Volume 2.2 Neil Gaiman News and Information Transit Authority October, 1994
Contents:
Man, there is a LOT of news this issue - where to begin? We've got Neil and Dave's Mr. Punch signing tour dates, be sure to go and say Hi From The Linians. We've got a review of Mr. Punch by our own highly-esteemed Mrs. Lynne Keith (the way to become highly esteemed is to write me often with erudite and interesting factoids, and inclose small favors - just a hint!) We've got Utterly Elsewhere Unpublished Neil Bits! We've even got the baby picture! We also got vast quantities of truly terrific art, and I wish I had room to run some of these great fan pieces (mostly of the eminently picturable Death, of course!) I'm gonna keep this stuff around, in case I ever actually come up with TOO LITTLE stuff to fill an issue... As if! We've got a lovely lovely rat portrait from Bryan Talbot, from his WONDERFUL One Bad Rat book. The only way this actually relates to Neil is that Neil wrote the introduction in the first issue, and Neil and Bryan are old friends (Bryan, of course, has done a lot of Sandman work). However, I am the potentate here, and I say One Bad Rat deserves space in this publication because it is absolutely excellent in every particular, and you all need to go out and buy it right now! So! See this issue's interview for more gushing - I could write a whole lot about it and take up precious space, but just please believe that it's phenomenal and go get it for yourselves. Also newly out is Neil Gaiman's Mr. Hero - a concept which confused me greatly at first, since he doesn't WRITE it, he merely concepted it. When I asked him why the heck I should bother getting it if he didn't write it, he remonstrated that writer Jim Vance and penciller Ted Slampyak are simply terrific and to trust him - and he's quite right. Bryan Talbot also did the pages of the Teknophage on his world, and the shift of styles between worlds is very effective. I've just heard that the Teknophage (which name apparently means "eater of its own publisher") is going to get its own title, with Rick Veitch joining Bryan as the creative team for that. Neil is licencing his ideas off like crazy - but who's to complain, eh? Speaking of Veitch, didja all check out the Rarebit Fiends featuring Neil? And, of course, Mr. Punch is here - and I hope you hurried up and got your copies, cause they're probably sold out by the time this reaches your mailboxes... It's really quite gorgeous - excellent quality of production, worth the money and the wait and the anguish. Neil won Best Writer for Sandman and Death at the Eisners in San Diego this year; P. Craig Russell won Best Penciller/Inker for Sandman #50, "Ramadan"; Todd Klein for Best Letterer (of course!); Chris Bachalo for Best Comics-Related Item for the Death Statue; Karen Berger for Best Editrix. Neil didn't win either award he was nominated for in New Orleans, boo hiss. Says it was an honor to be nominated, though. Mrs. Lynne Keith alerts us that copies of the Neil Gaiman roast and toast ashcan are still available from Pop Culture Press, 708-806-1130 for $10. Michael Liam Murphy alerts us that the Neil Gaiman big-secret-early-book-that-he-refuses-to-talk-about is available (one copy only) for $50 from Joseph Koch/Avalanche, 718-768-8571. Bob Kuhl alerts us that we screwed up with the alternative answers to the Fabby Neil Renewal Quiz and credited a couple of his to Dave Peabody - OOOPS! And then there's ANGELA. When I went to Pulsethumber General Brian Hibbs' store (Comix Experience in SF) to pick up Punch, One Bad Rat, Mr. Hero and the latest Sandman, I filled in my order sheet for the next month, and Brian fairly squawked - "What? No Angela?" "What's the deal, Brian, that's an Image title! Bad enough I'm already getting Groo!" "Sadie, Neil writes Angela. Look, here's the B&W preview. Take it. Run a page in Magian Line. I can't believe the Potentate of Magian Line didn't know about Angela!" And he laughed and laughed... Hmph, fooey, grumble... So I left a message for Neil asking him what the heck was up, here, and this was his reply: " I thought I'd told you all about ANGELA already... Eek... Angela is the comic I'm doing so my son Mike finally gets to be proud of me. It almost makes up for my not writing X-Men. It's filled with shouting, hitting, and running around; not to mention young ladies whose legs are almost twice the lenth of their bodies (that's a Greg Capullo thing, not a Mike Gaiman thing, although I strongly suspect that ANGELA will hasten the onset of puberty in many 12 year old boys...) It's a lot of fun." As you've deduced, ANGELA continues from the issue of Spawn that Neil wrote, Greg Capullo draws it, and it's coming out soon - check out the page later on in this issue. And thanks, Brian, you rotter! Smooches! - Sadie O., Potentate
[Neil explains the yowling noises in the background as the tape commences rolling] Neil Gaiman: There are all sorts of stray cats in the area, so we leave food out for them, and they take advantage of it, but they always go away whenever humans show up. This one, we gave a couple of bowls of things, and he went "I LIKE you people" and went aside and went to sleep on the sofa. He was skin and bone, you could feel his rib case, and we've had him for a couple of weeks, given him shots and everything, and I looked down today and he has a little pot belly on him... I guess it's time to stop feeding him whenever he wants feeding... Learn to be nasty! Magian Line: You have a lot of fun with wildlife in your area, I can tell... NG: It's true. ML: You were going to put up bird houses, weren't you? NG: Yup. Sundry bird and bat houses. I got all the bat houses up, I have one.. two.. three bat houses up around the house, in trees, and lots of bird houses. I was told today that I have bats in my attic. ML: It's official, eh? NG: I officially have bats in my attic. ML: Such an honor! Must make for an insect-free house, too. Well, let's proceed with the usual deep interrogation. You said that I should prod you about all your various stories in anthologies, so let's do that. NG: Coming out this month is a limited hardback book called Shadows Over Innsmouth which is printed by a firm called Verduggen and Bremer and I have no idea how Mr. Verduggen and Mr. Bremer spell their names. ML: Well, if they're German, I can probably figure it out. NG: No, they're apparently Minnesotans. Although the book, I'm doing with an English editor named Steve Jones, with whom I did Now We Are Sick, and this was meant to be the H.P. Lovecraft centennary, but the H.P. Lovecraft centennary was about 4 years ago, so it took a while to get together. Steve rang me up at the beginning of the year, and said "I need that story your promised me for the anthology 4 years ago." I started one about 4 years ago, which is a sort of weird, odd humor piece, a monolog between these two Lovecraftian thingies. ML: You can't have a monolog between two thingies! A dialog, no? NG: Well, no, it wasn't so much a dialog, because neither of them was actually listening to what the other was saying! It's two monologs, with occasional misunderstandings. It's a bit like what would have happened if H.P. Lovecraft had been written by P.G. Wodehouse. Or even more to the point, if Peter Cook and Dudley Moore had portrayed two Lovecraftian nasties. ML: Oh excellent! Ha! NG: I'd begun this piece 4 years ago, when he originally wanted the anthology, and when he called it in, and I looked at it - I'd never finished it at the time, cause he said there was no hurry - and I discovered that it was too old to finish. I really am no longer the person who wrote that thing. I thought it was terribly funny, but it was a fragment. So I sat down and did a story for the anthology, a new one. It's a 6,000 word short story, called "Only the End of the World Again", which is a song - do you remember who by? ML: Never heard of it! Must be too hip for me. NG: I think it's on the Stiff box set... I seem to remember it as being a 70's punk or power pop song... But anyway, that's what the story's called, and it's fun, the hero is a werewolf. There's tarot cards and werewolves and Lovecraftian thingies and most of the cast of the Maltese Falcon... So it's a fun little story... ML: Is anything going to happen to the fragment? NG: I don't know - Steve kept talking about if I could just tack a bit onto the end, maybe... I dunno, do you want it? ML: [gurgling noises of great happiness] NG: You can have my fragment. ML: Gosh! What an offer! NG: Then there was a story I did in March, a short prose story I did for an anthology called Dangerous Women which was being edited by Ellen Dutlow and Pat Cattigan, and which has, alas, died. They wound up pulling the plug on the anthology. Alan wanted the story, which is called "Snow Glass Apples", for Snow White, Blood Red III, the third of the fairy story collections. I said no... I didn't want it in that context. Right now, it's coming out as a chapbook to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. We'll see if it actually turns up in any paperback things or if... there may be... I don't know. I'll tell you if it gets printed anywhere else. I haven't actually submitted it to anywhere else. We're doing it with a Charles Vess cover for this CBLDF chapbook. ML: So, that will be available at the usual sort of outlets? NG: I don't know! It may be, or it MAY wind up only being available at readings... ML: I'll check with the CBLDF and see if Magian Line can be a distributor. NG: That may be fine - check with Greg Ketter, he's sort of the one who's doing most of the organizing work. [I'll try to have some word on this for next issue - SP] What else have I got? There's a poem, called "Eaten: Scenes from a Moving Picture", which is in an anthology called Alien Sex II - I don't think it's going to be called that, but it's the second of the Alien Sex anthologies - and it's a pornographic film treatment in iambic pentameter. ML: [laughter] You're always inventing exciting new literary forms! NG: That was fun to write. Over this weekend, having said that they couldn't have "Snow Glass Apples" for Snow White, Blood Red III - a book which I believe is going to be called Ruby Slippers Golden Tears, actually - Ellen Dutlow phoned me up and said "Please please please, give me something, give me something, please please please (even if it's really short)", so I started something that was meant to be a really short poem, and promptly got completely out of control, and is a 2,500 word poem. An epic narrative poem, called "The White Road", which is a variant on the Mr. Fox folk tale, which is a folk tale about a young lady's encounter with a sort of Bluebeard-like, 16th century serial killer. I'm really, really proud of it. I want to try it out at World Fantasy Con next weekend, so if there's a reading, I shall read it! What else... There's a story that's going to be coming out in the Elric anthology, which I think is going to be called The White Wolf. ML: You're big on wolves these days, eh? Werewolves, wolf wolves... NG: There's wolves all over the place - not to mention foxes. The short story is actually sort of roman a clef autobiographical. The hero is very close to me at about the age of 12 going on 13. It's a story called "One Life Furnished in Early Moorcock" - The White Wolf is an anthology of other people's Elric stories and Elric is a character that Moorcock created. When I was 12 going on 13 I was the biggest Michael Moorcock fan, and the biggest Elric fan the world must ever have seen. When they asked me to write an Elric story, I was very excited, except that I really didn't have anything to say about Elric, NOW. But I had a lot to say about being 12, and being an Elric fan. (Oh, someone's got me a cup of tea, thank you very much. Is it tea? I can't see it. Could have been soup. OK, it's not likely that it would have been soup... OK, it's tea, good!) I also had a lot to say about the subtext of fiction, and how trustworthy fiction is, and how trustworthy authors are, and also the fact that sometimes there is subtext there that we do not see. Sometimes you're not quite ready to see it. One of the fun things about the Elric stories - Elric was this character who was this albino prince of a dying race who carried this huge black sword, which sucked out people's souls, and gave their energy to him. So he's forever taking out this huge, black sword, which vibrates and sings with anticipation of the blood to come, and plunging it deep into somebody's chest... ML: How awfully unpleasant! NG: Yes, but when you stop and think about it, it's INCREDIBLY sexual, the entire thing - magnificently sexual. Only, when you're 12, you don't figure that one out. So a lot of the story is about not having realized there's any subtext. The narrator feels personally betrayed by C.S. Lewis and the Narnia books, having realised the Christian subtext, but he figures at least the Elric books don't have any subtext. Perhaps subtext isn't the word - allegory might be better. So that was fun. I'm trying to think if there are any other bits and oddments around. I think that's it. ML: That's a fair amount of bits and oddments - should keep people out on a quest for three months, at least. Good to give people something to occupy themselves - like a treasure hunt. None of it's easy and obvious, you have to dig around for it. NG: In this case, two of them are coming out now - The White Wolf and Shadows Over Innsmouth. I've done a few sort of introductions and afterwards to things, but they sort of come and go and wash over me and I forget about them. Very embarrassing. ML: I shudder to think what your CV looks like! NG: I don't have one! ML: Why am I not surprised? NG: Well, who am I going to show a CV to? Occasionally... there is a sort of running biography that gets updated from time to time - all I do is sort of add a few more books to it. Neil Gaiman, on one sheet of typing paper. It ends "Neil Gaiman is 33, and tends to need a haircut." I suppose in a couple of weeks I'm going to have to change it to "Neil Gaiman is 34..." Anyone who can get past 33 without being crucified is probably doing OK. ML: Let's see... Have we talked about all the stuff we wanted to talk about regarding Mr. Punch? It's imminent as heck... NG: Yeah, in fact, it's already out in England. ML: I had seen a statement you'd written regarding your feelings as to the print run, and then I heard that you didn't want it disseminated as such.. NG: Well, it was a reply to somebody, one of those late at night things when somebody sends you email and you write a reply, which is the sort of reply you might send to one person, and then you suddenly realize this is being sent to 5,000 people around the world. If I were writing a formal press release, I probably would have been, if not more temperate, at least more guarded. ML: I suppose the question is, what do you think are the chances that there will be enough printed eventually to actual go around? NG: Don't know. All I can say is, get one of the 15,000 now! [laughs] If DC go back and do a paperback.. I think sooner or later someone will be a paperback, because if DC doesn't exercise their option to do a paperback, there are a number of very hungry companies who are waiting in the wings, going gimme gimme gimme. I don't know how long DC's option is. ML: What about the European company? NG: That's Gollancz. They've done a fairly large paperback run, and a fairly small hardback run, which all got bought (causing a fair amount of surprise and I believe political unrest - comic shop politics, not real politics) by one shop, Forbidden Planet in New Oxford St., London. The entire print run. ML: Conceivably, if people here fail to get one of the 15,000 - since advance orders are greater than that, already... NG: Tell them to write very fast to Forbidden Planet in New Oxford St.! I'm trying right now to find out if *I* can get any extra copies! I don't have any author copies. Technically, I should be able to buy some at author rates from DC or Gollancz, but there aren't any. I was supposed to get a batch of them, but they got lost in the post. There was a DC hardback, both Gollancz versions, and the German edition. I forgot to mention the German edition, do we have any German subscribers? Anyway, those never arrived. ML: The wonderful world of publishing. What a happy story! Let's see.. Your trip to England, next month. I never got specific dates for that, can you give me a rough idea of what you're up to? NG: I can give you dates... The 18th of November, I believe, we will be doing a signing at the Forbidden Planet in Glasgow. Then Forbidden Planet in London, New Oxford St., the only place with hardbacks, on that Saturday. Then we're going to have an opening party, or a launch party or something, on the 21st, which is a Monday, and I believe for the week of the 21st. I don't know if it's the London Cartoon Gallery or Cartoon Museum.. kind of embarrassing... but there's some sort of cartoon place where there will be a Mr. Punch exhibition for a week. I wish I knew more about that. Then we come back over here, and we do a Mr. Punch signing tour. You might want to check the date of the Dreamhaven one, because it's up in the air. The original way they had that scheduled, Dave would have had to leave halfway through and get a plane home. So, we've got the tour, and at the tour, we're going to be selling things that are rather cool and fun, that won't be available I think anywhere else... Again, if there are any left over, we can see about getting some for Magian Line to distribute. We've got a limited edition Mr. Punch print, which is a huge poster signed by me and Dave. It's really stunning. The graffiti Mr. Punch t-shirt should be out by then. ML: Well, what else do we have to talk about? Gosh, this could be a really short interview! NG: Well, I haven't been doing much lately except writing, which is always nice in terms of productivity, but is very quiet in terms of I haven't been rattling around the world, haven't been going to conventions... I haven't been doing much except staying home. ML: Someone said that you were not only going to be a guest of honor in Atlanta next year, but also at San Diego? NG: This is true. I'm going to guest of honor next year at the Atlanta World Horror Convention, the San Diego Comic Convention, and possibly at NECon, which is New England Comic Con, or something like that. It's a horror con, and I'll get the dates of that, and possibly at an academic conference on science fiction and comics in Riverside. ML: I remembered something I should ask you about! I got a lovely package from Bryan Talbot, about his "One Bad Rat" book, with all sorts of nice art and goodies, and I thought that in order to tie it in with Magian Line so I can pump his eminently worthwhile project, I should ask you what you think about it. Have you seen it? NG: What, "One Bad Rat"? It's lovely, yes! That's one of the things I wrote an introduction to, as well! It's really very good. ML: Bryan actually called me up one day, and told me about it - said he was pleased as could be with it, and he was prouder of it than anything he'd ever done, and sounded just like you talking about Mr. Punch! NG: He's done very well, beautiful book. I was a bit disturbed to see that all the advertising about it seems to be advertising it as a book about child abuse! It's not. It's about a young runaway coming to terms with her life. Yes, she's been abused, but that's about three panels of the book, that's not what the book's about. ML: That's good! So it's more of a positive, recovery thing? NG: Oh completely. ML: Good. Just judging from the pictures, and being a rat owner myself, Bryan does a damn good rat! NG: Well, Bryan has rats. If you go round to Bryan's house, rats pop out from odd places. Many of them in Bryan's clothing. ML: I'd like that - I'll have to go visit him sometime! He's ever such a nice man. NG: He is that. He also got one of the best drawings in the back of World's End. Dave McKean did all of these drawings of all of us, in the back of the collected book. Bryan Talbot and Michael Zulli got two of the really good ones, and me and Dave McKean and Karen Berger get the three really duff ones. ML: HAR! NG: I said to him "Dave, why? You did these stunning pen portraits of Bryan and Micheal and Mike Allred and Mark Buckingham, what was wrong with me?" and Dave said "Well, I know there must be a problem with yours because Claire (who is Mrs. Dave) looked at the pictures, and couldn't pick you out!" But he said it was probably just cause he knows us too well... ML: Can't wait to see those! Oh dear! Has that come out yet? NG: That's coming out before Christmas. With an introduction by Stephen King ML: Well, everyone will know what to get everyone for Christmas, then... [Here the tape ran out, and Neil decided to email the fragment he had spoken of to me then and there. While looking through his "Stuff" directory, he came upon several of his daughter Holly's homework writings, and read a bit of one: "What lives in the jungle and moves very slowly? Read on!" I laughed, and he said that the assigment before that had ended with "This story was written by Holly Gaiman. Be sure to look for Holly's other books..." Keep an eye on this kid, folks! It's in her blood... Then I mentioned that The Fabulous Lorraine was sending a birth announcement and picture of Maddy Gaiman for the Line, and that in the course of negotiating with Lorraine for info and things, I had faxed her letters addressed to "O Fabby One" - when I called and talked to her later, she mentioned that her title was Fabulous Lorraine, and O Fabby One was NOT acceptable. Holly, who had been sitting nearby, promptly started calling her O Fabby One and got her a bit upset... Neil chortled to hear that (oh yes you did, Neil!)...] ML: Well, I was properly contrite, and I shan't do it again. Anyway, Lorraine mentioned that the Flash Girls are going to do a song on your spoken word CD. NG: Yes, "Banshee." The main problem with the CD is that it doesn't have an oberfŸhrer. If it had an oberfŸhrer, it probably would have been out by now. I did the vocal recording in June and July. Then I got sent the stuff, and discovered that I couldn't listen to it. Have you ever come home and discovered that you've left a long message on the answering machine, and nobody else got the message and you find you have to listen to it yourself, and you can stand about 30 seconds of it before you fast forward in embarrassment, thinking "Oh god, is that really what I sound like?" You ever had that feeling? That was what it was like for me, listening to myself reading these stories and poems and stuff. ML: I'm sure it sounds lovely to everyone else! NG: No doubt it does, but I was completely unable to listen to it! So, Ellen Cushner, radio director, author and bon vivant, is actually directing it. Dave McKean is going to be doing incidental music for it. It's just a matter of getting him into the studio. He's just sent a long tape to Greg Ketter, so we'll see what that brings. ML: So someday eventually it'll be out. NG: It needs an oberfŸhrer. It needs somebody to sort of scream and make it happen. Dreamhaven is doing it, but they're sort of leaving it all to happen. ML: What's on it? NG: I hesitate to say, because I don't know what's going to make the final cut. What I do think is going to happen is that there's going to be two different editions. There will be a tape and a CD version, and the tape will be 90 minutes and the CD will be about 76 minutes, cause that's all you can put into a CD. ML: So there'll be bonus tracks on the tape! That'll be cool... NG: Kind of unusual, huh? I'm not sure... It may be that the CD will have 2 or 3 long pieces and the tape will have lots of short pieces, or they may both be a mix... I don't know... ML: That's fun that it'll have music of one form or another. NG: It should be - except that I doubt I'll ever be able to stand to listen to it! ML: Now you can contemplate what I have to go through, transcribing these interviews, and having to listen to my inane giggling! NG: That I was always able to do, when I did interviews, on the knowledge that I was the only one who would ever actually have to hear it. On that basis I never really minded. OK, I'm sending you email now - to Sadie [type type type], subject: Stuff [type type type] - BAM! [He then read the Thank You poem to me, and I was a properly appreciative audience.] ML: Thank you! Well, have fun in Nawlins, eat plenty of jambalaya... Are you going to go to the voodoo museum? NG: I don't know what I'll do, I don't know what I'm going to have time for - it's World Fantasy Con, but I'm taking the whole family. I'm up for two World Fantasy Awards. Angels and Visitations is up for Best Collection, and Troll Bridge for Best Short Story. ML: Let me know, so I can tell the Lineans. Have a good time! NG: I shall. Bye!
(The Insmouth Bit) "H.P. Lovecraft. H.P. bloody Lovecraft. H. bloody P. bloody Love bloody craft," he stopped to take a breath. "What did he know. Eh? I mean did he bloody know?" Ben sipped his beer. "You mean the rock group?" "Course I don't mean the bloody rock group. I mean the writer." Ben shugged. "I've never heard of him," he admitted. The little man nudged his neighbour. "Here. Wilf. You hear that?" His neighbour shook his head. "This bloke -- what you say your name was?" "Ben. Ben Lassiter. And you are...?" The little man smiled; he looked awfully like a frog, thought Ben. "I'm Seth," he said. "And this here's Wilf. 'Ere, Wilf. What you drinking?" Whately looked at his empty tankard. "Beer." he said. "Thassa coincidence, So'Mi." said Seth. Then he stared expectantly at Ben. Ben sighed. "Three beers," he said to the bartender. Three beers were served. "You were saying?" said Ben. The little man nodded. "Yer. That bloke. H.P. Lovecraft. He couldn't bloody write." He slurped his beer, then licked the foam from his lips with a long and flexible tongue. "I mean, for starters, you look at them words he used. Eldritch. You know what Eldritch means?" Ben shook his head. "Weird. Peculiar. Bloody odd. That's what it means. And gibbous." Ben shook his head again. "Means the moon was nearly full. And what about that one he was always calling us, eh? Thing. Wossname. Starts with a b. Tip of me tongue..." "Bastards?" suggested Wilf. "Nah. Thing. You know. Batrachian. That's it. Means looked like frogs." "Hang on," said Wilf. "I thought they was, like, a kind of camel." Seth shook his head vigourously. "S'definitely frogs. Not camels. Frogs." Wilf slurped his beer. Ben sipped his. "So?" said Ben. "They've got two humps," interjected Wilf. "Frogs?" asked Ben. "Nah. Batrachians. Whereas your average dromederary camel, he's only got one. It's for the long journey through the desert. That's what they eat." "Frogs?" asked Ben. "Camel humps." Wilf fixed Ben with one bulging yellow eye. "You listen to me, matey-me-lad. After you've been out in some bloody desert for three or four weeks, a plate of roasted camel hump starts looking particularly tasty." Seth looked interested. "You've never eaten a camel hump." "I might have done." "Yes, but you haven't. You've never even been in a desert." "Well, just supposing I'd been on a pilgramage to the Tomb of Nyarlathotep..." "The black king of the anciants what shall come in the night from the east and you shall not know him, you mean?" "Of course that's who I mean." "Just checking." "Bloody stupid question, if you ask me." Seth hmmphed. "You could of meant someone else with the same name." "Well, it's not exactly a common name, is it? Nyarlathotep. There's not exactly going to be two of them, are there? Anyway, so I'm trudging through them trackless wastes, thinking to myself, I could murder a camel hump..." "But you haven't, have you? You've never been out of Innsmouth harbour." "Well... No." "There." Seth looked at Ben triumphantly. Then he leaned over, and whispered into Ben's ear: "He gets like this when he gets a few drinks into him, I'm afraid." "I heard that," said Wilf. "Good," said Seth. "Anyway. H.P. Lovecraft. He'd write one of his bloody sentences. "THe gibbous moon hung low over the eldritch and batrachian inhabitants of squamous Dulwich." What does he mean, eh? What does he mean? I'll tell you what he bloody means. What he bloody means is that the moon was nearly full, and all the inhabitants of Dulwich was bloody peculiar frogs. That's what he means." "What about the other thing you said," asked WIlf. "What?" "Squamous." "Wossat mean, then?" Seth shrugged. "Haven't a clue," he admitted. "But he used it an awful lot. (Neil's Thank-you poem.) There's a kitten curled up in Kilkenny was given a perfect pot of cream,
There's an actress who clutches her oscar (and sobs, with proper impromptu joy),
There are fishermen out on the sea today who just caught the perfect fish,
(BANSHEE) And if you touch me I shall die,
Reviewed by Lynne Keith Neil and Dave. Punch and Judy. Violence and Vertigo. Childhood images; incomplete memories. Fallible adults. Pictures which echo words which equal compositions akin to music. Puppets. Childhood. Muppets. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Shari Lewis and Lambchop. Beany and Cecil. Kukla, Fran and Ollie. Which are part of your childhood? Neil and Dave's puppets derive from mid-16th century Italian commedia dell 'arte theatre, introduced into indigenous puppet plays throughout Europe. Punch is variously described as a hunchbacked, bald, pot bellied, red faced, big nosed, high voiced and rather ugly character. He survives today in the incredibly violent tranditional English puppet theatre and still, with his stick, beats the baby, his wife, the Policeman, the Doctor, the Ghost, the Crocodile, the Hangman and/or the Devil. Punch always preens with self-satisfaction at the success of his actions. And he's always on stage. As Neil says, "Mr. Punch never goes away." Hook-nosed Punch (or Pulcinella as he was originally known), with his high pitched sing-song voice and violent rages, and his wife, Judy, act out revenge fantasies which create guilt and anxiety in childish imaginations. The reader is drawn inexorably into Neil's child's world, the boy about age seven, spiraling inward and downward toward ultimate terror and then finally to some small understanding of the adult world he does not yet inhabit. Although we hear the child's voice and see his memories, we also see more because we see with our adult's perspective. Maybe, through Neil's vision, we can look beyond the puppets and delve deeper into our own unreliable memories, playing them again in light of our more adult understanding. I know I did. Again using their patented, graphic format, Neil collaborates with Dave McKean, and at 96 pages, MR PUNCH is not rushed. Dave uses eye-opening art which compliments and enhances Neil's dark vision of childhood. Working with multi media to capture our attention and carry us willy nilly into yesteryear, Dave's visual images are, as usual, smashing, and the complement Neil's word imagery perfectly. More than double the length of its companion piece, VIOLENT CASES, it's more coherent than BLACK ORCHID, and it's less loud but more violent than SIGNAL TO NOISE. Both men care about this story and take care to share their depth of knowledge with the reader. Neil's research and Dave's artistic vision shine. They leave us wanting more. Neil's ability to pull the reader into the tale is what distinguishes his considerable talent from the commonplace. We can derive endless pleasure from reading and rereading this mythic tale, whose full title is The tragical comedy or comical tragedy of Mr. Punch -- a Romance. I'd go along with that.
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