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I'm hoping to go to a couple cons as an exhibitor this year. Anyone want to share a table and sell some comics? I'm specifically interested in MOCCA, SPX and HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. Other small SE cons with reasonable table rates would be interesting, as well. (I'm already scheduled to attend Fanaticon in Asheville)
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Finally got this beast inked. There's a bunch of cameos from fellow Sequential Endurance Challenge colleagues. Please check out their work. All of them have a lot to recommend.
CAMEOS (Middle small panels)
1st Column (2 panels):![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bezman tony_dot_bmp
2nd Column (3 panels):seph_hunter thrivis cantdrawcanswim
3rd column (4 Panels): wormulus jamtorkberg zombichicken
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I'm gonna take a break from the new art posts for a week, so in lieu of that I present an episode of the classic 1980's cop show 21 Jump Street. In this episode, Johnny Depp dresses up as Sid Vicious in order to infiltrate a gang of punks tearing up the streets of Vancouver Los Angeles. Also on this episode, a pre-90210 Jason Priestley as a punk gangster, a pre-X-files Cancer man and music by Agent Orange. Enjoy, and don't forget to tip...
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A classical selection from the boys of Armada!. Eric Black is on Guitar, I'm on Piano, and life_of_brian is on bass..Enjoy!
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A group of conservative Christians want Muslims barred from serving in the U.S. Military, all too excited to use the recent tragedy to promote their own hate of the "other guys."
Yeah, that's a great idea. We should totally use the murderous few in a group as reasons to discriminate against the rest who've done nothing wrong. That won't bite Christians in the ass at all.
Separation of Church and State, all men created equal, etc.
(edit) I guess this is something moderate Christians and Muslims can use for a dialogue to get to know each other. "How I handle my religion's crazy assholes who need to shut up." |
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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/half-lifetime.html posted by Neil
The editor at CBS Sunday Morning asked if I had any photos of my son Mike back at the period when I first had the idea for The Graveyard Book - late 1985. I looked. We really didn't have any. I wandered next door and asked Mary (his mum, my former wife and for these last five years my friend and next-door neighbour) if she had any photos from back then. "No," she said. Then, "Do you mean those transparencies? I have them in an envelope somewhere." She vanished and came back with a large manila envelope from a long time ago. "Here."
Half a lifetime ago -- literally -- I was nearly 25, and working for magazines. Henry Fikret, who photographed a lot of the interviews I did, volunteered to take some photos of me and my family, and he did.A week later the envelope arrived, and I realised that everything he shot was on colour transparencies -- like huge slides -- and I was never sure what do with them, other than being fairly sure I couldn't take them down to Boots the Chemist and have prints knocked out. So they stayed in their envelope, and they kept their secrets, and were forgotten.
Yesterday I had the transparencies scanned, and finally got to see lots of pictures I had never actually seen before of Holly as a baby, Mike at the time that I would have watched him riding his tricycle around the graveyard, and me... at exactly half my age: A young journalist who had sold a very small handful of short stories and two non-fiction books, with dreams of writing fiction and comics. At the time I was dressing in grey, but was getting tired of the way that you would buy something grey and take it home and discover that it was a blueish grey or a brownish grey, and wondering if I'd have the same problem if I just started to dress in black.
And half a lifetime on, it seemed like it might be good to put one up here. I checked, and Mary didn't mind. What odd clothes we wore back then. What big glasses. And look, my hair is practically normal.
So long ago, and it went like the blink of an eye.
...
Birthday wishes are flooding in from around the globe. I wish I could reply to everyone personally, but it would take the next 365 days... so thank you. Thank you all.
... In January I will be part of a free concert for all ages on January 16, 2010, at 7pm, in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, New York. I'll be the narrator for the performance of Peter and the Wolf, performed by the http://www.knickerbocker-orchestra.org (whose website you should visit to get details).
Alan Moore is leaping aboard the Underground magazine bandwagon. Following the success of IT and OZ, Alan's Dodgem Logic is coming out. There's a great interview with Alan at http://www.mustardweb.org/dodgemlogic/
(And enormous congratulations to Alan, who is now a grandfather, and to Leah and John, who are now parents, and Edward Alec Moore-Reppion, who is now, um, born. A Scorpio, like his grandfather and his whatever-exactly-I am, sort of honorary great-uncle or something. Not that we Scorpios believe in that sort of thing, of course.)
Again, thank you all for the birthday wishes... |
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Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 09:18 pm
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I just realized that as of last week I've been on LJ for EIGHT YEARS.
Thanks for listening to me whine, I know I've not grown more interesting, but I've enjoyed listening to you whine as well.
*A big group hug* |
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Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 08:27 pm
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It's been going something like, "Should I cook/bake/make ____, or should I kill myself?" around in my head lately. So there's been time consuming baking while listening to The Mars Volta which is enough to make me want to live a little longer.
Hence: Ravioli!
( Read more... ) |
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I feel like crap. Enjoy a fart joke.
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Hello everyone,
I'm a third-year journalism student at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) and am in the process of writing my final story for my newswriting class.
I am writing about Munchausen by internet and it was suggested by the moderator of this site that I post here.
I am looking for anybody with personal experience relating to this topic. Maybe you have fallen victim to this disorder, had a friend who did, or simply witnessed an account of it. I would love to hear from you.
Once completed, the article will be posted on ourblook.com under the university project section.
I am interested in doing short phone interviews, email, or skype. Whatever works for you.
My article is due on Friday so the sooner I can hear from people, the better.
Thank you,
Jesse
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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/for-those-who-read-this-blog-for.html posted by Neil
 (Serena Altschul and some author in July, sitting on the trampoline after two days of interviews. None of which, oddly enough, were done on the trampoline.)
Mr. Neil,
I DVR'd yesterday's installment of Sunday Morning and after zipping through it back and forth multiple times cannot seem to find you, though the description indicated the correct episode. Was it bumped to next week? Have you been sucked into an alternate Neil-less universe?
A concerned reader,
Mary
I'm afraid it was bumped by the Fort Hood Massacre.
I checked: The profile CBS did of me is apparently still going out, probably some time in December, although no-one seems certain when. I was told that we could help ensure that it is broadcast (and possibly make it come out sooner than December) if CBS think people would actually like to see it. Which means that if you do want to see it, you can help the process along if you write or email CBS and (politely) tell them so:
ADDRESS:
CBS News Sunday Morning
Box O (for Osgood)
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
E-MAIL: sundays@cbsnews.com
...
My friend Steve Brust (a fine and brilliant novelist) wrote to Miss Manners about his financial issues, and what having a Donate button on a website means. She replied to him here. There's a fascinating conversation going on about it at his website that I initially missed because I was in China... Most people disagree with Miss Manners. Even I disagree with Miss Manners, and I don't have a Donate button, or use the Amazon links to generate revenue, or have advertising or anything. (That's because Harper Collins set up this website, and they pay for our bandwidth and such. If they stopped, I'd have to think about ways to make it pay for itself.) ...
Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME was one of my favourite books of the year so far. (R. Crumb's retelling of the Book of Genesis is my very favourite book of the year.) So I was pleased to be sent this link to a really wonderful Stephen King poem:
(It's published by Playboy, which means that for some of you the site may be blocked.)
(Needless to say, I only read the New Yorker for the articles.) ...
Dear Neil Gaiman, I ask for half-a-moment of your time (I would not presume to ask for more). This Spring 2010 I am teaching a Topics in Literature class on YOU at Winona State University (Eng 225: Neil Gaiman). Easy enough to select representative novel (American Gods), short stories (Fragile Things), children and YA (Graveyard Book), but here's the rub: I will likely only assign one Sandman graphic novel to students. I have been debating which is most representative, most worthy of inclusion, most amenable to class discussion and student scholarship. Then I thought I'd ask you. I know you suggest above that, for questions of this sort, we consider you a dead author, but I know you're not. When I came to a similar impasse about which of Ursula Le Guin's works to include in another class, she actually replied and offered her input. I extend the same offer to you: which of the Sandman volumes would you like to see on the syllabus?
Thank you for your time,
Nicholas Ozment, English Instructor
WSU
It's a hard one. I think if I were teaching I'd either go for Season of Mists or Fables and Reflections, because both of them have stuff to teach -- those nice chewy bits that people can like or dislike, argue with or discuss. I know a lot of teachers like to teach Dream Country because a) Midsummer Night's Dream won awards, and b) it's short and c) it has a script in the back. Your call. And good luck.
...
I mentioned recently that there were some beautiful new Polish and Russian book covers for my books that I'd seen at signings, which got me thinking. The International Cover gallery on this website is incredibly out of date.
It's at http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Neil's_Work/International_Covers.
And though I get a lot of foreign editions in, and will at some point head down to the basement and rummage around and scan some (this week's mail brought the two-volume Japanese edition of Anansi Boys, on the cover of which Fat Charlie is not only Very White, but also Very Thin, and the complex Chinese - ie. Taiwan and Hong Kong - edition of The Graveyard Book) I thought that blog readers, being, as you are, all over the world, might be a better resource for knowing where to look for foreign covers.
So if you have, and want to scan in or link to foreign covers we do not have posted, or are a foreign publisher and would like your books up, there is now a submission page: http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/covers/ which lets you upload them to the webgoblin, who will put them in the gallery (and on the pages for the books in question). And perhaps we should have them arranged by country as well -- some countries, like the French and the Russians and the Poles, have had so many different covers over the years. (Also, Absolute Death was published this week. It is amazingly beautiful. Yes, I think they overpriced it too and no, pricing decisions at DC Comics are nothing to do with me. And the audio book of Good Omens will be released tomorrow. It's read by Martin Jarvis. People have asked why it is not read by me, and I have to explain that it is because if I read it I would just be doing my Martin Jarvis reading the William storiess impression, so better by far to have the real thing.)
Was your basement finished when you purchased your home or did you have it finished for your basement library? If you finished it yourself, how difficult was it? Also, I thought I saw a dehumidifier in one of the Photosynth pictures. Do you need one because of the books?
I'm asking because we have a full unfinished basement that we would like to have finished. We are running out of room for our books also. I don't think we don't have as many as you do though. :)
Any other suggestions for such a project would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
C.
No, when we got here the basement had a clay floor that puddled when it rained. We hired some nice builders and spent a lot of money finishing it, putting in drainage tiles, underfloor heating and all. There's a dehumidifier there in the summer and a humidifier in the winter, because after the first few years I noticed that binding glue and leather book covers were both cracking and flaking. There's now the equivalent of a large house in basement rooms beneath this house, filled with books and CDs and suchlike stuff.
And finally, a few photos from the China trip, taken by Ian Ford (or in one case, on his camera). Ian's a travel guide who now lives in China who helped organise my travels, and came along with me for part of the journey.
 Amanda and I in the silk clothes that my publisher had given us as a thank you for coming, and because they are terrific.
 Amanda, Ian Ford (in the pale top, also a gift from my publishers) and.. my publishers, SF World -- who will be publishing the mainland Chinese edition of The Graveyard Book very soon, and are very excited.
I'm holding the Galaxy Award for this year, given to the foreign author most popular with Chinese reader-voters. This was my second year of winning it, so I have retired from the competition and said that they have to find a new favourite foreign author now.
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The Comedic Stylings of Dan Savage...
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NPR
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Nov. 8th, 2009 @ 08:52 pm
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Why is "This American Life" on NPR so damn sad all the time. Like I want to kill myself after I listen to it.
Scott Carrier is really really sad, but I love him for it, and he makes me happier.
I might be the only person I know who doesn't like "A Prairie Home Companion." It makes no sense at all, not that I don't like it, the show itself makes no sense. John says it's because I don't get nostalgia.
Radio Lab is maybe my favorite thing ever.
Hearing Voices is mostly very good. I like the things Barrett Golding does, his blog is great too.
Saltcast kills me. So funny. Kids are great. Hope for the future.
Why is it that NPR never writes me back? Like I asked them how much I loved alt.NPR and where did it go and what happened to Love & Radio? |
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***
Borscht!...Finally got word of when the Borscht Film Festival is happening. This year it is at the Olympia Theater (at the Gusman Center), November 28th (@7pm). The Crew and I got this project turned in on time, and we'll have it ready for youtubing once it makes it's initial premier.
***
Carrying More Stress in the Jaw...The toothaches came back this week. After a quick trip to the Dentist, it turns out another wisdom tooth is pooping out, this time with a cavity already in it. If I had Dental Insurance (or any insurance) I'd probably get the cavity filled in or the tooth pulled out, so I'll just have to resort to pain killers and red wine for now. The pain has been subsiding over the week, but now I got another tooth in my head to worry about.
***
Ghetto Gig...Band practice with the crew has been going extra-ordinarily well. We decided to utilize the drum kit on the keyboard (via Garageband on the Mac) for percussion purposes for our live shows. We play to an already constructed drum beat that sounds more dynamic than your average drum loop. The core of the band is stronger than ever, me and Eric (our guitar master) finally got to do some real rehearsing when we drift off into our extended drum and guitar jams instead of rigidly playing to a song. And we even managed to write an original song! I think the next show will go off better than our last gig, this time we've prepared for all disasters. I'll have video later on in the show, I even cooked up a special little youtube post of me and Eric riffing on some classical music. Stay tuned for that, as for me, Showtime is in a few hours so I am out of here. Come see us at..
GHETTO BLASTER PARK
74 NE 17th Street
Downtown Miami
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One of the issues with doing vegetarian dishes is how difficult it is to get a room excited about a mound of tofu as a turkey that comes right out of the oven. Part of it is the community issue, everyone hanging around the oven peeking in and checking on things, watching it brown, slowly building the anticipation. While a Vietnamese salad may be lovely, and tasty, it goes together quickly. When I heard about baking an entree inside a pumpkin I knew it was something I needed to think about more closely.
I had already made tiny pumpkin creme brulee and pumpkin panna cotta inside a pumpkin, and I've baked many pumpkins, but not yet an entree.
Gourmet magazine does a cheese fondue inside a baked pumpkin with layers of french bread and cheese. I wanted less cheese, more eggs and did Alton Brown's Cheese souffle recipe, but inside a pumpkin. It took about 1.5h, not 35m to bake. But it did the job, built anticipation, and was beautiful to bring to the table.
Honestly, the flavor was boring. The pumpkin was very good, as was the souffle, but if I do it again I'd want green chilis. Cumin. Do some more thinking.
The pumpkin was an orangey green with white blotches I got at the Mexican market. Very good.
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I also made a salad of luffa gourd, napa cabbage, fresh green chilis, cilantro, and pickled ginger. The dressing was EVOO, ponzu, rice vinegar, tarragon vinegar, damiana, star anise, and basil, and sugar. Really awesome.
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I baked the last of the tomatoes with some white beans the other day, and it was pretty.
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Neil Gaiman fans - this is a link to him reading all the chapters of his newly published "The Graveyard Book". Reading a book is always good but hearing the author read it is something else all together and of course Neil is a great reader.
http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx |
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Nov. 7th, 2009 @ 02:37 pm
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My ears hurt and it's sort of difficult to breathe.
There is too much noise here today. I wanted to go lay in the yard but one side neighbor is getting a new roof and the other side is building a shed. So it's louder outside. But at least they are listening to p-funk. |
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