http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=393010433
Neil has owned it since 1989 and wore it all through the writing of The Sandman. As I post this, the bid is a measly $321. As all proceeds go to the CBLDF I’m hoping this low bid is completely wiped out soon.
Go forth, Gaiman fans, and BID!
Steven Cohn wrote:
The bean bags for Death and Delirium are supposed to be on sale starting in end of Oct.
Deliruim includes her goldfish too.
http://www.toymania.com/sdcc2000/dcdirect.shtml
Scroll down a bit and you’ll see ‘em.
from CBR’s Comics Brief for today:
EISNERS LIVE: Best Comics-Related Book
Posted by Jonah Weiland - 21:29 PST
From eBay’s CBLDF page:
This July and August, the CBLDF will bring you not one, but four huge comics auctions — three on eBay and one live auction at Wizard World in Chicago. These auctions will feature unique items like Neil Gaiman’s famed leather jacket, the Shi:Year of the Dragon Customized Motorcycle, original superhero cover art by Frank Miller, rare collectibles, signed stuff, and lots of original art. The action starts on July 13 and climaxes at Wizard World in Chicago on August 5.
Check http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/cbldf.org for the latest list of eBay auctions: bidding is not only an easy way to get hard to find Neilstuffs, but it’s for a great cause, too.
And yes, there is a picture of the jacket online, last I checked - if it’s not at CBR’s Comic Brief, check the archive for July 21th.
From the Daily Feed for June 7 at Comics Newsarama/Another Universe:
Miller Covers Gaiman
Cover image
No, it’s not a preview of Frank Miller’s upcoming Batman: The Dark Knights Strikes Again, which promises to feature lots of DC’s classic heroes, but it kinda/sorta could be. It’s actually the cover to Neil Gaiman’s upcoming special Green Lantern/Superman: The Legend Of The Green Flame.
The special, which was written over ten years ago by Gaiman, is now being illustrated by Matt Wagner, Eddie Campbell, John Totleben, Mike Allred, Jason Little, Eric Shanower, Arthur Adams, and according to DC, “many more cool entries from the Rolodex of Senior Editor Bob Schreck.”
The story teams Superman, Green Lantern and a host of familiar DC characters in an adventure to Hell and back, spanning more than four decades.
Last year, Gaiman told Newsarama a little more about the special, explaining to us that the script was originally meant to be the “last episode” of DC’s former Action Comics Weekly series. “But it was scrapped for continuity reasons which were at the time incredibly important but which are pretty much forgotten today,” explained Gaiman. “In brief, I`d written a story about Superman and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern as old friends, one of whom has problems, the other doesn`t. It was decided the week after I`d written it that too many people knew Superman`s secret identity and henceforth no one would know it. The story didn`t really work if they weren`t old friends in their secret identities, so it was scrapped. In it, Superman and Green Lantern go to Hell.”
The story was originally commissioned by then DC editor Mark Waid and features cameos by all the characters featured in ACW at the time - including, amongst others, Deadman, the Blackhawks and the Phantom Stranger.
The one-shot is not on DC`s schedule yet but tenatively slated for late this year.
From Another Universe:
Continuing the series of in-depth Secret Files with a Vertigo twist, this collection of inside info on The Endless, featuring three stories written by Neil Gaiman himself, as well as other creators including Paul Pope, who will provide a family portrait of the family that lives just beyond our world. DC promises sordid family secrets and all sorts of hitherto unknown family secrets, and editor Karen Berger stated that Gaiman has expressed interest writing the character profiles for the special.
Video Interview from Dragoncon
If you have access to RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, you should be able to access this Neil interview from the just past DragonCon, courtesy eHobbies (and Nextplanetover). There was also another video interview on the site, but I have no idea where or when it’s from.
http://www.ehobbies.com/tv_show.asp?category=COMICS_ACT&see=COMICS_ACT_NeilGaimanatDragonCom
http://www.ehobbies.com/tv_show.asp?category=COMICS_ACT&see=COMICS_ACT_NeilGaiman
Neverwhere movie info updated at Corona Coming Attractions
Corona’s Neverwhere page was updated with the following tidbit from CONvergence.
July 14, 2000… Ah, yes, the anonymous con-goer. We know him well. And he sends us stuff. Like…this: “Neil Gaiman was in Minneapolis this weekend at a convention, and he was (once again) asked about the status of Neverwhere. He said that Andrew Birkin (of the ‘Lost Boys’ miniseries and the movie The Messenger) is currently working on the script, and once it has reached a point that The Powers That Be are happy with, it will be sent to him (Neil) for his opinion. Apparently, it had gotten to the point where Neil felt like he would never stop working on Neverwhere, what with the BBC series, the novel, the American version of the novel, and then multiple scripts.” [The Anonymous Con-Goer has spoken.]
And speaking of CONvergence
The Quotable Sandman To Be Released Separately At Lower Price
From the DC Comics Newsletter:
Originally packed-in with THE SANDMAN MINI-BOOKENDS from DC DIRECT, the 96- page hardcover book entitled THE QUOTABLE SANDMAN will now be offered separately at a lower price of $9.95, instead of its previouslyannounced price of $19.95. The book features many of the wisest, wittiest and most memorable quotations from writer Neil Gaiman’s remarkable series and artwork selected from THE SANDMAN’s entire run.
Nova Express
Lawrence Person posted this to alt.fan.neil-gaiman a while back, but Locus Online noted it just came out.
The first half of a long (approximately 15,000 word) interview with Neil Gaiman will appear in the forthcoming Spring/Summer 2000 (Volume 5, Number 3, whole number 19) issue of Nova Express. This half of the interview talks about The Sandman in great detail, as well as Stardust, his relationship with fans, the Goth movement, and his forthcoming novel American Gods. There will also be interpretations of Sandman characters by various Nova Express artists.Other work in this issue includes in-depth articles on Greg Egan and Gene Wolfe, plus the usual dozens of reviews of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and slipstream works.
In the U.S., single issues of Nova Express are $4 postpaid, while 4 issue subscriptions are $12 and 8 issue subscriptions are $20. Foreign subscriptions are $16 for 4 issues in Canada and Mexico, and $22 international. (Inquire for single issue rates outside the U.S.) Send checks to Nova Express, P.O. Box 27231, Austin, Texas, 78755.
Fellow Travellers
Charles Vess has updated his website with info about Neil and Miracle Pictures meeting about the “Land of Laughs” project; he also put up scans of the artwork he did for it.
Speaking of Jonathan Carroll, Joe del Tufo posted information to alt.fan.neil-gaiman about a hardcover novella he has written called The Heidelberg Cylinder; the art on the cover is by Dave McKean. For more information, go to http://www.jonathancarroll.com
And on a sadder note, Eve found this one:
I found this on the Locus site. It’s by Gene Wolfe for a friend of his named Joe Mayhew. It looks like he was a friend of Neil’s as well. http://www.locusmag.com/2000/Issues/07/WolfeOnMayhew.html
Ok, it’s off-topic, but I just got back from the X-Men movie, and I have to admit that I loved it.
The direction, acting, script, action, cast, and all the “little bits” fit together into a damned fine movie that stands alone outside of being “an X-Men movie”. Finally, a great comic book adaptation of a movie.
Sandman (or Death or Good Omens or…) fans should be so lucky. Unfortunately, with Hollywood’s limited vision, they’ll react to this movie’s success by thinking “Hmm… superheroes good. Make more, have cheesy fights in tights.” when THIS IS NOT WHAT X-MEN WAS.
Hollywood people, if you happen to visit this page, please realize that X-Men is great because a lot of work went into making it a quality film - and not Hollywood’s idea of “quality” (big explosions, cheesy one-liners and a script put together two weeks after filming began). Good direction, good cast, GOOD SCRIPT. And no Jon Peters, dammit.
Addendum: I’d post my own review, but it’d probably read exactly like Moriarty’s on Ain’t It Cool News. So go there and read his instead. 
This is the listing for Neil Gaiman from Gale’s Biography Resource Center database. You should be able to find many of these books in larger sized public libraries or college libraries.
I have made notes next to the references I have seen, and those that were available as text have been hotlinked.
Many thanks to Puck for turning the text files into web documents and providing a place for them!
-la
Sascha Segan was kind enough to forward this article from ABCNews to the Books of Magic mailing list on egroups.
Harry’s Older Brothers: Fantasy Authors Don’t Resent Potter’s Success
July 7 — A bespectacled, British 12-year-old boy with a pet owl is told he may become the most powerful magician in the world.
The typical intrigues in a prestigious, coed English boarding school are complicated by the presence of wizardry.
Sound like Harry Potter? These are actually the plots of The Books of Magic, a comic book series started by Neil Gaiman in 1991, and Witch Week, a 1982 book by Diana Wynne Jones. The first Harry Potter book came out in 1997.
“There are terrific similarities, I don’t deny that,” says Jones, an acclaimed writer of children’s fantasy who is currently working on her 40th book in a 30-year career.
Jones’ popular “Chrestomanci” novels deal with young wizards and witches who are helped by Chrestomanci, a powerful, benign sorcerer.
“I suspect that this lady [Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling] must have read all my books when she was quite young and let them go down to that marsh everybody has at the bottom of their minds, and out things came bubbling,” she says.
Peter Gross, who wrote The Books of Magic for two years until June, says he sees resemblances between his Tim Hunter and Harry Potter, but writes them off.
“When you talk about comparisons between Harry Potter and other works in the genre, it’s hard to tell what you can call borrowing ideas, because this is an idea that is as old as myth,” he says.
A Rising Tide
Jennifer Lavonier, manager of Books of Wonder, a children’s bookstore in New York City, says the Harry Potter tide has upped the overall interest in children’s fantasy fiction.
“It has boosted young-adult sales across the board. Kids want to know what else they can put their hands on,” she says.
That includes C.S. Lewis’ famed Chronicles of Narnia, Susan Cooper’s Dark Is Rising series, and Jones’s English-tinted fantasies, bookstore clerks in New York say.
“I’m getting letters from kids who have been into shops saying, ‘Isn’t the latest Harry Potter out yet?’ and they said, ‘Sorry, but try [Jones’s books]’ — they read them and enjoy them thoroughly,” Jones says.
She says Rowling’s fantasies are quicker reads than hers.
“[My books] take a little more trying if you’re going to read them. Kids don’t want to be trying all the time,” she said.
A Nod to Potter
The Books of Magic, whose hero is a dead ringer for Harry, hasn’t been caught up in the wave. DC Comics chose not to market the comic book to children, freeing Gross to write much darker story lines than Rowling — in one of the many alternate worlds featured in the series, Tim Hunter ends up selling his soul to a demon to save the world and becomes a bearded vagrant living in a cardboard box.
That didn’t stop Gross from putting in a nod to Potter in his final issue of The Books of Magic. Tim’s obnoxious stepbrother Cyril puts on a “glamour stone,” which turns him into a familiar face. Cyril steps onto a platform at King’s Cross Station … and he’s off to Hogwarts.
“What the hell,” said Gross. “It’s nice to acknowledge Harry a little bit.”
Neil's Journal Where's Neil?
Puck | 
07 27th, 2000| 