Contents:
I - Potentate's editorial ("Pontifications")
II - Interview with Neil ("The Man in Black Speaks")
III - Song by Neil ("All-Purpose Folk Song")
IV - Fabby Neil Quiz! ("The Quiz")
 I - Pontifications |
Hey kidz! First order of business is to apologize for being so late with this issue. The previous issue had actually come out a bit early, since I was going on a long roadtrip afterwards, but this one's still technically a bit late, so it's been quite a gap. The other alarming aspect of this issue is that it's the last one in everyone's subscriptions! I started everyone off with the first issue of volume 1, regardless of when they joined (some folks are getting all four issues in this package!) so it's time for everyone to renew. It makes my bookkeeping much easier, and no one misses anything.
I've got a form for renewals (you can xerox it, if you want your Magian Lines to stay in mint condition, har har!) and included on the form is a neet Neil quiz that Squiddie and I (well, mostly Squiddie) cooked up, in order to give away some prizes that Neil was thoughtful enough to share with us (and you can check out the interview with Neil in this issue for details on those! Pretty darn nifty, I can tell you right now!)
I've gotten a message from someone on the CIS Comics Forum that I need to share - it seems that Craig Hamilton's original artwork for his pinup in Sandman #50 was stolen at Phillycon last fall. Roxanne Starr asks that we put out an all-points bulletin, and any possible information will be passed back to Craig.
I'm sure you've all gotten Angels and Visitations and know what a gorgeous book it is, let alone being as brilliantly written as we'd expect! If you can't find it yet, be sure and give Dreamhaven a call, at 800-379-0657, or Fax em at 612-379-0861 ($20 + $4 S&H). The Limited Edition version is imminent, and sounds like it's going to be too wonderful for words - you'll want to look for that in a few weeks!
I've also gotten a couple of CDs in the mail - one was a surprise arrival by a Minneapolis music regular named Stephen Brust, whose CD A Rose for Iconoclastes includes a song called Neil Gaiman Pastiche #27 as well as a bunch of other numbers with really clever and interesting lyrics.
The other CD was one I'd been eagerly awaiting for some time now - the Flash Girls first effort, The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones The Flash Girls are Emma Bull (writer and Important Person) and the Fabulous Lorraine (Neil's secretary - and Important Person). I was lucky enough to see them play an acoustic show at a bookstore in Minneapolis when I was there, with Drew Miller of Boiled in Lead sitting in on bass (he and other local musical sorts help out in many ways on the CD). The Flash Girls perform originals (damned clever ones, too), traditional folk numbers, and adaptations of several songs/poems written by Neil (including "Post-Mortem of Our Love", which is featured in Angels and Visitations). One number he wrote especially for them, which they perform live but is not on the CD, is called "All-Purpose Folk Song", and the lyrics are reproduced in this issue. As Neil mentions in the interview herein, he also wrote a story for the liner notes. Even without that strong inducement, I think this CD is something Linians will want to check out - it's fun and lovely and a fine thing all around.
| II - The Man in Black Speaks |
Magian Line: So the first question, as ever, would be what have you been up to since October?
Neil Gaiman: Oh god, I don't know, Sadie, I've been writing things! Um, Sandman, what else... Done some short stories.
ML: Where might the short stories be expected to appear?
NG: One of them - which is a very strange story which isn't quite finished - it's finished in first draft and needs another runthrough - it's the strangest thing I think I'v ever written.
ML: Oooh! that's saying something!
NG: Well, maybe not the most peculiar, but as short fiction goes, it's definitely a very, very peculiar story. It's about a - it's written for an HP Lovecraft centennery anthology, called Shadows Over Innsmuth. I promised my friend Steve Jones, who's editing it, a story, god knows - three years ago. And wrote a bit of a story. Very recently, the anthology was on again, so I went back and looked at what I'd written, and didn't like it, so I sat down and wrote something else for it. It has a working title of "Only the End of the World, Again" which is what it's about. It's about a werewolf. Well no, it isn't ABOUT a werewolf, the hero happens to be a werewolf. People continually comment on this. Everyone he meets knows, and has their own opinion on werewolfism, which has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
I've just finished, and am about to fax off, a story for a Michael Moorcock Elric anthology. I've done them a story which I don't think is like anything like what anyone was expecting. They were expecting an Elric story - proud, pale prince of a dying race flails around with his big, black sword, and stuff. And instead they have a very strange little rather personal story called "One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock", about being a 12 year old kid and obsessed with Elric and Michael Moorcock.
ML: Which you were, I take it?
NG: Which I was. It's the kind of story where, everybody who reads it assumes that everything in it is true and the protagonist is me, even more so than they do with Violent Cases-y things. Which is rather a pity, because it's not, really. I thought I'd kind of made that clear by - it's one of those stories where I made a decision at the beginning and didn't do it as a first person narrator. I thought that at least that would give them enough distance, but it doesn't.
ML: At least there'll be a few people who'll know it's not actually you.
NG: A few hundred Magians, who know the dark secret... It's an odd little story, what I'm saying is that there's lots of true little things in there.
ML: We have to discern the truth from the total fiction?
NG: Anything in there that looks particularly unlikely is true. At one point the hero nearly gets killed, which isn't completely true, but basically happened to me. Other than that... what else? Other than that ... everything's fine! Writing things, making them up, writing them down... Alice Cooper is doing terribly well. We've got stuff in from Michael Zulli so far, and I think that people will be surprised.
ML: Well, we know to expect the unexpected anyway.
NG: It's good. Dave McKean has just signed up to do the covers for not only all the Marvel comics, but also the cover of the album.
ML: Do we have any sort of release date for these things?
NG: Mmmm, Aprilish, Mayish... I don't know. I just wrote the intro for Tori Amos's tour book - a sort of a little quid pro quo for her writing the intro to Death.
ML: You're getting to be quite a part of the Rock and Roll biz these days! Writing liner notes and such...
NG: [chuckles] Well, the Flash Girls don't count. Well, of course, they DO, but they get liner notes out of me because my secretary, the Fabulous Lorraine, sort of looms at me until I write it. She'll say things like "I don't care about getting this script in on time - you have liner notes to write!" So I actually wrote my little liner notes short story.
ML: We won't even have to plug the CD, now that people know there's some of your writing contained in the package!
NG: Did they send you a review copy?
ML: I have gotten a review copy, and I've gotten a little ad, and I have also gotten the lyrics to the Generic Folk Song, which I will use as filler.
NG: You got the complete lyrics?
ML: Well, I got quite a few lyrics, anyway! They're beautiful!
NG: Well, they're perfectly generic - the all-purpose folk song. That was fun, that was just a matter of going and seeing them at the Renaissance Festival, and deciding that they needed a folk song in their act.
ML: They do it nicely - I saw them, when I was up there, and they performed it - it's too bad that it's not on the CD.
NG: It'll be on the next album.
ML: They're terribly nice, I like them a lot. I also got, out of nowhere, a CD from this Steven Brust person.
NG: Oh, the Neil Gaiman Pastiche! Steve's great - very nice man, very fine author.
ML: Yeah, the lyrics are terrific!
NG: So, ask me questions - what do the massed hordes assembled want to know?
ML: Well, basically, what they all want to know, of course, is what stuff they can look forward to of yours, NOW.
NG: Aren't they satisfied, yet? [laughs] Things out there right now, I don't know. Over the next few months, we'll do things like record the audio version of Angels and Visitations. Just because we're getting so many requests from people. Partly that, and partly because a number of conventions and individuals seem to be making very fine livings from what are, essentially, bootlegs. Not bootlegs in the sense of "I disapprove" or anything like that, but you know - selling tapes of me doing readings, and videos, and things like that, and I figured, well, I figured I might as well do some of this in a studio.
ML: Might as well capitalize on this trend yourself, huh? Next thing they're going to have you singing!
NG: [rather horrified tone] That won't happen! I'm fighting that one, and fighting the Flash Girls' attempts to get me to play keyboards. [laughs] NO! I'm not going to, shut up!
ML: I think it's a swell idea! Maybe if you took up bass or something, you could be a sort of looming, menacing presence in the back of the stage or something.
NG: The trouble is, I was a double bass player. Didn't I ever tell you this story?
ML: NO!
NG: When I was about 9, we were asked what instrument we wanted to learn. I picked the string bass.
ML: That's a good thing to pick. NG: Well, especially if you're really small. I liked it because I got to carry it around everywhere and be really tiny. I wasn't a huge kid, just this little nine year old, and I got to carry around this instrument twice the size of me. I loved that. I eventually stopped playing it when (a) I was sort of roughly in proportion to it, and (b) when the comments of "how do you get it under your chin?" got too much.
ML: Well, that's an interesting tidbit from your deep, dark past - too bad it was all size-related, though!
NG: And they say the size doesn't matter! No, it wasn't the size, it was simply the incongruity. I loved being this tiny kid with this big thing, people would look, and it was strange...
ML: You just wanted people to notice you!
NG: Exactly!
ML: I've got you all figured out now! So, what's another thing - what about the BBC thing? Any further news?
NG: Yeah, I have to go hide in a hotel in a week to write a script.
ML: So it's definitely happening.
NG: As far as I can tell, yes. The wheels of the BBC simply grind very slowly. I suspect if I were in England right now, they'd be grinding faster. The wheels have not stopped turning, however, and they have just commissioned another two scripts from me. So I have to go off and write them!
ML: So that, then, means that there's a fairly good likelihood that someone will eventually act out and film these scripts, but we don't know that for certain.
NG: It means that they're being budget-conscious every step of the way, and are doing one thing at a time. Yes, essentially. My guess is that the thing is going to wind up happening eventually, but it's just a matter of when.
ML: Well, it seems like a good prospect - they might as well capitalize on the fact that people know who you are now, and you write well!
NG: And also they don't have very much right now - they've got Red Dwarf, but there's nothing else in the area of the fantastic. They have production values that I'm looking forward to working with.
ML: Is it going to be along the lines of the Red Dwarf stuff? Will it be comedic, as well as fantastic?
NG: Well, it is funny, but the humor is the kind of humor - it's the kind of stuff I was doing in the Children's Crusade, where it's kind of gently funny, but the humor is all in the dialog, and it's the kind of thing people say funny, rather than people making jokes funny.
ML: So you've got it all scripted out in your head, and just need to go seclude yourself?
NG: Yes. In the case of the first two episodes there are incredibly detailed outlines - well no, the first episode is all written and has been for two years, it's the hour-long pilot. I now have to write the next two episodes which are both half an hour long.
ML: So... Do you have any better idea about how the rest of the current story arc of Sandman is going to shape up, how many more issues we have?
NG: Nope. But I'll know soon. As soon as I've finished writing Act 1 I'll have a better idea, because the rest of it will be roughly - the shapes will reflect. As it is, we're still getting people onstage.
ML: Well, good! It looks like things are going to stretch out, as usual, and become longer than you had threatened.
NG: That's one reason why I keep going round trying to explain to people - they say "oh, you're killing off Sandman, eh?" and I say no no - just doing the last major story arc. And they say "yes, so it's the end" - well, everything ends! "So, what number? when's it going to finish?" I DON'T KNOW!
ML: That's fine, let's just keep it indefinite forever!
NG: We're doing a Sandman Gallery, because the Death Gallery was so popular and well-loved.
ML: I keep hearing from young artists that they want to do super gorgeous Sandmans...
NG: Get them to do Magian pinups! Say "Look, Neil will see it! It will come to his attention!" I just got the Sandman holograms they've done, for the card sets. They're pretty good - there's one thing I wish they hadn't done, which was the two weird sort of eye gleams, which work perfectly at one angle of the holograms, and the others make him look sort of cross-eyed. But it is a very beautiful, very strange little hologram. Have you got any Magian Line competitions you'd like one for?
ML: Ooooh! God, that's a GREAT idea!
NG: There's going to be something like one for every 180 packs, so they're probably going to be trading hands at something like $100 bucks a shot. [$250, at last count!]
ML: That's a damn good idea! I think me and Squiddie will put our heads together and come up with some sort of a quiz. Seeing as how I'm making everybody renew...
NG: Ok, well, I will thrown in a few of the little prototype Endless cards. Shunt out a few of those to you.
ML: I am very pleased, thank you! I hear that you haven' t been entirely 100% pleased with the whole card situation, though.
NG: I don't know - part of it is simple communication, which irritates me because I wind up, like it or not, and despite the fact that I have very little to do with these cards, I wind up as a 'front man' for them - I suggested artists up front and so on - but there were some genuine screwups. Couple of them really bizarre. Charles Vess did a card which was meant to show the Cuckoo, Loki and Puck. For some reason, his first draft, the pencils, didn't include the Cuckoo, so we got this sketch of Loki and Puck. So somebody rang him up, and he said "Oops" and he went off and did a second version with the Cuckoo on it, the little girl. Someone at DC quit, and somebody else took over, and in all that there was some miscommunication, and then the one that got colored and printed was the one without the Cuckoo on it.
ML: Oh dear...
NG: Also, the card people couldn't quite handle Desire's naked chest. They censored out the naked chest. Which was very odd, because it was actually a very masculine design - there weren't actually any breasts! The idea of seeing a naked person with makeup... from the waist up...
ML: That's really sad! Well, the Skybox people sent me 450 of that first prototype card that they came out with. Unfortunately, they sent them to me the day after the last issue was sent out. Which turns out to be just fine, because they'll be much more timely coming out in this issue.
NG: So. I just learned that I had a story selected for next year's "Year's Best Fantasy". It's Troll Bridge. It was nice, I got in there two years running, which, considering the quantity of short stories I write...
ML: That's lovely, congratulations! Hopefully someday you'll be able to write more short stories; they come off nicely. Angels and Visitations is a lovely book.
NG: Well, Mr. Punch should be finished today. I spoke to Dave McKean yesterday, and he had one day's worth of work to do. It's starting to produce a certain amount of excitement in England, which is nice - they had a film crew down. It's a 90 page graphic novel, painted by Dave. What I've seen is fantastic, I can't wait to see the rest of it. It's one of the best things I've written. One of the very, very few things I've written that I'm not embarrassed about. I don't look at it and go "Oh, it could have been so much better." Well, I DO look at it that way, but I probably couldn't have made it any better.
ML: So that should be produced and out in the next couple of months?
NG: No, because you're talking about Gollancz, who are a book company, who move with the speed of book companies, rather than with the speed of comic book companies. My guess is that it will be out before Halloween - I would like to get it out before Octoberish. It seems very strange that I'm currently writing stuff that's going to be out in 6 weeks, but Mr. Punch will be a while - I don't know who's going to get it in America.
ML: Well, it definitely needs to be sold in America!
NG: I suspect... I don't know. I know DC wants it, Karen would love to have it for the Vertigo line. So we'll have to wait and see.
ML: People have been waiting a long time for that one, you've been threatening it for ages!
NG: Well yes, I've been threatening it for 3 years before I wrote it, and I began writing it 18 months ago. It took a long while to do.
ML: It must feel good to have it out of your domain.
NG: Well, it's been feeling good like that for 8 months now. It's been Dave's problem. The artwork is stunning, it doesn't look like anything Dave's done before. It's another Dave style(s). It's a little bit like a sort of color version of Cages, but not really. It's very strange - it looks, in some ways, almost like a children's book. You have these sort of full-color paintings of these very simple drawings.
ML: Can't wait to see it. What's going to be the deal with the Endless spinoff miniseries? I thought the next one was going to be Delirium.
NG: I THINK the next one may be Death again. The next one I'm planning to is Delirium with Jill, but bowing to popular pressure, I'm leaving myself an escape clause, which is what I'll do if I can't think of a story. Chris Bachalo is getting busier and busier and busier, and he really wants to do another Death book. I kind of figured that he earned it, after last time. So, I said no for a while, and then one day I realized what the title of the next Death book was. "The Time of Your Life." Knowing what the title was, I kind of went, ok, clear time in your schedule, so he's cleared time around the end of this year, so it should be out in early 1995. I suspect that it's going to be the next installment in the Foxglove and Hazel story, because I don't think that's going to happen anywhere in Sandman.
ML: And we want to know what happened to them!
NG: Yes, and also, they're a very irritating couple in some ways - they carry on in real-time in my head. It's true - some characters don't, some characters will move into stasis when they get offstage. I stop writing about them and they freeze. They'll stand there in the same position until I go back and look at them. Foxglove and Hazel don't. They've already had their baby, Foxglove's career is doing just fine, they're currently moving out of New York, they're doing just fine.
ML: Well! I'm looking forward to hearing what they're up to! There's all sorts of stuff that could be miniseries. I'd love to hear some of the stuff that Destruction did, and I'd like to know some of the stuff that the woman in Worlds' End wound up doing after the end of the story line.
NG: Petrefax is someone that people kept writing in an asking if we could have a Petrefax miniseries. Roland and Paine, right now, people want more of them. I look at them and go "I don't want to, leave me alone!" That would be sweet, as soon as I have time.
ML: Once you're done with Sandman, you could keep going with spin offs, monthly forever!
NG: Sure, if I wanted to! Once it's over, I will be exhausted.
ML: It's a shame, because I'm sure there's more stories in there.
NG: Well sure, but it's partly that you always leave them wanting more, and partly I want to stop while there's still a good taste in my mouth. I still haven't got to the point yet - there might have been a couple of days when it was a close thing - but I still haven't gotten to the point of looking at myself in the mirror in the morning, bleary and unshaven, and going "You poor bastard, you have to write Sandman today." It still feels like an adventure. It's still a pleasure.
ML: I figured we'd be able to tell if it wasn't fun for you anymore, it wouldn't be as fun to read. There's still something happening there. I'd still like to hear about Desire's brief stint as bassman - bassthing - in Roxy Music...
NG: [laughs]
ML: I had a question worth asking from the Line - Bill Jennings on Internet, who said that he read in Comics Values Monthly that you would be writing a story for Colleen Doran's Anthology Aria, and for Negative Burn?
NG: Well - I don't know if I'm doing anything for Colleen. Colleen asked me years and years ago if I'd do something for her, and I think what we were talking about at the time was her taking an existing story and adapting it. I haven't spoken to her recently, but I'll always do stuff for Colleen. Negative Burn - well, there are two things happening with Negative Burn. Thing 1 is that I'm going to be illustrating an Alan Moore set of lyrics. Which will be kind of fun. Alan's written songs over a number of years, and someone got the idea to have artists illustrate his lyrics. I picked a song called "Murders in the Rue Morgue" because it was a very black and white song. I like drawing white on black - it's fun and restful and it does things that light does. It's easier to cheat. Having just done the Peter A. David "But I Digress" cover, which is coming out this month, I'm waiting nervously to see what people think of that.
ML: What exactly is that?
NG: That's the cover to - Peter David does a column called "But I Digress" in Comic Buyer's Guide, and he asked me - online, actually, on Compuserve in a little private message, he asked me would I draw the cover. And I said "Yes, alright", so I did. [sounding quite chuffed] It's a little weird DorŽ pastiche. It has Peter David coming down from the mountain. Anyways, I'm drawing the Negative Burn thing, and they're also doing an adaptation which they're doing themselves of a story from Angels - "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale"; they said would I do the adaptation myself and I said no, because (a) I'd already written it and I had no desire to write it again, I already know what's in it. But also (b) they'd have to wait a long time if they genuinely wanted me to do it. So, Negative Burn will be running an adaptation by Joe Pruett and Ken Mayer, I think it is. If there is a Colleen thing - I love working with Colleen, she's terrific - it will be, I suspect (unless someone develops that machine for 48 hour days, 97 day weeks) it will be an adaptation of something that already exists. Did I say that I wrote the intro to Tori's tour book?
ML: Yeah.
NG: See, I'm losing it already.
ML: She's touring when?
NG: I don't know. But she tells me that I've made it into a song again.
ML: Well see, even though you refuse to be an actual rock star, you're already a part of rock legend.
NG: I have nothing against being a rock legend, as long as I don't have to get up onstage!
ML: Speaking of which, are you going to be doing any appearances this year, or are you going to live up to your threat?
NG: [laughs] I don't know - I might... I've been invited to a German convention this year. And I might well go.
ML: Have you ever done any appearances in Europe?
NG: I went to a signing in Germany once. The German edition of Dream Country just arrived - I think, actually, they only invited me out of embarrassment. The German edition of Dream Country - the story Calliope... On the last page of the story, if you go and look at your copy, you will discover a blank panel. There are some black and white panels of the Sandman, where he's sort of receding and getting further and further away. Panel 8 on that page is a blank panel. I got my German edition, and it had a very odd drawing of the Sandman in that panel. The kind of thing that looks like it was done by somebody's 12 year old. I hit the roof - I thought, why are these people going in and drawing their own Sandman? So I got on to DC, DC hadn't noticed it, they hit the roof, they got onto the Germans... The Germans, who hadn't noticed it, hit the roof, and tracked it down and discovered that the letterer had doodled [laughing] in his copy, while bored during lettering. He had this little blank panel, and drew a little Sandman. The letterer's copy of Sandman 17 had then gone off to the printer, so the printer had reference for the color. The printer then noticed that there was this panel missing on the film that he was sent - on the film there was this blank panel, but then there was obviously this thing, so he very, very carefully transferred this drawing. The Germans are terribly, terribly embarrassed, and I think that may be why I've been invited over. I'm thinking seriously right now about doing doing a speaking tour. Essentially doing a reading tour. Going out on the road.
ML: What sort of venues?
NG: Small places. Just do four or five - read some stories and poems, question and answer, read another story. I miss interacting.
ML: You just don't miss the writer's cramp of the signing.
NG: I don' t miss the grueling brain death of the signings. I also don't miss the fact that the signings were getting to the point where they were becoming unmanageable. There was nowhere to go - if you're doing a signing, unless the goal is to do the Howard Stern thing and make the papers for number of people shoved through, then there comes a point after which it becomes unfeasible. Why get 2000 people out there? The poor buggars - the most I've ever been able to sign for is about 800 or 900, and by the end of those days I was wiped out. 7 or 8 hours of really not being able to say hello to people. With those numbers, I really don't even remember them. You get nice letters from them after, saying "You'll remember me, I'm the one who asked you about Hob Gadling" - um, no.... That sounds a lot worse than it is - I astonish myself by remembering an awful lot of people.
ML: You astonish the people you remember, actually.
NG: The kind of numbers we were getting, that was becoming impractical. Whereas, I figure that I'd much rather have 600 or 700 people, and they'd probably much rather listen to some stories, ask questions from the audience. They would get more of an interesting, personal, whatever... if that's what they're after... than they would by shoving a book in front of me.
ML: I think what a lot of people want, actually - whether from you or a rock band up on the stage - they want to have you look in their eyes, and show that you see that they exist. That's sort of hard to do in an audience situation, but what the hell.
NG: Well, that's the plan, anyway. There isn't anything more than that, right now - I'm going to have to find some nice, sweet, gullible person to actually do the organization of it. Normally something like that would get done by DC. Maybe we'll do it as a Mr. Punch tour. Dave McKean is talking about how he'd like to do a signing tour, actually. If he does, that will lure me out of hiding.
ML: That will excite many people a lot.
NG: Also, that will be the only time - we've never done a signing in America. It would be the "See Neil And Dave" signing tour. We'd do t-shirts. I just made that up, but we might...
ML: Well, is there anything else to talk about?
NG: No strange questions? Normally there's at least one strange question in there... Nobody's asked about...
ML: What color your socks are or something?
NG: Black.
ML: Well, what a dumb question, huh? How did the winter effect your basement library?
NG: The basement was fine - I've got hot water underflowing heating in the basement. Even when it was minus 30 here and the furnace went.
ML: So the rest of you weren't so fine, then? You all huddled in the basement?
NG: I just came downstairs and wrote. The cats' water had turned to ice.
ML: I can't believe how much trauma and suffering there's been all over the country this winter, and I've been sitting here warm and happy in San Francisco!
NG: Oh, you hadn't heard about the San Francisco poisonings? Well, I'll talk to you soon!
| III - All-Purpose Folk Song |
by Neil Gaiman
There's a ship a-sort of sinking in the harbor
And my lover is come down from the sea
Or fens, or heather
Fair maid, he sings, oh show me to your chamber door, or arbor
And he means me well, or ill
Or he ignores me altogether.
Ah, my love he is a knight so bold, impressive in his ardour
Or a minstrel or a pirate with his thighs and arms so firm
With a mandolin or an angry grin and a dead wife in the larder
And somewhere around this point in the song somone normally gets transformed into a loathly worm.
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle dee
I'm singing of the forests or the tavern or the sea
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle die
You can cross out or forget about the bits that don't apply.
Well, I sent my love a message as they led me to the pyre
But he'd shipped off with Prince Charlie to be a buccaneerio
And the pipes of Faerie skirled and the cows were in the byre
And we drank good English ale until we felt a little queerio.
Oh I care not nothing for your goose feather crotch
And I know you by the feather in your you-know
And we bantered and we badinaged, and then she stole me watch
The we sang and danced and lost our way all under the autumn moon-oh.
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle doot
No one's really listening and no one gives a hoot
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle die
You can cross out or forget about the bits that don't apply.
| IV -The Quiz |
1. When is Neil Gaiman's birthday?
2. What's the importance of the books The Gates of Dawn and Sin and Penance?
3. Before "The Golden Boy" in Sandman #54, Gaiman briefly used the character of Prez Rickard for another story. What was the story and what comic did it appear in?
4. Explain the significance of "The Black Hawk Kid."
5. One of Richard Madoc's story ideas later showed up in another comic book. Name the book and issue.
6. What happens to cassette tapes left in Crowley's Bentley?
7. What brand of pipe tobacco did the headmaster at Ardingly College Junior School prefer in the early 70s?
8. Where can you find "Neil Gaiman Pastiche #27"?
9. According to Hero Illustrated, where does Neil Gaiman rank amid "the 100 most important people in the comic book industry?"
10. Who are Master Redlaw and Master Leveret?
11. What comic book series featured a younger Neil as a deity?
12. What Gaiman story had Betty (now Bettie) Page as the President?
13. What was the first issue of Sandman in which Morpheus didn't make an appearance?
14. What Sandman story featured the television program "Dino's Kid-Vid Playhouse?"
15. What do you get if you cross a robin with a vulture?
16. How much was the copy of Romance and Legend of Chivalry?
17. Who was the publisher of Josiah Thompson's Gumshoe in the UK?
18. What was Alvin Mann's favorite color of lipstick?
19. Who wrote "The Typhoid Mary Blues?"
20. How old is Madd Hettie?
Questions regarding Magian Line should be sent to Sadie McFarlane.
Back to the Magian Line index.
| 
