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"Whos Neil Gaiman?" I heard it several times through
the course of the school year. Every time it set my
teeth on edge. Its not like he hasn't had a best-selling
book in the last 2 years. This summer he was on the
list for American Gods, which I started reading
yesterday and is pretty good so far. But, I digress.
Neil Gaiman was our guest of honor this year of
AggieCon. Neil Gaiman is a very nice gentlemen. He
made room for interviews, signings, and being an
auctioneer at our Charity Auction at AggieCon.
Interviewing him was a lot of fun. I hope you all
enjoy it as much as I did. Also, a special thanks goes out to Stephane
Morrell and Jamie Coville for assisting me with questions for Mr. Gaiman.
Sidra:
So how did you get started writing?
Neil Gaiman:
Actually doing pretty much what youre doing. I worked as an interviewer chiefly for
magazines in England in the early eighties. I was a book reviewer, a film reviewer and interviewed a lot
of people for Time Out, Sunday Times Magazine, all those kinds of things. And also
paid the rent by doing monthly interviews with celebrities for porno magazines, soft core things with
titles like Knave, and the British version of Penthouse, things like that. I would do their
interviews, and I would interview authors. What was nice about that was that they didnt really care who I
interviewed, because nobody actually bought it for the interviews. So knowing that nobody read it for the
interviews they were like, "Yeah, whatever." I would say, "Can I interview this really interesting science
fiction writer?" and they would say, "Sure." That was how I started. I wanted to be a writer, but I also
knew that I wasnt going to be able to pay the rent writing fiction. So, for me, that was very much a way
of learning how to write.
Sidra:
How did you get started in comicbooks?
Neil Gaiman:
Around 85-86 I sent my first
book,Ghastly Beyond Belief to Alan Moore,
because I was a fan of Alans. We became friends and
when we actually met in the flesh, which was about 6
months later, I got him to show me what a comic script
looked like. I then went off and wrote some. About
1986, I was approached by a guy who was starting a
comic, an anthology comic, and I wrote a couple
stories for him. Another person working for him was a
guy named Dave McKean. Paul Gravett from
Escape magazine came along and said, "I like
what Neil is writing and I like what Dave is drawing,"
and asked us to do something for Escape which
then became Violent Cases. We were halfway
through that when some people from DC Comics came to
England on a talent scouting expedition. So we showed
them what wed done so far and they said, "Ah, you are
talented. Youve just been scouted." We then went on
to do Black Orchid, and I went on to do Sandman.
Sidra:
Are Sandman or any of The Endless ever going to
make a reappearance?
Neil Gaiman:
Sure, Im working on a graphic novel
right now called Endless Nights, which with any luck
will be out as a hardcover by the end of the year, if
I dont mess up my deadlines too badly.
Sidra:
Are there still any movie plans based on the
Endless? Or is that all pretty much dead?
Neil Gaiman:
The thing about movies is that they never
die. Sometimes they never live, but they tend to exist
in this sort of Frankenstein-ian half-life. Often it
can be a weird set of circumstances coming together
that suddenly move something from being dead to being
alive. I hope the Sandman movie is dead. Ive seen
about eight scripts and they just got progressively
worse and worse until by the eighth, it didnt resemble
Sandman at all. I hope that never happens. I hope it
never comes to fruition. Meanwhile, Death I think
may well happen. Im back on the second draft of the
movie script. My trouble right now is just finding
the time to make everything happen and make sure
everything gets slotted in. When I made time for it
last year, I got back the studios notes the day I
started the American God tour. I did the
American Gods tour for a couple of months and
just as I was recovering from that, we got September
11th, and suddenly I didnt feel like writing a funny
story about Death in New York for a bit. But you know
time passes and maybe I can include that.
Sidra:
How is the progress coming along on the big
screen adaptation of Good Omens with Terry
Gilliam?
Neil Gaiman:
As far as I know its okay, I dont know.
The impression I get right now is that Terry Gilliam
really wants to make a movie, and the problem with
Good Omens is that its a very expensive movie.
The producers have been putting together the finances
for it for three years, and it may take them another
year to get the last piece of financing into position.
So right now its Terry Gilliams number one movie,
but if the financing doesnt really happen, he will
probably go on to do something else and come back to
it.
Sidra:
What was it like writing with Terry Pratchett
for Good Omens?
Neil Gaiman:
It was great. It was really fun,
enormously fun. It was like a young craftsman
apprenticed to a master craftsman. Terry knew how to
write novels; hed done it lots of times. Id never
done it before. So, he got to be sort of the master
builder and I think, in a lot of ways, I got to have a
lot more fun than he did. I got to do all the goofy
bits off on the side. I got to do the four horsemen,
and the other four horsemen of the apocalypse, funky
weird little bits like Mister Fells Magic Show,
wonderful, goofy, off the loop things.
Sidra:
Can we expect to see you in comics again any time soon?
Neil Gaiman:
Yeah, like I said Im working on the
Endless Nights graphic novel for DC, and Im doing a
project for Marvel called 1602 right now.
Sidra:
Do you feel you've helped bring darker/macabre/unusual ideas to
the forefront of today's culture?
Neil Gaiman:
I suspect that if you went back in time
and shot me in 1986 before Sandman and stuff youd
probably have something today that would be exactly
recognizable as what it is today. I dont think that
me being gone would necessarily change very much about
what weve got. I think weve got cultural impetus
going in that way anyway. There are things that I
look at and think," Youd probably wouldnt have been
the same if I hadnt come along. If I hadnt have
done what I do, you probably would have never existed in the form that
you are right now."
Things from Dogma to Buffy, they would have been there
but they would have been ever so slightly different,
because culturally they had to take onboard what I was
doing. But no, I dont think that I really changed
anything or did anything that huge. Ive just sort of
given people ideas that they might have encountered
anyway in a slightly different form.
Sidra:
How about breaking the need for superheroes in comicbooks?
Neil Gaiman:
Well, theyre still there. Well, its
interesting sometimes I have to go back and remind
myself what things were like pre-Sandman. The rules
pre-Sandman included things such as you werent
allowed to do a comic without the main character on
the front cover. I think what Sandman showed was that
well written comics will sell. Sandman was probably,
leaving aside Watchman and Dark Knight, the first
monthly comic to demonstrate that critical success
and commercial failure were not necessarily the same
thing. The only other which came first was Alan
Moores Swamp Thing, which was marvelous, but even
that didnt work on a commercial level at the time in
the way that Sandman brought in a whole new generation
of readers who didnt know that they liked that sort
of thing into comicbook stores. I think what is most
bizarre about Sandman is that we are...what? 13
years after I wrote the first Sandman...something like
that, and the graphic novels sell better than they
ever did. Theyre now in Borders and Barnes and
Noble, and theyre now on Amazon.com. Its funny,
there was a guy in the signing line today who said, "I
only found out about Sandman six months ago," and now
there are people who are finding out about Sandman
through comics like Lucifer. Theres always a
generation of people who go, "I think comics could be
interesting, but I dont like this stuff and I dont
like that stuff," and someone will hand then a Sandman
and suddenly theyre mine.
Sidra:
Okay, this is a quirky question, but I promised
my mom Id ask it.
Neil Gaiman:
Sidra:
How does it feel to be a goth chick magnet?
Neil Gaiman:
Im too old to be a goth chick magnet
now. I dont think anyone ever turns up at the
signings thinking, "Oh my God, Im here at the signing.
Im going to sleep with Neil Gaiman." They show up
thinking, "I want him very much to sign my book," and
if Im lucky, Ill get a hug. They get their hugs and
they go away very happy. Its pretty odd. In real
life, Im not a sex symbol of any kind. I do not turn
heads walking down a street or anything like that. I
remember one signing I did in Boston and there was a
girl there who actually turned out to be a top model
who was in the line, and Id noticed her because she
was someone with incredible physical beauty. She got
to the front of the line and fainted, and Im on the
ground reviving her and thinking to myself, "You know,
this is very strange."
Sidra:
On your website you said during a conversation
between Joe Quesada and Todd McFarlane, Todd said he
would run a smear campaign against you if you didn't
stop pushing the Miracle Man/Angela issue. Since you
haven't stopped, have you seen signs of a smear
campaign yet?
Neil Gaiman:
Not yet, and I think it was meant to
frighten me into shutting up, and actually it did the
opposite. I was really sitting completely over the
fence thinking, "Okay, do I really want to go legal on
this? It takes up an awful lot of your time. I only
have so much time. I only have so much time to write
in. I have so much time to work in, so much time to
be with my family. Do I want to sacrifice that time
to a legal thing or not?" I was heading at that
point, I think, to saying, "You know what? Ill just
let it go. Ill swallow my pride. I will accept that
Ive been screwed, and I will get on to do more work."
Then Joe says, "Well, this is the message from Todd," and
Joe was really embarrassed to be relaying this "Im
going to find all the dirt on you and smear it around"
message. I listened to that and I said, "I think Im
done. I think anybody who wants to move into that
kind of territory, its time for him to start paying
lawyer bills."
Sidra:
Has a penciler for your Marvel Mini series been
named yet?
Neil Gaiman:
I dont know, and thats the trouble.
Its one of those things where Im meant to say, "Well,
if its already been named then I can tell you who it
is, but it hasnt been named so I have to keep it
secret." But I dont actually know if hes been named
or not.
Sidra:
Is there a name for the mini-series yet?
Neil Gaiman:
Sidra:
What characters are you doing in the mini
series and in what issues?
Neil Gaiman:
Im afraid the only answer that would
make any sense at all would be really wait and see.
Partly because Im not really sure whos going to get
into it. Although Im getting a fair idea on everyone
and where theyre going to be. Im working very hard
at outlining this, only so that I dont get to issue
six and go, "Oh DAMN, this is going to be a seven
issue miniseries," because it would look really weird
putting 1 of 6, 2 of 6, 3 of 6, 4 of 6, 5 of 6, 6 of
7.
At some point during the interview, me with my normal
grace, dropped my list of questions and had to bend
under the table to pick it up. To quote Neil, "[my
dress] is built for many things but bending over is
not one of them."
Sidra:
Is Marvel and Miracle straightening out each others
claims of ownership regarding Miracle Man or is it
strictly Todd McFarlane's portion that you're trying
to work out?
Neil Gaiman:
There are definitely other claims on
Miracle Man, many of which I suspect are very valid.
Alan Davis has complained that Eclipse essentially
ripped him off, which from all I know they may very
well have done. What I want to do with Miracle Man, if
possible, is bring it all back into print in a way that
means that all of the original copyright holders, all
of the creators are getting paid for what they did,
getting royalties. I want them to have their work out
and have them be cool with it being out. Nothing is
going to get published without the permission of the
people who created it.
Sidra:
What are you doing at the moment and what are
you gong to be putting out soon?
Neil Gaiman:
What Im doing right now is sitting here
being interviewed by you at a con in Texas. I just
finished a script, a movie script. An adaptation of a
novel by Nicholson Baker called The Fermata.
Thats what I finished last week. Im now back onto
the Death movie, 1602, and the next one of the Endless
Night Stories, which will be the Morpheous story which
is going to be drawn by a wonderful Spanish artist
named Miguelanxo Prado. Im doing a short story for
an anthology of stories about Caribbean magic, and
probably several other things that I cant think of
right now.
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