Interviews
On Tuesday, June 17th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Neil Gaiman to discuss NEVERWHERE.
Montey from NYC: Neil Gaiman: Frantic negotiations are currently going on to buy NEVERWHERE (the movie rights). To be completely honest, I have no favorite actors, the characters are so real to me, it is difficult to pinpoint an actor and actress. If anybody, I could play Richard, but I have no plans of acting.
Robert from New Jersey: Who do you think is the best horror/fantasy writer out there today?
Neil Gaiman: If it has to include both categories, the finest author out there is Jonathan Carroll, who is now being published in trade paperback, normally in the literature shelves. Books such as SLEEPING IN FLAME, A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY, and OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM.
Dickey Charlton from Studio City, CA: Great book!! Marquis de Carabas rocks!! Where do you think up these unusual characters? Are they strictly from your imagination, or do you use any real people as influences for your characters? (Marquis de Carabas in particular.)
Neil Gaiman: I think de Carabas probably, in my head, originally began life as a kind of Richard O'Brien character. But most characters in NEVERWHERE came out of place names. I wondered what the Earl would be like in Earl's Court or the Angel in Islington. In the Marquis I wanted a character who was, in his mind at least, always one step ahead of the plot.
Paul from New York City: Do you prefer writing comics or writing full-length books?
Neil Gaiman: What I prefer is telling stories and every method of telling stories. Whether comics, TV, film, radio drama, short stories, poems, or novels. They all have their up sides and down sides. But for me, the primary goal is always the act of telling the story.
Greg from St. Louis, MO: Croup and Vandemar are a couple of vicious dudes. Do you think such evil exists in our world today, or only in fiction?
Neil Gaiman: I think one cannot read a book about serial killers or the Holocaust without realizing that evil exists in reality worse than anything one will encounter in fiction. Croup and Vandemar, however, are cartoon evil characters. Like most of the people in NEVERWHERE, they know their roles in the book and are proud, delighted, and possibly even honored to be the bad guys. As Mr. Croup puts it, they don't have any redeeming features.
Mike Margiotta from Albany, NY: I really enjoy your Sandman work. I also love the collaboration you did with THE BOOKS OF MAGIC. Do you have any plans to bring back Morpheus? I have been away from comic books for several years now, so excuse my question if you currently have anything like this currently in print. I love your work!
Neil Gaiman: The story of Sandman is really over -- you'll find it in the ten volumes of graphic novels that begin with PRELUDES AND NOCTURNES and ends with THE WAKE. It's one story that took eight years to tell and 2,500 pages, and for now I am very content to leave it that way.
V. from Florida: Hello, good fellow! How's it going? Any date set on the
Stardust publication? How about a Miracle Man resurgence?
Neil Gaiman: Stardust, which is a four-volume adult fairy story and will be very heavily illustrated by Charles Vess, will be published in six weekly intervals starting in October. No news on Miracle Man, although the next issue has been finished for almost four years now.
Sue from Port Washington, NY: As a child, which comic strip did you most enjoy reading, and did those strips influence you today?
Neil Gaiman: The comic strip I most enjoyed and which probably influences me today was Feiffer. I practically learned to read on the Feiffer collection THE EXPLAINERS, and I think the comic book that I most enjoyed was the original Swamp Thing.
tyg from Silicon Valley: Hi, Neil. Any word on "Neverwhere" being picked up for U.S. showing? Also, did any other signings in the Boston area materialize?
Neil Gaiman: Two noes.... If people want to see "Neverwhere" the TV series, which is flawed but fun, they should write to whatever station you would like to see it on (Sci-Fi, PBS) and let them know. I am only doing the stops on the tour.
Shaun from Parma: How much difference is there between the British and U.S. versions of NEVERWHERE? Also, when will we see some of the endless miniseries?
Neil Gaiman: The American version of NEVERWHERE is about 10,000 words longer than the English; it has a few extra scenes and a lot more description. However, it lost one of the prologues (which can be found on the Avon web site), and it lost some of the jokes.
Kirk Chritton from Sedalia, Missouri: How has living in the U.S. changed your working relationship with Dave McKean?
Neil Gaiman: Well, our old working relationship consisted of one of us phoning the other every night at 2am because we were the only people we knew who would be up at that time, and we would see each other every few weeks. Now when we do things together it is in shorter, more concentrated bursts, but we still delight in working with each other, and I loved doing THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH. We have a book called DUST COVERS coming out toward the end of this year.
Pauline from Berkeley, CA: I'm also a fan of Jonathan Carroll. Any chance of both of you collaborating in a venture of some sort?
Neil Gaiman: There are people you don't want to collaborate with, because you want to see what they do and because what they do is so unique. Authors like Jonathan Carroll or Iain Sinclair or Gene Wolfe are people I want to read, not to write with.
Sean Kelley McKeever from Columbus, OH: Do you plan on writing more comics in the near future, and if so, will you only write for comics occasionally, or will you possibly take on another monthly series?
Neil Gaiman: I have no plans to write another monthly ongoing series at this time. But it is possible a few years down the road. Most of the work I am currently doing in comics is very short. Sandman took me almost a decade to write, so these days I like things I can finish by teatime.
Ismael from N.Y: What is your obsession with angels? From Lucifer and the Angels that keep Hell in SEASONS OF MIST, MURDER MYSTERIES to NEVERWHERE.
Neil Gaiman: I don't know. Every time I write a good angel, I think I've got them out of my system forever, and then I'll turn around and another angel has crept in. They are like roaches. All I can do is apologize.
Eden from Virginia: In that great interview with you from the book COMIC BOOK REBELS from a few years ago, you mentioned working on a show for the BBC called something like "The Underside." I'm assuming that became NEVERWHERE. I'm just curious about how long you've had the concept of NEVERWHERE.
Neil Gaiman: Yes, since 1991.
Kjartan from Norway: Thinking back to the book GOOD OMENS, how is writing a book alone, like NEVERWHERE, compared to writing it together with another writer?
Neil Gaiman: I get to keep more of the royalties. It is difficult to explain and probably bears the same kind of relationship that masturbation does to sex.
Jeffro from Colorado: Any plans for an "Endless" characters' miniseries any time soon (besides Death)?
Neil Gaiman: There is a "Destiny" series, which I don't have anything to do with, coming soon. I plan to write a "Delirium" series once I finish writing STARDUST.
Cindy Archer from Houston, TX: Your story "Snow, Glass, Apples" was a real treat. Do you have any plans to give other "Disneyized" stories the same treatment, returning them to the grisly tales from which they most likely evolved?
Neil Gaiman: I was planning to write a "Jack in the Beanstalk" retelling at some point. We'll see. Avon plans to release a short story collection next year, tentatively entitled SMOKE AND MIRRORS.
Pauline from Berkeley, CA: Do you have any comments regarding censorship in comix? BTW, congrats for winning the award for best fantasy short story (for a graphic novel, no less!). Must have ticked off some of the fantasy writers out there!! :)
Neil Gaiman: Thanks for the congratulations. The bit I thought was silly, was we got the award on Saturday night and on Sunday morning, they changed the rules to prevent it from ever happening again. My main comment on censorship is that I am in favor neither of it nor of any self-appointed censors. Which is why I've given so much time and energy to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights for First Amendment rights. I just had a chapbook called ON CATS AND DOGS published by Dreamhaven Books, profits from which will go to the CBLDF.
Lizard Man from The Swamp: Mr. Gaiman, I absolutely love your work and I am psyched to read NEVERWHERE. I just want to know what graphic novels you read?
Neil Gaiman: "Cerebus," "From Hell" and "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" (by Seth) are three of my current favorites.
V. from Florida: I read somewhere that you may be directing a "Death" film. True or untrue?
Neil Gaiman: An outline for "Death" the movie is sitting on somebody's desk at Warner Bros. But everything depends on what happens with and to the "Sandman" film (which I am not involved with).
Andy from Allentown, PA: Will you ever combine any of the characters from your Sandman series with any of your other books? I would love to see them with Door and Richard.
Neil Gaiman: I strongly suspect that the world of NEVERWHERE is the world of Sandman, but I could be wrong.
Moderator: Thanks for joining us this evening, Neil.
Neil Gaiman: Thank you for having me, and thanks to barnesandnoble.com, which has been so supportive with all my books.