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Overdue Saturday Update
Sep. 25th, 2003 01:05 amSo Saturday I went to the NY Is Book Country reading & signing that Neil Gaiman was doing in NYC. And to my shame I haven't even posted about it.
At least I have an excuse for yesterday, because I managed to burn most of the palm and part of my fore and middle finger of my hand when grabbing a saucepan that I thought had cooled down. I spent most of the evening with ice on it, and cream helped soothe the skin overnight. It's still a tad tender, but no marks or visible discolouration or anything. Owie.
Anyway. I met up with
Tom and Karen at a comic store right next to the Empire State Building somewhere around 10am. As I wasn't entirely sure whether or not they'd be selling copies of Endless Nights at the venue, I wanted to make sure I had one beforehand. Plus it gave me an excuse to pick up a few comics (FSc's 2 art collections and Bear 1+2). After securing our copies of Endless Nights we walked the dozen or so blocks to the conference center and went straight in. Perfect timing.
Neil spoke about the genesis of Endless Nights and the various artist collaborations. He then read the Despair story, quipping that he'd opted for less portraits of Despair than the 25 he'd originally planned because he didn't want people to start jumping off buildings after finishing reading :) For levity he then read his poem Crazy Hair, which he'd sent as an email to one of his daughters when Florida humidity was making his notoriously strange hair even more unmanageable :) Crazy Hair is hilariously funny. Harper Collins will be bringing it out as a book, unfortunately that will take about 16 months according to what he said when I asked him as he signed my things.
After Crazy Hair there were a few questions from the audience. Someone asked if he would tell the story of how Delight became Delirium, and he said that he probably will... so that's good :) and he's working, or planning, another children's book and another novel. The children's book is supposedly similar to Jungle Book, only the kid gets raised by dead people in a graveyard, rather than wolves in the jungle. And the novel kind of ties into American Gods as it deals with the sons of one of the gods who died.
Things ended around noon after an hour of Neil having spoken to us. Then the long wait before we could get our goodies signed. We wandered out to the street fair that was happening on 6th Ave. and got some indian food and a fruit smoothie and spent a large portion of the afternoon talking and reading until our turn finally came (around 4.30pm or so). I got Endless Nights and The Dream Hunters signed, as well as a printout of a comic (Nice Hair, which Neil had linked from his blog once) from one of the GN forum members... I figured she'd appreciate that ;) We chatted a little with Neil, in so far as you can chat with someone who's signing books for 300+ people, and then also with Shelly Bond from DC/Vertigo who cut off our wrist tags.
We headed off towards the station after that, and ended up in Starbucks getting caffeinated and talking for quite a while before going our seperate ways at Times Square. I had a great time, even though my legs felt like they were going to fall off when I finally got home :)
At least I have an excuse for yesterday, because I managed to burn most of the palm and part of my fore and middle finger of my hand when grabbing a saucepan that I thought had cooled down. I spent most of the evening with ice on it, and cream helped soothe the skin overnight. It's still a tad tender, but no marks or visible discolouration or anything. Owie.
Anyway. I met up with
Tom and Karen at a comic store right next to the Empire State Building somewhere around 10am. As I wasn't entirely sure whether or not they'd be selling copies of Endless Nights at the venue, I wanted to make sure I had one beforehand. Plus it gave me an excuse to pick up a few comics (FSc's 2 art collections and Bear 1+2). After securing our copies of Endless Nights we walked the dozen or so blocks to the conference center and went straight in. Perfect timing.Neil spoke about the genesis of Endless Nights and the various artist collaborations. He then read the Despair story, quipping that he'd opted for less portraits of Despair than the 25 he'd originally planned because he didn't want people to start jumping off buildings after finishing reading :) For levity he then read his poem Crazy Hair, which he'd sent as an email to one of his daughters when Florida humidity was making his notoriously strange hair even more unmanageable :) Crazy Hair is hilariously funny. Harper Collins will be bringing it out as a book, unfortunately that will take about 16 months according to what he said when I asked him as he signed my things.
After Crazy Hair there were a few questions from the audience. Someone asked if he would tell the story of how Delight became Delirium, and he said that he probably will... so that's good :) and he's working, or planning, another children's book and another novel. The children's book is supposedly similar to Jungle Book, only the kid gets raised by dead people in a graveyard, rather than wolves in the jungle. And the novel kind of ties into American Gods as it deals with the sons of one of the gods who died.
Things ended around noon after an hour of Neil having spoken to us. Then the long wait before we could get our goodies signed. We wandered out to the street fair that was happening on 6th Ave. and got some indian food and a fruit smoothie and spent a large portion of the afternoon talking and reading until our turn finally came (around 4.30pm or so). I got Endless Nights and The Dream Hunters signed, as well as a printout of a comic (Nice Hair, which Neil had linked from his blog once) from one of the GN forum members... I figured she'd appreciate that ;) We chatted a little with Neil, in so far as you can chat with someone who's signing books for 300+ people, and then also with Shelly Bond from DC/Vertigo who cut off our wrist tags.
We headed off towards the station after that, and ended up in Starbucks getting caffeinated and talking for quite a while before going our seperate ways at Times Square. I had a great time, even though my legs felt like they were going to fall off when I finally got home :)
