2nd appearance, Saturday 19th August, interview part 2
4.30 PM Finnish time, comics fest
Gaiman's elaborate ramblings now moved on to mythology and how he gets a kick out of people telling him that they started studying comparative religion or something similar because of reading his works. He also said that he likes using mythologies because people don't know enough or anything about them, so he can drop these bits of information in the stories from myths. I disagreed a bit, having been a mythology-fan since I was 10, but that's just my opinion again. Ask someone on the streets who Nyks/Nyx was and you'll get a blank face. True and not true.
He also said that if he wasn't a writer he'd still be
using all these weird bits of knowledge he's read about in
books by being that boring guy in a pub telling people
about all that. He then went into that one British comedian
mode, 1950's(?) comedian who had that notebook where he told
ppl all these "fascinating" things from, Alan(?) A(?)something?
(I know the guy, saw him in Heroes of Comedy
when I was in Britain and was outraged cause one Finnish
comedian had ripped him off on tv in the '80's and no one
here knows about it being a rip-off. Won't mention the
name Kinnunen, anyone. *mutters*)
Anyway, what he said went something like this: "Did you
know that the pygmy elephant is the komodo
dragon's main source of food? And that there are no more
pygmy elephants because the komodo dragons ate them all up,
preying on them until they became extinct?"
He did this in a slow trailing voice, sort of staring at
you as if you were the one next to him in a pub, the one
he's got to share this fascinating piece of information
with (he could've been an actor, too ;) ) I think my next
comment in my notes is related to this, have written "you
do it to get it out of your system, cause it's fun shit", but
I haven't a clue if it really was about sharing all those
tidbits with his readers or not.
He also brought up that "Myth of the month-club" that
he felt people were expecting him to turn the Sandman in
to at one stage, the reason why he toned the mythological
aspects down a bit. I believe it'd even come up in Kemi,
Northern Finland, people asking him when he'd use the
Finnish national epic Kalevala in Sandman. He used some
Lappish stuff in Brief Lives but said Kalevala's still
waiting. Maybe a little bit in American Gods, we'll see.
I happened to overhear him
talking about some painting
by Edelfelt (famous Finnish artist, long dead) on Friday,
how he wanted a picture of it if possible, so I've been
trying to rack my brain trying to figure out which one
they were talking about. Possibly Portrait of the Artist�s
Sister Ellen Edelfelt which is in the Ateneum collections.
Just a little sidenote to Finnish stuff. I've a link
to the Finnish National Gallery/Ateneum somewhere
on my pages (probably art section. doh), hint hint.
To 10th anniversary album demands he'd told the people at DC to get him an artist and he'd do it, and when he saw a poster done by Amano he knew who he wanted to do the album. He'd also just researched all this Japanese stuff for Princess Mononoke so he could utilize all that in writing the story, never having done a Japanese Morpheus.
Amano'd told him he couldn't do a comic, so the book ended up beautifully illustrated instead. Gaiman said that while he was writing it everyone kept asking him if it was based on some old Japanese legend and he kept saying no, so when the time came he put this fine story about it being based on an old Japanese legend at the end of the book, thinking no one'd believe a word of it. You know yourself whether you did or not. Sneaky bastards, writers. Never believe a word they say. He even said he gets probably too much mischievious pleasure out of the whole thing.
The Endless Secret Files are coming up next year
according to him, and the Jill Thompson Delirium-series
one day eventually.
The Death movie is written about 30 pages in, plus
outline. He was saying that if you believe Deedee is
Death then she is Death, but she could just as well be
this mortal girl who's mad and just thinks she's Death.
Someone asked him about his upright bass, so we got to hear he'd donated it to a school. He'd started playing it when he was 9 but you need a band with it so he stopped about 10 years ago. If he has to write a song he'll write it on the piano.
On Tori Amos he said that meeting her was like inheriting a little sister in a way and that meeting in past lives was true as a metaphore. He also said Tori'd asked him on the phone to write a poem for her, so he'd written her one about blueberries the night before, which I found sweet.
There was a question about the spin-off comics for Sandman, and the reply was that he had mixed feelings about them. He genuinely likes Lucifer, but finds it odd reading the spin-offs. It's like sending kids off to college, and then discovering that they've gotten a piercing while they were gone, not knowing what to say to that. He can deny some of the stuff at proposal stage but he's mostly just a consultant on them.
He's been doing reading tours in the States for 6 years, for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund among other things. He said reading is the most fun, that writing is always fairly lonely, it's just worrying about commas and semicolons, and how the characters sound, as there's no feedback. Readings give him immediate feedback. He also said that readings are fine as long as he doesn't have to do a 3 hour "Neil Gaiman Show".
Someone wondered about him being on tours and away from home all the time, to which he said that it probably just seems like that to Finns cause he's here so often and cause he likes Finland. He usually does one big con in a year, one small one, one foreign trip and one where he spends 10 days on a reading tour, or a "month" on the tour signing, tho during those he's at home during weekends, every 2 years.
On his hobbies he said that he's trying to grow a giant pumpkin. It's his hobby for this year, having bid on some seeds for a giant pumpkin on the Internet. I'm still not sure what kind of a person grows giant pumpkins, but ok, he's doing that, anyway. :P He'd won the 7 seeds and now the pumpkin was in critical stages of its growth, so every time he calls home and they ask him "How's Finland?" he replies with a quick "How's my pumpkin?" I think he's a complete nutcase, but I find it sweet, anyway. Makes me smile big time.
Next there was something on storytelling and the weirdness of interactive and radio stuff, about how he's done 2 audio projects so far but is interested in doing some more. Murder Mysteries for Sci-fi Channel's website was one thing he mentioned. He said he hasn't yet written a film he'd be happy with, nor a novel. He was pretty happy with Sandman #50, Ramadan, though. No wonder.
He has a fondness for little things and loves markets and circuses, for example, although he said he loves the idea of a circus more than the reality. The clowns are never scary enough. He worked in a local street market when he was 15 and is happiest in junk shops. He sounds so much like me sometimes, and that isn't the only thing I have in common with him I fear. Not being able to throw away things is another, the next thing he brought up. He said he's even written some of the things into stories just to be able to say that yes, he did need it and have a use for it in the end.
His favourite bookstore was MacCosh's House of
Books, only open 3 times a year. MacCosh was a sort
of an anorexic brother of Santa Claus in American
Midwest, his bookstore being an old hospital full
of books everywhere around you. You only found out about
MacCosh's being open by word of mouth, too, getting
a mysterious call "MacCosh's is open next weekend"
which you'd pass along to someone else again.
Sounded like a wonderful bookshop.
He said he'd gotten his favourite book from
MacCosh's, a leather bound book full of empty pages
from 1830. It's just 500 blank sheets of paper,
on which he'll write a story on one day. So it's his
favourite book until he writes it.
There was a question from the audience about his favourite bands, which change according to what he's writing he said. It's usually whatever he needs,like, for example, Lou Reed's Metal Machine for Sandman's Hell-episodes. Black Books Recorder, Tom Waits, A girl called Michelle(?) and a Tom Lehrer books set was what he'd listened to for American Gods lately.
Someone asked about horror, so Neil explained
he's a complete wuss personally, can't stand anything
gory. That is unless he needs it for a story, when
he'll be calling doctors for imformation, asking
the coroners details on in which order they do
things, and what they do after removing the guts,
and where they put 'em. "Oh, a bucket, yeah of
course. And afterwards where do you put the guts?
You just stuff 'em back inside? Oh, OK..."
He said Alan Moore's still fond of telling a
story about a dinner from hell they'd had, Moore
describing his story to Neil, who was going more
and more pale all the time, trying to hold things
together. "Look, Natalie, lights" was a comment
on lungs held in hand I believe, Neil walking
away swaying, hearing something like "And there
goes Neil 'Scaredypants' Gaiman" from behind him? I missed that
last bit, anyone else who was there remember
the details?
At this stage the organizers asked him which song
he'd like to be played from Tom Waits' album after
the interview was over, to which Neil immediately
said "Oh Tango Till You're Sore, definitely".
Someone squeezed in a question about roleplaying
worlds and settings, writing for those, and Neil
said his stuff has been ripped off already, anyway,
but that it usually ended in disaster for the company
whenever he got involved with RP'ing as a project.
So now he tends to steer clear of that kind of
projects, 3 companies he's jinxed already? Quicksilver
software want to do a tv-series he was writing,
an interactive Back At Beyond paranoid story?
Time had run out again and he moved to the
second signing of the day, also at the railway
warehouses. I got in line again, to get an autograph
for a friend of mine, her partner and their 2-year-old
son Milo (a Scorpio, like Neil. Hmmmh. :) ), on the Finnish version of Neverwhere I'd
specifically bought for that. Waiting time was around
40 minutes this time I think. Big favour for a friend?
Dunno, I'd have stood there, anyway, and I was hoping
to get some more pics still. I mentioned that Milo
looks exactly like Daniel to Neil while he was
writing the dedication, too. Since he's so young, he added the words (And one day) before Milo's name. I expect it won't be
more than 5-7 years before he's reading that, the way he's going now.
Neil remarked on the third different name, so my changing dedications were becoming a minor source of amusement for me, too. He said "It's a different name with you every time, isn't it?" from what I can remember.
I'd inquired about the possibility of having my pic taken with Neil from Christina, the other guide, when I'd got near enough, and asked Neil about it when I got to the table. I'm usually more or less fluent in English but naturally I started stuttering and mumbling at that stage, so he had to confirm "You want to be in the pic with me?" He said it'd be ok, but that the last 3 flashes had hurt his eyes so he'd have to dig up the shades, to be the man behind the dark glasses. I could've waited until the end of the signing but Neil started digging up his shades and I moved behind the table, giving Christina the camera to take the pic. Someone came to point out that he could have photos taken later saying something about there still being a million books to sign, as if I wasn't feeling guilty enough about holding up the queue as it was. He'd put the shades on the table and was digging up something else from the pocket of his leather jacket, and I felt tempted to tell him to just put the shades on so we could get it over and done with, not hold up the queue too much, but kept quiet. Hey, he was doing me a favour even as it was, a nice gesture, and I presume he felt it gave him a chance to get the shades on to keep his eyes safe from further flashlights, too. And here's the result:
I'm the blonde one on the left, by the way, just so you'll know
who's who. *Smirk*
I hung around listening to the Indian cartoonist
Sharad Sharma on stage while Neil finished with the
rest of the signing, and then near the end of it
I wrote down my email address for Christina and Pekka,
the guides who I'd gotten to know on Friday, and
placed the time when I went to take it to them
strategically right at the end of the signing, when
Neil was leaving. I noticed someone'd given him a
traditional Finnish knife as a gift, which I
thought was a slightly disturbing gift maybe.
Neil was asking about Mike Diana's appearance
at the comics fest, the time of it, so I butted
in (as usual) and said it was scheduled for 7.30pm,
only for one of the organizers to correct me and
say Diana hadn't showed up yet, and that no one knew
where he was at that moment. Me and my big mouth. ;)
The gang left but I stayed for a while longer, eventually leaving to find someplace where to swap clothes and put on the vampire make-up I needed for the party starting after 9pm. The guides'd told me on Friday that if Neil was up to it and wanted to drop by at the party he'd be one of the judges in the traditional masquerade competition, so I'd considered dressing up with a bit more effort, pondering what I wanted to be until late the previous night (not that I was able to sleep more than 2 restless hours on the 2 previous nights, anyway). I chose to be a generic (Buffy-style) vampire, wearing my Circus of Horrors t-shirt with the text "Please Give Blood, Vampires Are an Endangerered Species" at the back, tho one of my other choices was Delirium.
I'd contemplated
dyeing my hair partially red already before the con,
but had left it and had no time during the weekend.
Later on I semi-regretted it, realizing that I
could've put on one hell of a Delirium act based
on my own incoherent ramblings alone. Truthfully,
my friends still tease me about the time we were
eating chocolate raisins and I started staring at
one, asking "What's inside chocolate raisins?" in
all seriousness, and when it was pointed out to
me that "hello, they're chocolate RAISINS" I went
"Oh. Yeah. Of course" in the best of Delirium
fashion, recognizing her later in Brief Lives when she
says her "Oh, yeah. I forgot's." I've also been
known to call fridges garages and other stuff like that.
Not that I've ever considered myself to be anything
like Del, I'm more of a Thessaly, I fear.
The truly spooky thing happened when on my
birthday, August 22nd, I suddenly heard from the
radio that Tori Amos was also born on the 22nd,
not having had a clue about that before.
So maybe I could've pulled off a decent Delirium
in the end then. ;)
Very few people had actually dressed up, which
I think is typically Finnish, no one but me seems
to love masquerades. Pity. Stephen Baxter and his
wife and Ken MacLeod, Finncon's 2 other guests of
honour, were there, as judges. OK party, except for the
fact that the bar seemed to be running out of cider and even
beer at some stage. Tsk, tsk.
I overheard some things at the party and
before that that made me slightly paranoid about having been
too much of a bother (not personally, but everything altogether
) on Neil, the oversensitive paranoia-prone person that I am,
so the I-don't-want-people-to-be-unhappy-because-of-me-even-indirectly
side of me decided it'd be a nice idea if I wrote Neil a little
Cheer-you-up note. Yeah, I know, but that's the way I am. ;)
So when I got home I grabbed one charcoal (?) sketch of the
Sandman I'd made and used it as letter-writing paper for my
little Thoughts and Thanks note. Wasn't sure if I'd even get
a chance to give it to him or if he'd read it, but it made
me feel better, anyway, everything sorted out so I could
finally sleep some more, too.
Here's a pic of four charcoal sketches I've made from the Sandman comics,
the top one being the one I used as that letter-writing paper.
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