HIGHLIGHTS FROM NEXTPLANETOVER -99Originally published at Nextplanetover.
Adam: Another Dave McKean related question (sorry): What's the status of his book called Pictures That Tick and his new short film, Neon? I'd love to know more about them. NG: Pictures That Tick hasn't come out yet, and Neon is being made. He has a script; I don't know if he's started shooting or has actually shot it yet. I do know he phoned me up a few weeks ago for a good quote on burning moths. alexwinck: I've always wanted to know if there's any reviewer that has constantly followed your work and whose opinion you deeply respect and look forward to. NG: Frank McConnell was the first reviewer I ever read a review by and felt like someone understood what I was doing. We were friends after that -- and I always looked forward to his reviews and articles -- until his death, almost a year ago. I like and respect Joe Sanders as a critic, and John Clute. I think it a pity that there aren't any other comics critics of Clute's ability out there. Tyrinon: I have admired your work for many years, following the Sandman series to its wonderful end as well as some of your other projects, such as Neverwhere and Good Omens. However, I live in East Texas, a strange type of "Neverwhere" where comics conventions just don't happen. Is there any way I could get some books signed by you? NG: You could try sending stuff you'd like signed (no more than three things please) to DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis, well packed, with return post-packing. Or you could call DreamHaven (or even search NextPlanetOver.com) and see what they have for sale that's already signed. I suspect that soon enough it'll be the unsigned books that are rare and valuable. NG: I've spoken to the producers, who say that now that it's out on Ain't It Cool News, we may as well confirm it, so I am authorized to say...ahem (clears throat): Terry Gilliam is attached to Good Omens. He will direct it and write it with Tony Grisoni for producers Peter Samuelson, Marc Samuelson, and Chuck Riven. A studio deal for development is pending. There are talks and negotiations ongoing with several studios. There. GKillian: Have you read the four reviews of some of your works from The Onion's AV Club section? Neverwhere, Smoke and Mirrors, The Dream Hunters, and Stardust all got good reviews from two different critics. If you don't know, The Onion is a satire paper from Wisconsin, and their reviewers are usually tough. NG: I love The Onion. It's genuinely funny. Hadn't read the reviews, though. If they have their interviews section online, they did an interview with me last year. Jeremy: Do you ever write anything from which you lean back and think, "Wow. This is amazingly wonderful, but I don't want it to be published"? I should think this is a particularly strong concern for a writer with a body of work as diverse as yours. Take, for instance, "Eaten (Scenes from a Moving Picture)." It's my favorite of your poems. Though in my opinion neither unenjoyable nor excessive-for-excess's-sake, it was found to be both by a good friend of mine. I'm now having trouble getting her to read Stardust, which I'm sure she'd enjoy. I suspect her reluctance may be because she's afraid someone in the book will lose his genitals in a similarly unpleasant fashion (though I have assured her that no such thing occurred in my copy and therefore was unlikely to in hers). The poem was somewhat conspicuously absent from Smoke and Mirrors. Was this due to its content, as you sort of hinted in the introduction, or another reason? If you have written things too personal, too embarrassing, too whatever to ever see the light of my book lamp -- and you'd be something of a special case, as writers go, if you haven't -- then how do you feel about posthumous publication of such works? Harlan Ellison famously has given Susan explicit orders that, the instant he dies, or as soon thereafter as is convenient, she's to torch every unpublished manuscript. And you? NG: "Eaten" is in the UK version of Smoke and Mirrors, but Avon balked at it -- they were concerned that librarians would no longer love me or something. I don't think I've ever written something and gone, "This is too strong to be published." I've gone, "This is not good enough to be published," though -- and sometimes it gets published anyway and sometimes it doesn't, depending mostly on deadlines and promises. Once things are written and done, they exist apart from me. When I die, unfinished stories et cetera are meant to be burned. Finished ones can be published if they haven't been. Anyway, reassure your friend that Stardust and Good Omens and Neverwhere are very safe to read; Sandman is fairly safe except when it's not; and so is Smoke and Mirrors (unless it's the UK edition, with the nice purple cover). alexwinck: I'm wondering why you still haven't done a comic with Bill Sienkiewicz. I think you two could make an amazing comedic book. NG: Bill S. and I have been talking about working together for about 13 years now -- we even plotted a graphic novel called Processional, in which the entire population of New York marched into the sea for reasons that seemed to make sense at the time. We've never done anything together, though, and I don't know why not. Mono-Sabio: I once heard a rumor stating that you did not like the ending of Death: The Time of Your Life. Is this true, and if so, why? NG: Death: The Time of Your Life was meant to be a four-part story, but for a number of reasons it wound up after part one shrinking to three episodes, and Chris Bachalo signed an exclusive with Marvel and had to leave halfway through, and a lot of the fun went out of it. The collected version of Death: The Time of Your Life has an extra three or four pages at the end, and I like it much better than the one in the comic. Hi Revs: Did you watch a lot of The Twilight Zone as a kid? Also, have you ever seen the movie The Innocents? It had Deborah Kerr as a governess sent to care for two children who were possessed by two lovers who lived in an old manor house in England. NG: No, didn't get to see The Twilight Zone until I was about 22 and they started showing them on UK TV. The Innocents is based on Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw -- a wonderful tale. Creepy in all the right ways. El Santo: Do you have any interest in making more CDs, especially original works à la Alan Moore's performance CDs? (Although I'd be happy with bootlegs of your various readings.) Not that you are running out of things to occupy your time.... NG: The CBLDF has a bunch of tapes of me doing the live readings at theatres across the U.S., and we're looking at putting out a live CD or two next year. The CBLDF reading tour I'll do next fall will probably be the last one of all (I've been doing them since 1993). I'm also talking to DreamHaven about doing another studio CD, only because it's something that everybody seems to want. (Except me: I get too embarrassed by the sound of my own voice -- it's like hearing your own message on a phone answering machine.) blacknavy: Neil, a very silly question and one I'm sure I know the answer to, but...there aren't going to be any Muppets in Neverwhere, are there? It's just word association with Henson Productions, right? I immediately get pictures of Miss Piggy running about as Hunter and Rizzo squeaking about the great rat king! NG: I think Kermit would make a fine Richard Mayhew and would personally vote for Gonzo to play Islington, possibly in drag. Nona: Will you be attending Horror Con in Denver next year (March, I think)? NG: Afraid not -- I'm an honored guest at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts next March in Florida, and then I'm a guest on the CBLDF cruise in April, and that's my spring con-going taken care of. Ninave: I have just finished reading The Hitchhiker's Guide and was wondering how you got involved in writing the companion. NG: I did several interviews with Douglas Adams as a young journalist in 1983-'84, or I may have only done one interview and sold it to lots of places -- I forget. Anyway, in 1986 Titan Books had the license to do a Hitchhiker's companion, but they mislaid the writer they had. Titan asked Kim Newman, who didn't want to do it but suggested me. And I said, "Sure." I enjoyed interviewing all the people I needed to talk to and spending time going through Douglas's filing cabinets. Oneiromancer: How can you know if you're really a writer? NG: I've no idea. I do remember the defining moment for me: I was about 22, I was unable to sleep, and I imagined myself an old man on my deathbed thinking, I could have been a writer -- really I could, and that I wouldn't know if I were lying to myself or not. What is scary is that I recently had cause to look at some stuff I'd written back then, and it was awful: derivative, bland, displaying nothing more than a slim talent for pastiche, which was mostly displayed at inappropriate times. If I were to read it now and offer someone advice based on it on whether or not they were going to be a writer, I'd probably suggest a career in horticulture or hotel management. So write and find out, and don't give up your day job. JohnLennon: Any chance of your working with Amano again? NG: Yes, I think I'll definitely work with Amano again. He's a delight. JohnLennon: Any chance of your working with Amano again? NG: Yes, I think I'll definitely work with Amano again. He's a delight. fallenangel: Time to be a cheeky monkey and get the author to do my degree for me: My current assignment is an essay on how literary and visual texts create their meanings differently -- if they do. As someone who's worked in both media, what do you think? Do you find yourself having to adapt your style to the differing conventions? If so, how? This isn't a "beg for a 2,000-word analysis," but if you could just give me a few general comments, I'd be eternally grateful. (And I'd earn loads of brownie points, because it'd really bug my lecturer, who believes the Internet is useless except for pornheads.) NG: How would you define a visual text as opposed to a literary one? Is a movie a visual text? Is Speigelman's Wild Party? The main difference is that you (as a writer) have more control over how the reader will experience what you've done: the timing, the word-for-word, beat-for-beat experience. I can't guarantee that a reader reading a novel I've written will read every word; I can pretty much guarantee a reader will read all of a comic. You can do things literally in the background in a comic. Prose is all foreground. Check out Alan Moore's "Time Twisters" story (I forget the title, but it's the Dragnet time-cops parody) and think about how you could have done what he did in that story in pure prose. As a writer moving between media, you have to change what you do and how you do it, whether it's a radio play, TV, movies, poems, short stories, novels, illustrated prose, or comics. All they have in common from a writer's point of view is the alphabet. Grendel: 1) A favorite of mine is your story "Chivalry." Are we ever going to get to read "Mrs. Whitaker's Werewolf"? 2) Any guestimate on when we might see American Gods? It sounds intriguing. NG: I hope I'll write it one day, yes. Probably American Gods will be published in the autumn of 2000...unless the publisher decides to publish it in the spring of 2001. I finished (handwritten) page 150 today. Ben Peek: Congrats on the Notable Book mention for Stardust, which I found to be bittersweet and one of your best prose stories. (I am quite partial to The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories, myself.) I'm curious to know if you plan any more work with Charles Vess. And, with the Stardust question, I'm curious about how the idea to publish it without the art came about. (I keep telling people who buy the plain prose book that they're really not getting the whole thing, and that an oversize version exists.) Glad to see that you like Jonathan Carroll books. They're some of my favorites. Have you every read any Terry Dowling? He does wonderful things. Thanks for your time. NG: Thanks for the praise for Stardust. I'm really buoyed by how well it's done -- it won the Mythopoeic Award for best novel, and just got a Publisher's Weekly best books mention (plus Amazon and B&N 10 best lists). Charles and I will work together again at some point when our schedules intersect. DC left us the prose rights in the contract. When I'd finished writing Stardust, I sent the manuscript to my editor at Avon, just thinking she'd like to read it. She loved it and asked if they could publish it, feeling it would reach a very different audience than the illustrated version. And I'd assume that it did: DC printed 4,000 copies of the illustrated hardcover and didn't go back to press on it until the hardcover. Avon printed 50,000 bookstore hardcovers, and are now in their third printing. Yes, I like Terry Dowling's work. A good writer and a really nice man. G. Etzel: What would you say the current climate is for an unpublished or slightly published writer in the genre market today? I understand that it is supposed to be amazingly hard to be published in recent times, but I should hope that with good enough material, a writer would still have a chance. 2) I understand that you have your hands dipped into several different types of work, but what would you say it would take to become a full-time writer in today's market? For example, if I were to finish and publish a novel, what are the chances that I could quit the old day job? 3) Pseudonyms: I hope never to have to use one, but in writing cross-genre material (sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and even crime), what is your opinion of their use, and would it be safer than leaving your name on the material and then running the risk of losing the reading audience you would have built with a certain genre by changing to another? NG: The climate for new writers is always drizzly, foggy, and unpleasant to be out in. On the other hand, you have the Internet as an additional market to sell stories to. And if nothing else, you can simply put them up and get them read. 2) I believe that 2 percent of writers in the U.S. make a living from their craft. I'd not suggest you give up your day job; a first novel is unlikely to sell for more than $20,000 (yes, I know the ones you read about in the news sell for $750,000 after a bidding war -- but they make it into the news because that's news, and very unusual). You may not be able to sell the next novel until the publisher sees how the first one did. If it didn't sell well, you may find selling another novel to them very difficult, whether they like you or not. 3) I used to be given pseudonyms when I wrote for magazines, when I'd be writing columns for competing magazines, or if I had more than one article in one magazine, I'd often be assigned a house name. These days, looking back at old magazines, I often have no idea if I wrote something or not. On the other hand, I've always felt that I wanted my books to go out under my own name, even books which in retrospect it might have been wiser to have written under a pen name. I know a few authors who have had to adopt pseudonyms either because they were writing something different from their usual work (Craig Shaw Gardner is writing a big serious fantasy series under a new name) or because Barnes & Noble's computers would not order any books by their other identities (Megan Lindholm becoming Robin Hobbs for example). Me, I just hope that enough people trust me in one genre to follow me to others. Clack: I found your story "Murder Mysteries" to be both ingenious in its fantastical elaboration and emotionally powerful, a rare combination. And to have that emotional content delivered in such a sly sucker punch while the reader's attention is focused elsewhere -- ah! NG: Thanks. Did you listen to the scifi.com audio adaptation? I thought Brian Dennehy was terrific in it. Loki Little: Is it true that comic-book artists and writers never dated much in high school? NG: I don't know. Being English, I never went to an American high school. But if it helps, as a rule most comics writers and artists look like Adonis, except for the women, who are unimaginably beautiful in a rather more feminine sort of way, and I'm sure that they all have more offers of carnal intimacy on a daily basis than any single human can handle. Jupiter's Angel: Can you share any interesting Tori Amos stories? NG: Well, I managed to figure out how to get rid of the vultures that infest her house a few weeks ago, using seeing-eye motion detector scarecrows.... Mostly Tori stories are private, or hers to tell. JohnLennon: Oh, man, I just this second closed the book Stardust. What an incredible story, Neil. It filled me with such wonder and joy. A great love story. It reminded me so much of the magical times of my youth when I would go to the church library and check out one of Lewis's Narnia books. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed stories like this that can transport you to a wonderful magical world that you really don't want to leave. I wish it had gone on for 200 more pages. I would hope we will be seeing Tristan and Yvaine again down the road sometime. Any chance of that? NG: You're welcome, too. I am thinking of writing a Stardust novella when the current novel is done, as a palate cleanser, perhaps. The film is on the back burner because Neverwhere is on the front burner, and they're both with Miramax, but at least at present, I am meant to be writing it. LA: My only question for you is if you'll have an appearance at next summer's San Diego convention. NG: I'm sorry, but I tend to get too uncomfortable at San Diego: There are too many people, and I always feel guilty about not signing stuff for all the people who want it, and for the friends and the people I don't see, so I decided a long time ago that I'd do San Diego every four or five years. So 2004 or 2005 will probably be my next one. Dar: Are there any characters you wish you had not created? NG: Are there any characters I wish I hadn't created? (ponders) No, not really. I mean, once I've created them, they aren't mine anyway, if you see what I mean. They exist independently of me. There are stories that I don't think were very successful or very good ideas ("The Last Temptation" is probably one of those -- it was meant to be a tribute to [Ray] Bradbury, but it wound up just being so much less than a Bradbury story), but I like my characters. Even the nasty ones. Joe: "Murder Mysteries" is my favorite short story by any author. I've read it and reread it, but still I'm unclear on the ending. Care to shed any light on exactly what the underlying story is? NG: You could try listening to the audio version at www.scifi.com (go to Seeing Ear Theatre, then Originals, and look for "Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries"). I did amplify and expand on a number of conversations in the "framing sequence," which may make things a little more reader-friendly. Scud: There's one thing that's been bothering me since the first time I read through Sandman, and it's a bit of a random question, but I've always wondered what your answer would be. When Dream is dueling the demon to win back his helm, the final play is, "I am hope." What would have happened had the demon answered, "I am despair." I have a couple of theories, but I'm really curious as to what your answer would be. NG: That one bothers me occasionally, because I suspect it's a loop; despair doesn't beat hope, as you can play hope again. It's probably a stalemate, and you start a new game. Flyboy: I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading Neverwhere. I live in the States, and I have not been able to find the British series on VHS around here. I was wondering when or if you were going to do a sequel to the book. Your ending was so great and left me wanting more. It doesn't look like I will be seeing a movie soon, so another book would be great. Thanks. NG: One day. I was thinking about doing a Neverwhere short story/novella early next year, called "How the Marquis Got His Coat Back." Some PBS stations have shown Neverwhere -- you could try writing to yours. And the movie may be happening sooner than you think. DKN: I was wondering if it's still possible to make a living these days working just for comics. Or is there a financial obligation for comics writers to branch out into writing screenplays? NG: No idea. I never wrote comics to make a living -- moonlighting on things like Good Omens or Neverwhere tended to subsidize the whole making-a-living thing. I earned less than $2,000 per script of Sandman for most of its run, and Sandman was the only monthly comic I'd write. Most full-time comics writers I knew needed to write a lot of comics a month to make a living. I imagine that's still true. (On the other hand, from 1991 on, the collected Sandmans have been in print in hardcover and paperback editions and have gone through printing after printing, which has more than made up for that.) Technically, I still make more by writing a novel than I do by writing a screenplay, but it's a close-run thing. alexwinck: Do you think that your mood at a certain period has a large influence on your writing? In a certain period you seem to be obsessed with the end of the world, the end of the universe, that stuff. Your recent works seem to be getting friendlier and more optimistic. Is that how you feel now? NG: I don't think mood has a lot to do with what you write. (I also think mood is mostly created and, in my case, has an awful lot to do with how the writing went yesterday.) I used to end the world a lot when I started writing, as I couldn't think of any other way to end a story. The mood of a story is what the mood of the story needs to be. Stardust is bouncy and upbeat. Signal to Noise is a meditation on death and rather downbeat. I doubt I was more bouncy while writing Stardust, though. You, as an author, find the voice for the story. The psychopathic, murderous, pedophile fixer who narrates the story in the 999 collection isn't me, but I found enormous pleasure in writing from his perspective. Darmatage: The four hours I spent on line waiting for you in New York last spring were a delight, as fans of your work tend to be a lot of fun. I met a number of people that day with whom I have happily stayed in contact. You gather a good crowd. NG: Yes, they are good people. I sometimes sign stuff for people who met and fell in love in signing lines and now have small children. Randi: Why do you like people? You understand that motivations are not always admirable -- that's why your characters have voices that sound so true. How do you trust in folks despite that? NG: I think for me that's most of what Good Omens is about: that the depths and the heights are found in the human heart, and sometimes it's the same people and the same hearts. Some of it is elective. I'll treat people well because I'd like to be treated well. I trust people because I would rather be trusted and trustworthy. And also, I believe, with Death, that it's very hard to dislike someone if you've seen them from the inside, and that's what you're meant to do if you're writing. Draven: Did you have any say in who was going to be assigned to direct Good Omens? I think Terry Gilliam would be perfect for this movie. I always felt that the book had a Monty Python feel to it. I'm a huge fan of that. 2) I've noticed in some of your work there are small references to Star Wars, such as children playing with X-wing fighters. I was just curious: Are you a fan? NG: Well, we've known for nine years that Terry G. wanted to direct Good Omens -- he took Terry Pratchett and me out to lunch and told us so. It was just a matter of everything falling into place. 2) I'm not a Star Wars fan, but for many years I lived with one. (He's 16 now, and more interested in girls and C++ programming.) I think I was just the wrong age for it. Doctor Who and the original Star Trek and Do Not Adjust Your Set had a much deeper effect on my psyche. alexwinck: Who was the writer who first made you actually enjoy literature? How do you compare the satisfaction and problems of writing comics to that of other media? Which one of your works is your biggest frustration? Is there a story you'd change because your ideas about that subject have changed? Do you try to keep a certain schedule, like, "I'm gonna write for at least five hours today, or until I've finished pages one and two" or anything like that? Have you missed a lot of deadlines? Why do most writers seem to prefer cats rather than dogs? NG: You'd have to pick which definition of literature you want to use. I think Chip Delany was the first author I remember reading where I fell in love with the way he used words. (Just read his book Times Square Red, Times Square Blue yesterday, a present to myself. Terrific stuff.) You have more control writing comics than of any other medium except straight prose. But you also have the joy of collaboration. I can't imagine changing a story because my ideas of a subject have changed. I might write a new story, though. I try to keep a schedule. When I wrote comics I used to promise myself it would be four pages of script a day, even though often it wasn't. I don't think I've missed a lot of deadlines. I've renegotiated quite a few, though. Cats don't mind if you go off for a while to write something. Cats are convinced they are better writers than you are anyway, if they just had the thumbs. Morph: Is there a limited edition of [The Dream Hunters] or is there one planned? NG: I was astonished to receive a beautiful leather-bound slipcased copy of The Dream Hunters last week with my name on it in silver. But it seems that Ronalds (the printers) only did two of them, one for me and one for Mr. Amano. So, yes, there is a limited slipcased edition, but there are only two copies of it, which makes it about as limited as these things get. Mr. Amano and I also signed and numbered 500 copies of the book for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Eilonwy: Some time ago I read (at least I hope I did) a rumorish blotch of something concerning you, Harlan Ellison, and a live collaboration. Any truth to this? If so, is the story available anywhere? NG: Harlan and I have so far written three pages of our story. I had meant to be waiting for Harlan for the next bit, but I phoned him the other day and suggested that I'd like to write another bit and send it along to him, and he said okay. So soonish. Let's say -- definitively -- that it will be published by 2020. Arkhive: Is it true you have optioned the rights to Death: The High Cost of Living to write and direct? I was wondering why you chose Death as your first film and not one of your short stories or novels. NG: I suppose I picked Death because it has a beginning, middle, and an end, and because I don't want to see someone else doing it. It would hurt too much if they got it wrong. Toribat: What will you be doing on New Year's Eve? And what (if any) are your resolutions? NG: Nothing interesting, I'm afraid. Staying home, and I plan to hug the kids at midnight. Resolutions? I'd like to write more. Get more haircuts. Go for walks and write some songs. Scott: If I recall correctly, at the reading you mentioned that you had plans for a project in collaboration with Barry Windsor-Smith. Is this on the back burner somewhere? And as a related question, any there any particular artists you'd like to work with that you haven't? I, for one, would love to see collaborations with Bernie Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, and Gary Gianni. NG: Alas, the project with Barry didn't happen (the script eventually wound up being interpreted by Michael Zulli in the recent Winter's Edge). Yes, I'd love to work with any of the artists you mentioned. Ophelia: Could you tell me the name of one or three really obscure, neat authors from the early part of this century or the later part of the 1800s whose stuff I'd have a hard time finding? NG: Er, how hard a time finding it would you like? Lucy Clifford was a short story writer whose books of disturbing children's stories -- Anyhow Stories was the first book -- are practically impossible to find. Robert Aickman is my favorite short story writer. Spiritually he's a Victorian/Edwardian author, and some of his books are pretty much impossible to find. Chesterton's not obscure, but if you've not read The Man Who Was Thursday, you should. James Elroy Flecker, of course. J.P. Martin's Uncle books have been out of print for an age and are rather wonderful. Thank you all for such interesting questions.... Happy New Year's everybody.
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