy, Die" [laughs]. What am I listening to. Right now I'm listening to these Rhino DIY things - "Teenage Kicks: UK Pop 1976-1979", "Starry Eyes: UK Pop II 1978-1979", and "Anarchy in the UK: UK Punk I 1976-1977." ML: Takes you right back to your youth, huh? NG: Oh god, does it ever! I mean, there are songs on here that I never thought I'd hear again, and definitely never thought I'd hear on CD. ML: That's the great thing about Rhino - I love that label! That particular series pissed me off, though, because their LA Punk thing included some San Francisco bands. NG: My only huge objection for the ones I've gotten so far is that the first one - "Teenage Kicks" - has "Jilted John" on it. I don't know if you've heard that song, but it was JUST a novelty song. It's belongs on that album in the same way that Plastic Bertrand belongs on the Punk one. ML: And he was Belgian! He can't be on the UK disk! NG: Whatever happened to Plastic Bertrand? Somebody reading Magian Line will know - they'll write in and say that he is now Minister for Culture. ML: Speaking of novelty numbers, are you into John Otway? A friend of mine met him recently. NG: Really? Of "Cor Baby, That's Really Free"? And Wild Willie Barrett? Is he popular? Or is he completely forgotten? ML: He's one of these people who has a small but INTENSELY devoted following. He's a wonderfully mad person - you want to become close to a person like this. NG: If you're gonna do a UK punk thing, and you're gonna have something that's slightly weird - "Really Free" belongs on that album, and "Jilted John" doesn't! ML: Maybe they figured that there were a couple of Otway cuts on the Stiff Box set, and that was all the exposure he needed! NG: I keep asking for the Stiff Box set - I know that it exists, I've seen mention of it, I know people that have it - and I go into record shops and they stare at me as if I'm mad. I say "STIFF - BOX - SET" and they say "No, can you sing a few lines?" ML: Maybe you're in the wrong location - NG: Well, this IS America. I guess it's too old by now. I genuinely want the Stiff Box Set [note: he has it now!] because there's so much stuff that - there are all those strange little records that I'd love to - did you ever hear "Live Stiffs"? ML: I have that. NG: The one thing I miss about Stiff is the little messages - that's one thing you don't get on CDs that you used to get on records - the little things engraved on the inside. ML: I have a single that has me on it - says "Sadie O. Rocks - OK!" NG: Wow! [sounding genuinedly impressed] The ones that were my favorites were the Elvis Costello ones, they used to have wonderful little messages. We should get back on the subject - hang on. I went to Atlanta [Whew!] and came back, wrote for a day, went to New York, came back and now I'm here. ML: It's been a fairly mad three months for you. NG: Mm-hm! Yes! I'm now - one of the things I've done is I've pretty much cancelled everything. Sighed deeply and said - you know, I can only do one or the other. I can turn up everywhere and sign, and be a public figure, or I can get the writing done, and the important thing at the end of the day is the writing. I'm going to become a mysterious recluse. And people will sight me occasionally - I'll be sighted like Elvis. I'll probably be sighted WITH Elvis. The Weekly World News has recently announced that Elvis is dead! He just died of diabetes. Now I wonder, did he fake this one too? What is the Weekly World New's plan for this? ML: What future is there for Weekly World News, if Elvis IS dead? NG: We could be into Ghost of Elvis stuff - we could be into Elvis Angel stuff. By the way, we're getting an incredibly impressive thunderstorm right now - the last bang of thunder made the entire room vibrate. If there is a crackling and I vanish, don't be surprised. ML: Have you unplugged your computer? NG: No, but I will - there, just did. ML: Knowing the amount of trouble you already have with your computer, having a lightning strike zap up your line and destroy everything on your hard disk would be one more thing... NG: That happened once! That was why the script to Sandman 1 and 2 do not exist. Which is a pity, because DC would love to print the script to Sandman 1, and occasionally people have suggested getting it redrawn. And I have to say it doesn't exist. I phoned DC after the lightning strike took it out - and actually I thought I'd lost a lot more than I had, I thought I'd lost all up to 5. I found 4 backed up on an old disk one day, going through stuff, and somebody gave me a hard copy of Sandman 3 to sign, and I had to say to them "Look, would you mind terribly if I just sort of DON'T sign this, but sort of keep it for my files?" Then we phoned around, and I phoned Mike Dringenberg and Sam Keith and DC, and I found that all of them had thrown away their copies. And Todd Klein, who actually is the kind of person who WOULDN'T throw stuff away, I found out had to send his back. His practice is to send them back with the lettered scripts. So now they're lost to humanity! ML: Well, I'm glad you unplugged your computer just now! Well, what HAVE you been working on? NG: Mainly I've been working on Sandman 54 in little spurts. I've got to page 15. And I've been doing some work on the book, Angels and Visitations, which is the collected Neil miscellaneous. It has everything in it except the - everything of any interest! Everything I ever thought was of any interest, anyway. With the exception of the Lou Reed article. It isn't in there because both my editor and my publisher thought that it was a really interesting article if you were interested in Lou Reed, but if you weren't, it wasn't. And I was eventually convinced. But it's got some poetry in it, and some short stories. It's got some articles and introductions, and it even has the Watching the Detective book review that I sent you. Actually, the strange little things for Magian Line that I sent you I'm putting in there. ML: That'll be a must-get! NG: It'll be out - we HOPE - the end of October. ML: So we'll have another issue or so of Magian Line before we have to tell people how to go about getting it. NG: I think so, yes. And with any luck, we'll get the distribution good enough that actually how they get it is they just go into their comic shop! ML: Unless they're in Tierra Del Fuego or something. NG: In that case I can't help them! [apologies here to our Tierro Del Fuegan members] So I've been working on that. The current work is that things are now happening at the BBC on the BBC series that I was telling you about. Apparently, the new head of BBC 2 was going through the projects they had on hold, read the script and loved it, and wants to get it going. I'm really looking forward to getting it off the ground, I just hope I have the time! ML: Well, maybe if you stop making appearances everywhere... NG: Exactly - this is one of the other reasons for not making appearences everywhere, and becoming this mysterious Elvis-like recluse. OK, ask me another question. ML: I'll pop ya a couple from some of these letters from members, how bout that? NG: Good! ML: We have a Ms. Peggy Warren who mentions that you were voted, last year, the most interesting subject on the TV Ontario program "Prisoners of Gravity" [a show that includes interviews with a number of comic and science fiction creators] - care to comment? NG: It's true. I beat out far more interesting people. I don't know why, I must just have been lucky. What was fun about that was I got this phone call from Mark Askwith saying "you just won" - he said "could you film an awards thing?" so me and Dave Mc Kean - Dave McKean rented a video camera for the afternoon, and we shot an awards acceptance thing. Actually a kind of parody of all award acceptance things. It's a kind of dialog between me and Dave, consisting mainly of understated British humor. And it was actually shown on the awards program. ML: I wonder if anyone has that - I should put out an appeal to the membership - please send me a copy! NG: You ought to write to Mark Askwith - now you'll have to say "Who's Mark Askwith?" and I'll say Mark Askwith is the producer of "Prisoners of Gravity." The other thing I need to say is that I'm continually amazed and gratified at the incredibly nice and high response we get in Canada. You know, wonderful turnouts for signings, nice people... ML: Our warm-hearted neighbors to the North! NG: I think they're wonderful. And also there seems to be a lot less of these weird divisions in Canada between comics and books - they seem to be a bit more up on the different media. ML: Another thing is that I ran into a person in the Compuserve Comics Forum online conference this evening named Ūnigma, who turns out to be the person that sent that montage of you in the hand of Sandman, and he'd be quite pleased if we reprinted that in Magian Line [next issue!] - anyway, he wondered if there were word balloons missing in Sandman 48 and 49. NG: There's definitely a word balloon missing in 48 - it's not anything particularly impressive. I don't think there was anything missing in 49. The missing balloon in 48 will be fixed in the collection, along with an awful lot of coloring. The coloring goofs in Brief Lives are bad enough that we're looking to see if we can have the whole thing recolored. Normally we do selective recoloring, but in Brief Lives we're looking at selectively recoloring half of it. ML: I'm sorry you had such bad luck with the separation people! NG: We didn't have such bad luck with those people, we just shouldn't have stayed with those people! Those people - looking back on it, it was fairly obvious, it was actually Jill Thompson who suffered the entire brunt of it. Dublin were never very good, the Grafascan people. The point at which Jill came aboard, the story before Brief Lives, is the point at which the whole thing fell apart. And they just stopped trying. It kept on until we finally left them, we kept saying this is your last chance, but it became apparent that they had no intention of improving. ML: Bummer.. Here's one from Richard Allan Barrews, which you can answer or not as you see fit! "PS. I have a specific question - what is the relationship between Tori Amos and Neil Gaiman? 'Tear In Your Hand' amused me, but the reciprocation in 'Blossom For A Lady' got me thinking." What does that mean. NG: [laughs] We're just good friends. At some point Brian Hibbs is going to do an interview with Tori, and we'll hear the Tori story. ML: Right, that'll be next issue. Ok, this next person says "What are his literary preferences?" and we know that - NG: Well, you don't REALLY. Let's put it this way. I just had a library built in the basement. It has become immediately apparent that the acres of shelving that I put in to turn this basement into a proper library are nowhere nearly enough. There are far too many books there. There is never enough room for books. ML: I have piles and piles and stacks and stacks of them too [weeping softly]... Anyway, the next question is from Nym Tran, who says "I didn't watch the recent Academy Awards, but heard from Mr. Col, my last year's teacher, that a Sandman animated short was up for an Oscar, and may have won it. I've let him borrow Preludes and Nocturns, so Mr. Col recognized the same characters and logo, not just something with a similar name." Have you heard anything about this? NG: N-no... I think I have seen a Sandman short - and I know there's no connection, let me say that up front. I didn't know it was up for an Oscar. It was in an animation festival in the UK. ML: Perhaps it's along the lines of the Metallica video, where - NG: Well no, the Metallica video has nothing to do with the book Sandman, but the song does. But no, nothing much I can say about that, I'm sorry, Sadie! I'll give you a witty, sparkling and brilliant answer to the next thing. ML: Well there isn't much more stuff - people really haven't sent in stuff that hasn't already been answered. There's been a few interesting little series of pictures that I'll send along.. NG: No other questions? Well... That's ok, we don't have to answer them then, do we? ML: Most of them seem to be quite content with the information they're getting, it's remarkable. NG: Well, they're getting far more information there then they would do anywhere else. Did you see the USA Today article? ML: Somebody emailed me a copy of the text - "Cosmic Brady Bunch" indeed! NG: You missed the incredibly grumpy photo of me! Magnificently grumpy looking. ML: They talked to all these other people ABOUT you, instead of talking TO you. Then they said all these silly things. NG: Well, there was one in the New York Times where they talked TO me, and that was even sillier! That was all about casting Sandman movies. ML: Squiddie and I were talking about doing it a la Black Adder, using the same cast. NG: You could do that easily - actually what you could do is cast Good Omens using the cast of Black Adder. Here the tape ran out - which is ok, because all we did was banter about Miranda Richardson for a few seconds, anyway...
My pal, artist Shea Anton Pensa, is currently hard at work drawing Sandman 55. I thought this would be a great opportunity to find out what working with Neil is like as it's actually happening, as well as get a preview of some pencils before seeing the final inks and colors. So I called Shea up and subjected him to a grueling Magian Line interview... Magian Line: So, how did you wind up actually getting this gig? Shea: In San Diego, 1991, I was introduced to Neil Gaiman by Valerie Jones, who at that time was working for Eclipse, and Neil said that he really liked my work and that he actually had suggested strongly to Karen Berger that I should do a Sandman. And at that point he said that he would maintain his interest in my doing a Sandman, and in 1993 my opportunity came. ML: Did he ever did do more describing what the project was going to be, besides what I saw in Brian's shop? S: Actually, no. At that point I hadn't had any more contact with Neil for about 2 years, nearly. Then at the signing at Brian Hibbs' Comix Experience, he said that he had one or two Sandmans that might be appropriate for me to work on, and the one criterion was "how fast can you draw?" He raised an eyebrow, and I said "Uh, fast..." and he said "Can you do an issue in about 3 weeks?" and raised an eyebrow again, and I said "Pencils, yeah" and at that point he said that after the signing was over we should discuss things. Then at the appropriate point, we talked, and he said "tell me first of all, what do you like to draw?" He was being very nice and very relaxed, and I wasn't put on edge at all, and instantly out of my mouth came the words "Baroque costume." Cause that's what I really really really like to do! And Neil's eyebrows shot up - well, just one of them still, over the sunglasses, and he said "Oh! Baroque costuming, indeed! Well, that lends an idea to mind." He described an idea involving an entire world that was basically a necropolis. One big huge mausoleum populated by people who basically live off the dead, in so many ways. Now I'm not sure exactly how many ways and how distasteful they may be - that part of the script hasn't gotten here yet! [laughs] So far they appear to be a society of morticians, undertakers, coroners - but none of them would be dressed in anything past the 1850's to 1870's. So I said "That just sounds right up my alley, I'm thrilled to death! That's when he started describing how he saw the buildings, and of course you piped in saying "Piranesi!" and I said "Who's that?!" ML: Aren't you lucky that you have a network of people out there who found and xeroxed Piranesi etchings for you! S: Damn straight, it's my own personal Sandman safety net! ML: So you've gotten so far three pages of script? S: I'm up to page 5 now, but that only includes three pages of mine, 2 pages are for Bryan Talbot's framing sequence, and at this point I've completed 2 pages and am working on my third page, and I've heard back that both Shelly Roburg thought the pages were great, and Neil said they looked real good, and he was happy with them. ML: So you said you had to draw up a picture of just how the main character's going to be dressed? Separate from what's actually going to be in the book? S: Exactly - separate from the framing sequence. I spoke to Neil about it, and he said that in order for Bryan to know what to draw in the framing sequence, we need you to do up a design of the character that's narrating the story, who'll be the focus of the story - young Petrofax, assistant to Klaproth, introduced in issue 52. Once Bryan had that, he could start doing the framing sequence, and then we could start worrying about the pages. I thought about it, and I know what kind of deadline we're up against, and I know Chicago Con's coming up here and I am sure I saw Neil's name on the guestlist! So I thought there must be a way to cut time here, so what essentially I'll do is I'll start pencilling the pages, just doing the backgrounds and the other figures, and I'll basically just block in Petrofax and leave out the costume, so I'm ahead of schedule, which Shelley will really like, and I'll make sure the stuff's not late. Then I got the go-ahead that Neil thought the costume was fine, and I blocked in the rest of Petrofax after that. Finished up the pages and sent them off to Chicago Con, into the waiting hands of Shelly Roberg, Neil Gaiman, and the inker, Vince Locke. ML: Huzzah! I guess Neil's the guest of honor at the Con, so he's probably not going to have a heckuva lot of time to write a lot more for a little while. S: Well, it gives me a little breathing space to really do the next page up right. Considering I gotta do horses! My photo library doesn't really have a lot of references on 18th century funeral carriage setups, but I'm sure I can find something. ML: I guess that's one thing about working with Neil is that you do have to go and get reference materials up the yang. S: It's not so bad - I only have to sit there and go through the Hammer Film library! ML: What a shame! [laughing] S: Like I haven't already watched them all three times and know all the lines by heart! "The Count lives in that castle; no one goes there..." ML: So you haven't really had a lot of contact with Neil directly on this project. S: Aside from a very nice phone message, no. He was very kind, very polite, and mellow as all get out on the phone. I haven't ever really seen Neil stressed out - it appears that whenever there's a stress-out, he's not there! Very calculated and approvable business tactic on his part! I've never seen him aside from when he's in control and moving with the moment. ML: So you have another, what, 18 or 20 pages? S: I was told I have 22 pages in all, but we'll see what happens at the end of it all. I guess that's another 19 or so pages. ML: And you have another 2 weeks to do them in? S: Heh! That depends - I spoke to Shelley Roburg, and said that considering the Chicago Con and the need to have approval for Petrofax's design, all these slight but necessary delays will be taken into account in the scheduling, right? and she said yes, absolutely. So I will have 2 weeks do draw the pages, on top of whatever else comes down the pike - hopefully nothing will! You know, this is the high summer, this is the Comic Book Summer From Hell, - it's the big push, everyone's gotta keep the fire going underneath their feet and we have to keep all the pots on the stove at a steady boil - which is going to be hard, because this summer there's too damn many pots on the stove! All I can say is I'm happy I have a Sandman and a few other projects too! ML: Could do a lot worse! S: As far as I'm concerned, this is the best break of my career! ML: This is hopefully going to give you a chance to show that you can do something other than the bop em up sort of thing. S: Well you know, old reruns of Miami Vice are just SO attractive [laughs] - eventually you have to branch out! There's only so many ways you can artfully describe a grenade going off in somebody's gas tank! ML: I remember when we were talking to Neil in the store, he was saying that one of the things he took a certain pride in was being able to suit an artist to the concept, rather than forcing an artist to work totally at something they didn't like or weren't good at. S: He is very good at that, I remember him saying "I seem to remember that you said something about being sick of all the, quote, boom booms, and all the guns and the murdered minorities" - well, the murdered minorities bit may be a bit of poetic license, there! He went on to say that he remembered that I'd mentioned wanting to do material I felt more suited for, and I said "yes, that's absolutely the case!" He's pulled that rabbit out of the hat - this story is the most suited-to-my-skills story I've received yet. ML: Hopefully this will turn all sorts of people on, and you'll wind up having a wonderful career doing what you LIKE to do! S: I hope so, because I really slaved over that Escher-esque, Piranesi-esque architecture! I put 5 hours into that one panel! Hear that, Vince? 5 hours, Vince! I want that in boldface! 5 hours, Vince! [Shea has since reported that Vince Locke has done a fantastic job, preserving every line. Yay, Vince!] ML: So you'd better take 5 hours inking it! S: That's right, every little tower, every little minaret, every little staircase, every little grave, every little tombstone - it's all there, right down to the mummies in the foreground, hanging out in this gothic skyscraper, very Antonio Gaudi meets H.R. Geiger-esque type building. ML: Oh my - that sounds alarming! S: I hope so! That's what the script was! ML: Was the script really descriptive of - like, did you read it and get an exact picture in your head, or was there a certain amount of license? S: Um, both and neither! I shall elaborate. Allow me to expound. In the way Neil writes - I was always one of those people that wondered what a Neil Gaiman script looked like, because when you see the finished product - you know, everyone's heard of the page-long, single spaced, typed, Alan Moore single panel description. So you sit there going "I love Neil's stuff, but I wonder how heavy the material's going to be..." Some of them it's like 5 words for a panel. And that's really cool because the rest of it can become a little extraneous. He does specify that if there's a certain angle or if there is a particular stance to take with the panel that will better suit the story, by all means take it - the longest panel description I've seen in my piece of script is about 8 lines long. It's very clear, and it very much describes what he wants, and at the same time there is a certain amount of interpretation which is viable within the telling of the story, visually speaking. So for example on the first panel, there had to be tombstones, there had to be catafalques, there had to be towers, there had to be strange-looking air burial areas - now, of course, what the hell is an air burial area? Ok, we have the Vedhic ones, we have the Norwegian ones, we can think of native Africans hanging out on hills, letting the birds take care of people - ML: There are Native American ones, too - the Plains Indians... S: Absolutely! So you have every possibility, and I'm like "Wow, it all gets left up to me!" So I had some fun with that, and I got to cross some high Gothic with what we probably all visualize with the Mabignogian Island of Ymrir. [Right, Shea!] So I went a little bit cocky with that, but only the slightest tinge, so as not to distract from the high Gothic, darksome, death rock feel of the whole piece. It's all been the best stuff, so far... It's all been very relaxing, oddly enough, to draw. Very soothing to draw this type of material. ML: Cause it's not a whole lot of biff bam pow? Or because it suits your temperment? S: It suits my temperment, and it's also artistic. The benefit of doing Neil's stuff instead of pseudo-reality-bullshit-comics, and there are hyphens between those words [yes boss!] is that the pseudo-reality stuff is essentially illustration. And I've complained to certain editors before - they don't want you to do the most artistic representation of a table, they don't want you to come up with the best table, the table that is right for the character -they just want a damn table that is available at K-Mart or Cost Plus! Well geeze, I could be getting paid a helluva lot more money to be doing commercial illustration with an airbrush! With Neil's stuff, Neil wants basically the most artistic interpretation of a scene, from what I can tell. Luckily for me, since this is a created world as opposed to a real one, I get to do that. My whole reason for getting into comics was for escapism - you know, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the original 30's version of Frankenstein, in terms of the late 60's stuff and the design concepts there, the "Abominable Dr. Phibes" was a good one! ML: Yeah yeah! That's one of my favorite movies ever! S: To create, rather than represent - representation is for a xerox machine, an artist is supposed to create! To first establish rather than re-establish, not simply to draw what's sitting there in front of you. You have to take the concept that's there and bring something new to it. But what can you do if you're drawing a box of Puffs Kleenex tissue? ML: You've actually had to do that, huh? S: Oh yeah! Garbage cans, spray paint, crack pipes - you name whatever sleasy bits of boring 20th century trivia that's there, and I've been asked to draw it. ML: Well, I'm glad that you're finally finding with Neil the job that you've been looking for. S: The niche that I so seek. [laughs]
As part of our never-ending quest for Everything There Is To Know About Neil Gaiman, here's a list of loads and loads of interviews and articles, compiled by New Zealand Mage Linean Kerrin Jones - Good work! Amazing Heroes #152 (Nov. 1988)
Escape #16 (Autumn-Winter 1988)
Hellblazer #15 (Jan. 1989)
Sandman #4 (April 1989)
Fear#19 (July 1990)
Rolling Stone #447 (Aug. 1990)
The Comics Journal #139 (Dec. 1990)
Salient Vol 53 No 21 (Sept. 3, 1990)
Skeleton Crew (Nov. 1990)
Amazing Heroes #185 (Nov. 1990)
Amazing Heroes #186 (Dec. 1990)
Comics Interview #103 (1991)
Fantazia #17 (1991)
Locus (March 1991)
Comics Scene #18 (Apr. 1991)
Who's Who in DC Universe #15 (Jan. 1992)
Amazing Heroes #199 (Feb. 1992)
Wizard #9 (May 1992)
Comic Shop News #270 (2 Sept. 1992)
Comics Forum #1 & #2 (Summer 1992)
Previews Vol. II, No. 11 (November 1992)
Comics Interview #116 (late 1992)
Comics Interview Super Special: Sandman (1993)
The Comics Journal #155 (Jan. 1993)
Advance Comics #49 (November 1992.)
Comic World (Feb 1993)
Magian Line #1 (1993)
USA Today (1993)
NY Times (1993)
Also, various issues of Comic Shop News, Direct Currents (DC), Locus and Interzone. Thanks to Warwick Gray, Helen Reilly and Lance "Squiddie" Smith for providing additional information.
A poem (nice and bleak!) by Neil, soon to be reprinted in the upcoming Angels and Visitations book we mentioned earlier. POST MORTEM OF OUR LOVE I've been dissecting all the letters that you sent me,
I've laid the presents that you gave me out upon the floor
I'm conducting a post mortem on our love. There's an eyeball in a bottle staring sadly at the morgue
Was it suicide, or murder, or an accident, or what?
I'm conducting a post mortem on our love.
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