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So Harper Collins' initial favourite was #3, and they asked Dave if he could come in closer and make The Graveyard Book title part of the type of the gravestone...
He did a sketch of what they were asking for, but he wasn't keen on it, and neither, when they saw it, was anyone else, not really.
Here's an example of the kind of typeface Dave's planning to create for the cover, taking all the letters from real local gravestones.
This was Dave's favourite. He said, "MY FAVOURITE. the toddler walks along the knife edge, which has the graveyard reflected inside it. I think this one does everything and now I've read the whole book, sums up the plot, and the balance between the real world and the ghost world best".
And he's right, but Harpers felt it might be too strong and might put off some potential young readers (or at least their teachers/parents), but everyone also loved it... so we're going to use it for the Subterranean Press edition of
The Graveyard Book, and probably on the Bloomsbury limited edition version as well. It'll be on versions of the book intended only for adults.
So this one, below -- which may or may not be your favourite -- is the one that, after a lot of soul-searching and back and forthing, we went for. Dave describes it as, "A worn grave in the negative shape of Bods profile, mist winds through the grave."
I confess that I lobbied for it, but was an easy cover to lobby for, mostly because it's iconic and very simple. It's an image we could use on lots of things -- something that can be a visual shorthand for the book. It would be appropriate as the cover of a book for kids or for teens or for adults. And when your hero is a boy named Nobody... well, it's kind of fitting on a number of different levels.
(I'm hoping that some of the other sketches may wind up as illustrations. I'd love to see yesterday's #6 as a frontispiece, for example. We'll see -- it's all up to Dave.)
So Dave will be painting both of them, yesterday's #2 and #5. I know how far things go from the sketch to the painting, and can't wait to be able to post one or both of the finished covers up here.
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 3/4/2008
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Lots of people wrote to tell me that X-Rays were needed for TB tests, and some people suggested that they were in hand-baggage as they might be fogged by X-Rays in checked baggage, but no-one explained why there seemed no mechanism for anyone ever to look at the (quite expensive, and carried over in hand-baggage), x-rays until this arrived from Mr Petit...
Having been a commanding officer in the UK -- meaning I had to supervise
airmen and NCOs under my command when they wanted to bring their UK brides
back to the US -- I had to chuckle when I saw the note about the x-ray.
It's not required by the immigration folks (either Division 6, or anyone
else). Since it's a different federal agency, I'm not surprised that an INS
employee wouldn't know about it. It's required by the US Public Health
Service, for everyone, regardless of nationality, who is trying to immigrate.
And they do, on occasion, get checked, but only if there's advance reason to
believe there's "a substantial risk of exposure." For example, you can bet
that flights on foreign-flag carriers originating in, say, Nairobi get more
scrutiny than would a BA or AA flight from Heathrow.
The relevant statute was passed in 1938 (there may have been a predecessor,
but I doubt it) and hasn't been updated yet. What a surprise.
And this came in from my editor Jennifer Brehl at Harper Collins about the free American Gods -- I'm putting it up because she says it better than I could paraphrase it:
First of all, the online edition has been optimized and the embedded pages are moving much faster. I’ve asked that the widget confusion be fixed – i.e., open up widget to full book rather than older partial version.
We’re wondering if you might have some time tomorrow that we could call you and we could have a conference call to discuss things? We want your fans to know that we are responsive to their concerns and, although it’s painful getting the criticism, it’s also a good learning opportunity.
So there will be a conference call, and I'll report back on it.
...
-MikeOh good.
(And I should mention, I loved
this Michael Chabon New Yorker article about Superhero costumes.)
Hello Neil,
I am going to the Easter Con in Heathrow because I'd like to hear you. Could you recommend which day would have the most Neil-time or most Neil-events? I know I'm not made of the right stuff since I might have to be selective about the days at the con, and even though I'd love to build my own battle-ready space ship, I still would like to get two flies with one swat....being battle-ready an'all (Ahem!).
Thank you,
HenrietteFrom the schedule, it looks like it's definitely Sunday.
http://www.orbital2008.org/sunday.pdf -- and you get a
Mitch Benn concert into the bargain.
...
Dave McKean says he doesn't mind me putting up his sketches for
The Graveyard Book cover...
So to bring you up to speed...
Dave
did a cover while I was writing the book. As the book continued, it became sort of obvious that the cover was younger than the book was, and we needed a cover that told adults that this was a book for them too.
So I finished the book and Dave read the book and did a bunch of sketches, all of which made me happy, and all of which felt a lot more like the book I'd written...
All of these are sketches, it's worth pointing out -- roughs for me and the various editors and art departments to look at and choose from. It's not finished art, nor is it meant to be.
(The actual typeface is something Dave plans to scan in and create from photos of old gravestones.)
And in the next post I'll tell you what the response was, and which one we wound up going with and why.
Lots of lovely letters from people about where and how they found authors for free whose work they then went on to buy, although I was vaguely hoping someone would write a letter saying, "If you're so fond of Free, then why don't you write a book for free, that you don't get any royalties on, that could be given away or sold incredibly cheaply, just to encourage people to read? Yeah, what about that then, smartarse?" But nobody has.
Which is actually a pity, because if they did I could point out that I did just that -- the writing the book bit anyway -- last year. It's a short book called Odd and the Frost Giants, and it's published by Bloomsbury Books in the UK and Ireland for the 2008 World Book Day, which is this coming Thursday, the 6th of March.
And I wasn't the only one.
"13 million school children in the UK will receive a World Book Day £1 Book
Token which can be exchanged for a World Book Day £1 Book, throughout March,
from over 3,000 participating bookshops and book retailers across the UK and
Republic of Ireland. The £1 Token can also be put towards any book or
audio book costing £2.99 or more. The World Book Day £1 Book Token is sponsored
by National Book Tokens and redemptions are funded by bookshops across the
country."
Again, it's books as dandelion seeds, and not all of them are going to find soil. Some of those 13 million kids will destroy their books, some leave them behind, some not even care enough to participate. But some of the kids will go and choose a book of their own, find something they wouldn't have discovered otherwise, maybe find out that reading and owning books of your own is something you can do for pleasure, and... maybe... it'll help ensure that there are still readers of books -- and bookshops -- a hundred years from now.
(I just googled to see if there were any reviews of Odd yet. None from newspapers that I could see, but
...
Lots of people wrote to tell me that the chest X-Ray was needed for the Tuberculosis test. Nobody explained why the chest X-Ray has to be carried to the US in hand-baggage (it's one of the rules, or it was in 1992). I asked at immigration when I arrived in the US if anyone was going to look at it, and was told that no, nobody ever ever looked at the chest X-rays in hand-baggage. Ever? Ever, said the man.
...
If your dog suddenly discovers and goes for a cat (no longer in a tree) when you're standing on a sheet of what was ice-melt that has just refrozen into sheet ice, and you make a sudden and ill-advised move in an attempt to stop the cat being chased (and to stop the dog losing an eye -- Princess takes her fights seriously) and go down rather heavily on your ankle, you wind up oddly happy if an hour or so later you're just limping and icing it. It could have been a hundred times worse, as my doctor (who happened to be nearby) pointed out.
Princess is back inside the house, Cabal has a scratch under his eye.
And Dave McKean sent over nine sketches for nine different covers to The Graveyard Book -- all of them really impressive. I'll find out from him if he minds me putting them up here (once the final one has been decided upon, anyway). It would be interesting to show people how a book cover gets decided on. (I was also thrilled that Dave wrote after finishing it and said he thought it was a much stronger book than Coraline.)
I just got sent the first version of the Dave McKean cover of the Harper edition of The Graveyard Book.
A book that is now three weeks late, and inside of which I'm somewhere hacking my way through the jungle of Chapter Seven.
There's nothing like being sent a book cover for the book you're currently writing to concentrate the mind wonderfully.
Click on it to see it larger. The spectral figures will be done in varnish, like the original hardback of Coraline...
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By: Neil Gaiman,
on 10/30/2007
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An urgent message from Dave McKean, who is making a low-budget film called LUNA right now:
I urgently need 2 white paper origami crabs to appear in a scene in Luna, like this one:
http://db.origami.com/displayphoto.asp?ModelID=2244
if anyone is willing to make them and send them to the UK straight away, I can pay a small fee to cover time (or a signed drawing or book?), give them a name check in the final credits, and give them a fedex account number for shipping.
Go to the FAQ page if you're an Origami whizz (and I know there are Origami whizzes out there, as I get given amazing things at signings) and drop me a line, and I'll put you straight in touch with Dave. Who will probably soon be drowning in Origami crabs.
Went in to Hair Police today and saw Wendy who turned the strange messy mop that my hair had turned into into a rather nice haircut. From there to Dreamhaven where I signed lots of stuff for Elizabeth and the www.neilgaiman.net site, including a half a ton of Absolute Sandman Volume 2s. As I drove home Roger Avary called to let me know that he's reopening his website after a couple of years without one -- http://www.avary.com/.
Then to Maddy's Parent Teacher conference. She's doing wonderfully at school, and got an impressive report card -- which, for the first time ever, she really had to work for, as she came to the UK for the Stardust premiere and having lost a week of schoolwork. (She's coming to LA with me for the Beowulf premiere, but is only missing one school day to do it.)
And then home. Opened the copy of Bust I'd picked up at DreamHaven (officially I get it for my assistant Lorraine, but I always read it first -- sort of like when I'd pick up a copy of Bunty for my sisters as a boy), and found myself staring at an unexpected advert for the Good Omens and Stardust scents from BPAL. Which reminded me that I had meant to congratulate the amazing Beth, who is the mind (and the nose) behind BPAL -- and a woman who has raised an enormous amount of money for the CBLDF this year -- on her wedding.
(And if you haven't looked at the CBLDF site recently -- http://www.cbldf.org/ -- Gordon Lee goes to trial on Monday. Finally. After three years, two completely different sets of "facts", and $80,000 in legal bills so far for something that should never have been a police matter in the first place... http://www.cbldf.org/articles/archives/000318.shtml for the story so far.)
Lots and lots and lots and lots of emails from people telling me that Marmite can be found all over America, normally beside the baking supplies (probably because of the word Yeast). I don't think I'm going to need Marmite again for another couple of years now, but than you all for the info.
(first time question!)
I've just heard from a friend who was quite annoyed. He met this famous UK author while the author was doing research on his latest book - and the author used my friend's anecdote as quite a major plot device in the book. However, my friend wasn't asked for permission or acknowledged in any way.
Has this ever happened to you (in the opposite direction of course)? I'd think there'd be lots of stories you've been told bubbling in your mind, and sometimes you wouldn't even realize that a story has been told to you by someone else. Would you contact someone if you were using a story of theirs?
I try reasonably hard to credit people who helped (see the very long list of names at the back of
American Gods) but find it hard to find fault with the author in question. Authors are packrats. If you tell us an anecdote -- unless you preface it with "
I am about to tell you an amusing and/or interesting anecdote. Should you at some future time use it in a book you will need to contact me to obtain my permission, or at least credit me by name. I shall now tell you the anecdote and then give you my contact details in a form in which you won't lose them," -- then it's fair game. I think our attitude -- I don't speak for all of us, but enough -- is that if your friend thought his anecdote would have made a good book, he should have written it himself.
I don't know the names of the people who took me down the sewers or into the disused tube tunnels when I was doing
Neverwhere, but their anecdotes certainly made it into the book. I didn't give the name of the financially dodgy agent whose interesting approach to paying over royalties inspired the character and behaviour of Graham Coats in
Anansi Boys either (probably a wise move, that). And, as you say, very often you know
someone told you that Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria obtained a doctor's note to get out of being married, but who it was or when has melted down in the compost heap in the back of your mind to the brown sludge of memory. It's like remembering jokes, and who told them to you. The shape is now there in your mind, and you know the punch line is "Two coffees and a choc ice," but how it entered your head is a mystery.
(And it's worth pointing out your friend might be wrong. I get letters sometimes from people saying "You got this from me." And the people who send the letters believe it, but it's not the case. I find myself replying "Actually, I wrote this four years before you wrote your story," or "I understand you think I got this from something you said. Actually the entire story was in this newspaper on this date, and that was where I got it from.")
Having said all that, I'm also really sympathetic to your friend. Many years ago I was on a panel where I said "I'm going to write a book called X," and no-one laughed longer or louder than the bloke next to me on the panel who, eleven months later, brought out a book with the title I'd mentioned. I was in a conversation with another author who mentioned being stuck on a plot thing, and I said "Oh, that's an easy one," and made a suggestion, and suggested a title for the book for good measure, and he said "I owe you lunch for that one," but I scanned the acknowledgements in vain looking for a thank you when the book came out, and didn't get a lunch out of it either. And conversely I have fuzzy warm feelings for all those people who wrote books and actually did say thank you, and used their acknowledgments to acknowledge.
...
After a long day, i got "your" love letter that the new york times sent out. It was rather funny and made me laugh a lot.(was even funnier trying to explain to my roomate that it wasnt a real love letter)Did you have anything to do with the writting of those love letter? Or did the new york times write them without the help of the varies authors? Do you know if every one got the same letter? Just curious, thanks.
Yes, everyone got the same letter (it's the UK Times, by the way, not the New York one). And yes, I wrote it. (Really, it's a short story.) The day before me people got one from Margaret Atwood. Today, I think it's Leonard Cohen. I think you can still sign up for the last three...
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/commercial/article2623706.ece
...
Finally -- this gave me a warm and happy smile....
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/when-the-wolves-come-out-of-the-walls-its-all-over/
Here's some Comic-con info.
incidentally, if you're planning on carrying something around on the offchance you find yourself bumping into me in a breakfast line or a lift, make it something light. I will feel guilty if anyone carries around an Absolute Sandman for the whole convention, just in case.
Hello Neil!I'm a huge fan and will be attending Comic-Con for the first time this year, and meeting you is what I'm looking forward to the most. With that being said, I was told from more experienced individuals that the best way to get something signed at the signing after the Friday session will be to skip the session altogether and just get in line for the signing. I really hope this isn't the case because I would love to do both. Any advice?
However, I've added in a bunch of signings during Comic-con, in order to try and make a few more people happy. I'll be signing on Thursday (probably), Friday and Saturday.
Here's the current version of the Comic-con schedule...
Wednesday 9.00 pm -- Roger Avary and I present the first batch of
Beowulf to the world at the Horton plaza. If you miss it or can't get in, our presentation and the Q&A will be taped and reshown, along with the footage, at 5:00pm and 6:00 pm on
Thursday. As per the previous post,
and the link on the comic-con site, tickets to all these things from the Paramount booth... which won't be open on the Wednesday. Hmm. I'll investigate.
Thursday -- we're still finalising the signing for the day. I'll put it up here when I know. but it's most likely to be around mid-day and last about 30-40 minutes...
I'll be at the Paramount Pictures presentation in Hall H -- talking Stardust (and showing a scene or two) and then, with Roger, talking Beowulf.
Then I do lots and lots of interviews and things, and surface once more at the
Stardust screening that night, 9.00 pm at Horton Plaza. I'll introduce the film, and then, around 11:00 pm, I do a Q&A. (Again, tickets from the Paramount Booth, or available from the CBLDF, if they have any left... the
Stardust package has already sold out but it's possible that a few people who bought it may not be at Comic-con and will throw their tickets back in, so checking with the CBLDF table prove fruitful).
Friday -- currently
2-3:15 PM SPOTLIGHT ON NEIL GAIMAN. ROOM 6 CDEF
3:15-4:15 NEIL SIGNING: OFFICIAL COMICON AUTOGRAPH AREA ROOM 6
and then, to help with the signing thing...
6-7:00 PM CBLDF SIGNING AT THEIR BOOTH # 1831
Saturday --
I'm not yet sure what I can announce. Suffice it to say that if you turned up at the midday Focus/Rogue panel you might see or learn something to your advantage.
2:30-3:30 PM I'll be doing a signing with Brian Froud at his booth # 4818, for a poster we did of my poem Instructions, which will benefit the CBLDF.
7:00 PM -- the mysterious event that you might have learned of at midday will occur, and will go on till about 8:30ish.
(I'd rather just give you details, but so far I've been specifically told not to. Which is, in my opinion, a bit silly, and as soon as I can tell you things, I shall.)
Then there's the CBLDF Benefit auction, which I plan to try and make it for the end of...
Sunday -- I get to do a proper panel!
10:30-11:45 Jack Kirby Tribute— Let’s face it: when it comes to comics, it’s Kirby’s World and we just live in it. 2007 has seen a bumper crop of Kirby projects, including the first volume of DC’s deluxe chronological reprinting of all the Fourth World stories, a major documentary about Jack on the Fantastic Four DVD, and Mark Evanier’s upcoming art book Kirby, King of Comics. Join Evanier as he talks to Neil Gaiman, Erik Larsen, Darwyn Cooke, Mike Royer, and members of the Kirby family about the lasting influence of the undisputed King of comics. Room 1AB
And I would do a signing on Sunday, but I have to flee to LA for Stardust that evening...
...
Dave McKean has just done the cover for the new John Cale boxed set. I feel vaguely paternal about this, because many years ago I got a phone call from John Cale, rather out of the blue, asking if I could suggest an artist for his autobiography, and after he listed all the things he wanted the artist to do, I said "You need Dave McKean" and gave him Dave's phone number. (I told him that if Dave couldn't do it, I'd figure out four or five different artists to do what he wanted done.) But Dave did it, and then John did the narration for Dave's film Neon, and now Dave's done the cover for the Cale boxed set -- a cover that contains references visually to John's entire magnificent career. (I am big John Cale fan, I should add, and Fragments of a Rainy Season would be one of my Desert Island CDs.)
In addition to painting the cover, Dave's also recorded a sort of artist's commentary on the painting and on John. If you head over to http://www.john-cale.com/ and you click on the painting (or just nip over to http://clients.onyro.com/emi/cale/) you will learn much about art, and Mr Cale, and Dave, and be amused besides because he's very funny. (And it's worth it, frankly, just to hear Dave McKean saying "Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather...")
The other thing the Webelf has been working on for a while is this: It's the area of the site that was formerly known as Exclusive, and is now Cool Stuff & Things http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/. And it went live today. It ought to change content when you refresh it...
(It's Cool Stuff & Things because that fits into the same area as Exclusive Material used to.)
The Webelf did a great job -- and it's the direction we're taking the site right now, more visually interesting and making it easier to find things and also allowing magical randomness to show people fun things they might otherwise not see. Address applause or grumbles to her.
It also looks like we're going to have some fun and unique Stardust movie material up here very soon.
The Mystery Aide has gone back to start setting up an LA office, to which people will be able to send things, thus taking the strain off DreamHaven Books (who don't really mind acting as a maildrop but sometimes I don't pick up mail from there for months). All should be revealed next week.
My 2 year old son loves "Crazy Hair" (thank you), the poem and real crazy hair. I know a book was in the works with art by Dave McKean, any word on a release date?
Thanks for your time!
Eric!
I'm not quite sure when it will be released, but I can tell you that Dave McKean delivered the final double page spread today.... which means the book is now in the production line-up. It looks like this:
(Click on the picture to be able to see it at a reasonable size.)
The moment I know the release date for Crazy Hair, I'll post it here.
...
I'd vaguely noticed the "Overheard in..." phenomenon over the last year or so, where those of us who enjoy earwigging send in to websites the best or strangest things we've overheard on the streets or off them, and recently googled to see how many there were out there. I discovered that there are plenty of them, of variable quality. Minneapolis is one of my favourites. Here are a few of the better ones...
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/
http://www.overheardinminneapolis.com/
http://www.overheardinpittsburgh.com/
http://www.overheardinlondon.co.uk/
http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/
http://www.overheardindublin.com/ (a bit less scribbled-in-the -notebook than the rest of them)
http://overheardinphilly.blogspot.com/ (now up for sale, for those Philadelphians who want it to continue)
http://www.overheardinathens.com/ (not the one in Greece).
Dave and I spent a fun day first being interviewed at MPR then we went down to the Walker for a sound check, out to eat (they scoffed at my not having a gooey chocolate dessert and having a grapefruit juice instead. But I shall have the last laugh.) Then we got to the Walker to find that there were a lot of people in line and only 300 free tickets, which made us feel vaguely guilty. (My apologies if you were one of the people who couldn't get in.)
We talked and read, Dave showed film clips and images, we were in conversation, we answered questions from the audience. (You'll be able to see the whole thing at http://channel.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=3651 soonish.)
Then we went down to leave, and, because the cars weren't moving and some people asked, signed some books for people in the parking lot, which was, I think, a first for the Gaiman McKean partnership. We spent a happy hour in the parking structure, watching the automated leaving system break down under the numbers of people leaving. (You pay before leaving, as in an airport, and you go to your car, and you try to leave. 300 other people are trying to do the same thing. It takes a while to get to the front of the line. Then all you need is one person who either forgot to pay before leaving, or who has been waiting in that line for fifteen minutes and ten seconds, and the whole system breaks down, and the attendants at the front look sadder and sadder and explain that they don't have an override switch and so cannot open the barrier for people even they want to -- and they do -- and they go off and try and get some working tickets, and as the hour ticks by several hundred people resolve not to come back to the Walker again, at least, not if it involves parking...)
Thanks to Sarah from the Walker and Eric from RainTaxi for putting it together...
(And finding the Rain Taxi link meant I noticed that there's a whopping great interview with me on their website at http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2006winter/gaiman.shtml.)
There's an interview with Dave McKean in the Star Tribune, setting up for Dave and Me Doing Stuff Before An Audience at the Walker in Minneapolis on Jan 11th (Details at http://www.raintaxi.com/readings/). I'm uncomfortable with the "Dave's the less famous one of the Gaiman-McKean partnership" editorial approach -- there are many worlds in which I'm very-famous-artist Dave McKean's less famous collaborator.
The interview's at http://www.startribune.com/384/story/916130.html
I did a quick Google to try and find a few Dave McKean articles pointing this out, and I found this article -- http://www.mpr.org/www/books/titles/gaiman_coraline/mckean.shtml -- at MPR's Talking Volumes. While the article on Dave is actually up on http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/essays/essaysbyneil/ , there's some terrific stuff in the MPR article sidebar -- lots of radio interviews, and the entire Talking Volumes radio special on CORALINE with Katherine Lanpher at the Fitzgerald Theatre.
