The Dreaming

NEIL GAIMAN’s GUARDIAN ANGEL TOURS have always been special occasions, rare chances to spend an evening with a master storyteller. In small, intimate theatres across the country, Gaiman has mesmerized audiences with poems and tales of the macabre and the fantastic. And in the course of these tours, Gaiman has raised more than $100,000 to support the non-profit COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND.

But now it’s the end of an era: Gaiman has announced that his 2000 reading series will be THE LAST ANGEL TOUR. This October, Gaiman will give readings of his work on a cross-country tour from New York to Los Angeles in a massive benefit for the CBLDF:

October 16: The Vic Theatre, CHICAGO
(773) 472-0449, or call Ticketmaster at (312) 559-1212

October 18: St. Mark’s Church, NEW YORK
call Ticketmaster at (212) 307-7171

October 24: The Aladdin Theatre, PORTLAND
(503) 233-1994, or call Ticketmaster at (503) 224-4400

October 26: Pacific Design Center, LOS ANGELES
call Ticketmaster at (213) 480-3232

Tickets go on sale SEPTEMBER 1 and will also be available online
at http://www.ticketmaster.com. For complete tour information,
visit the CBLDF web-site at http://www.cbldf.org or call the
Fund at 1-800-99-CBLDF.

Gaiman first attracted critical acclaim for his graphic novels and the long-running comic series “Sandman.” In addition to his comics work, Gaiman is the author of the best-selling novels “Neverwhere” and “Stardust,” and has seen his unique vision translated for film, television, and the stage. He is the recipient of the prestigious World Fantasy Award and is noted in “The Dictionary of Literary Biography” as “one of the top ten post-modern writers” in America.

“I’ve been doing these tours since 1993,” said Gaiman. “I’ve really enjoyed returning people to the days when an author would take his work to the public, when a literary reading was something exciting, fun, and theatrical. Dickens did it. Oscar Wilde did it. And, in a much lesser way, so have I.

“I feel now like it’s time to turn over the reigns,” he continued. “We always planned for the Guardian Angel Tours to come to a conclusion. The audience wants us to keep doing it, but at the end of the day, well, I think there has to be an end of the day. I’m finishing a new novel at the moment, and I’m working on a number of different movie and television projects. Finding two weeks a year to actually get out on the road is getting harder and harder.”

On THE LAST ANGEL TOUR, Gaiman will be giving dramatic readings from his shorter fiction and poetry, including stories from his collections
“Angels & Visitations” and “Smoke & Mirrors.” He will also be debuting new, unpublished works and giving fans an early look at his new novel, “American Gods.” Each reading will be preceded by a private cocktail reception with the author for Premium Ticket holders and CBLDF Members, and followed by a question and answer session with the audience. The readings begin at 8 pm, with the private receptions starting at 6 pm.

Tickets for all tour stops cost $20, or $16 with a valid student ID.
PREMIUM TICKETS, which include seating in the front rows and admittance to the private receptions before the readings, cost $60. All proceeds from The Last Angel Tour benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

“While this will be The Last Angel Tour, it certainly won’t be the end
of my work in support of the Legal Defense Fund,” said Gaiman. “What
they’re doing is more important now than ever before, and I think we’ll continue to work closely on new ways to raise money and awareness of the Fund’s mission.”

The Last Angel Tour begins on Monday, October 16 with an evening at
Chicago’s Vic Theatre (3145 North Sheffield). New York City is the
next stop on the tour, with a reading on October 18 at St. Mark’s
Church (131 East 10th Street at 2nd Avenue). Portland’s Aladdin Theatre (3116 South East Street) hosts the tour on October 24. The tour concludes in Los Angeles on October 26 with a final performance at the Pacific Design Center (8687 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood).

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization protecting First Amendment rights in the comics community. Donations and inquiries should be directed to the CBLDF at P.O. Box 693, Northampton, MA 01061.

For more CBLDF news and information, pick up a copy of “Busted!,” the
Fund’s free quarterly newsletter, or visit the CBLDF web-site at
http://www.cbldf.org.

# # #

For additional information please contact Chris Bleistein at
(413) 586-6967 or cbleistein@cbldf.org

Neil gave a speech at the Glasspalace*, in Bio Rex filmtheatre to be more exact. There was a title for this in the programme: “Is there a future for Sandman?”. He spoke of almost every other thing than that, mostly of the films.

He has quite a lot of hair right now. I gathered that he won’t be getting it cut until he finishes American Gods. The Norwegians had told him that a king of their’s had done the same thing, only he wasn’t writing a novel, he was uniting Norway. “Ah, well, that’s a little bit easier” said Neil.

After the speech everybody got out of the theatre - a panel discussion followed within, but we were all after signatures.

I had bought the Dream Hunters paperback, and got it signed, and behaved like a total fangirl, but not in a bad way. Didn’t faint or anything.

I asked him if he remembered me from two years back in Jyv�skyl� (I had tried to interview him for a Finnish LARP-magazine) and he did. Oh, it was you, he said. Then he said that I had grown. Hm, how odd. Suddenly I’m thinking of elderly relatives.

Didn’t mind it though. I was rather impressed really.

I got my signature, and then I rushed off to the old railway warehouses** where the Comics Festival was being held.

Originally I had intended to draw and Xerox a small comic at a small press (reads: Xerox productions) workshop. Only the workshop proved out to be two great big Canon machines. I should’ve had our originals good and ready for the Behemoths, but I only had sketches with me.

So, then I went to get a signature from Enki Bilal, for a graphic novel of his that my brother has. I was hoping that Bilal might write “pour Sakari” or something over the “Enki Bilal”, and I was pretty sure he was going to do this, since he had even drawn some stuff on other people’s Bilal things. Nobody is ever going believe that the squiggle - it pretends being an autograph - was done by Bilal. With Neil there are at least n and e and g which are recognisable.

After receiving the squiggle I went and bought two ecological carrots, an ecological lemonade and an ecological lollipop. You see, there’s a shop for ecological foodstuffs at the old warehouse. That was my dinner. Not the warehouse but the carrots and the lemonade. I ate the lollipop just now, apple & cinnamon flavour, yuck.

Then I went and waited for the Neil interview to start. The problem with this was that probably most of the audience would have known English better than the interviewer guy.

“How about your relationship with Tori Amos?”

“It’s fine, thank you.” Said Neil.

That’s just one example, but I think I needn’t go further, because obviously he had good intentions, and later on he let Neil just go on about his stuff the way he does, and then everybody was happy.

We got to hear that he had played the big bass - which was new Neil trivia to me - and that he bought the seeds for his big pumpkin project from e-bay for no apparent reason.

I tried to ask about the short, horrid and gory (but great) thing at some scifi site, but couldn’t really deliver my meaning. I guess that at the time even I didn’t know what I was asking. Nevertheless Neil gave an excellent answer on how he doesn’t mind gore when he’s writing it, but that he is a great big wuss otherwise.

After that I stood in line for the third time that day, an got Neil to draw a moon in my sketchbook - I had forgotten my Stardust at home.
Then there was an interview of an Indian cartoonist going on at the time, and there were so few people there that I had to go and watch, so that there’s be one more. Besides, Mike Diana was supposed to appear after the Indian cartoonist, and I was prepared to ensure a seat for myself so that I could see him, and give some rest to my poor feet. Unfortunately Mike Diana happened to be in Gothenburg, Sweden at 19.30 Finnish time when he was supposed to be at the Comics Festival.

I went home after this.

**********

Sunday, second day of the Comics Festival, and third of the Finncon

Well, it turned out that the English of the interviewer wasn’t that appalling when comparing with the panel discussion on myths in literature at 13.00.

I have such strong opinions on this one that it’s only for the best that I shut up about them.

There was a change in the program, so, at 14.30 instead of a Steve Baxter and Ken MacLeod Q&A, there was first Ken MacLeod and then Neil Gaiman doing a reading. MacLeod read something (a bit either from
The Star Fraction or The Cassini Division) with his lovely Scottish accent, which unfortunately was quite difficult to follow for us Finns. After all, we’re only used to the BBC Scots, and rarely have the pleasure of hearing the real thing.

Neil read the story of Essie Tregowan, from American Gods, and boy am I waiting for that book. The Bio Rex is nearly always half empty because the films they run there are too artsy fartsy for the masses. Neil had succeeded in almost filling up the place (it appears that even Neil can’t defeat the Bio Rex jinx completely), and then he mesmerised us with his storytelling. I don’t remember hearing a single beep of a cellphone, and that’s quite an achievement in Finland.

Neil did a little signing after the reading, but me and my friend, we headed off for the underground-comics marketplace at the old warehouses.

After purchasing a few carefully selected comics I went home again.

-Veera

*Glasspalace was built in - I believe - the 40s, and it is of functionalistic style. It got it’s name because it has a multitude of windows, but this was in the standards of 1940. Nowadays the amount of windows doesn’t really add up to being noteworthy, but the name remains.

On Wednesday we (my wife Christina and I) picked him from the Helsinki airport. He recognised us immediately (not that hard with me wearing the original Sandman T-shirt) and said that he was warned by Otto (a friend of us who got us the Neil-escorting jobs) that we would be his guides. We were a bit concerned if he would turn right back and head home when he saw us (since we had been following him the last time he was in Finland two years ago). We took him to his hotel and then took him to meet the other guests of honour of Finncon, Ken MacLeod and Stephen Baxter (and his wife). Ken and the Baxters were extremely nice, only if we had had more time to be with them. In that meeting Neil learned about the proposed schedule and that he was a guest of honour to two cons (Finncon which is a SF con and Comics Festival). After that we went to have some tex mex dinner with Neil, Ken and some members of the Finncon committee.

On Thursday morning we took Neil to the opening of both cons at the
Ateneum (part of Finnish National Gallery of Art). There was a press session there and then some interviews. We also had a tour in the Ateneum (first time Christina and I were there). In the evening we took Neil to have dinner with the Finncon committee.

On Friday guests of honour had a breakfast with the US Ambassador of Finland (who is a big SF fan, really!), so we took Neil to the US Embassy. Then Neil had a lunch with his Finnish publisher (Otava). After that there was a meeting with a graduate making her graduate work on Sandman, and a meeting with a guy making a play of Neil short story Snow, Glass and Apples. When they were done we and a friend of Neil’s (and ours) took Neil to a specialised sauna shop (Neil built a genuine Finnish sauna in his home) where he bought lots of Loyly (smells to be added to the water thrown on the hot stones), and some other sauna stuff. We popped into a candy store and Neil bought lots of salmiakki and some xylitol chewing gum. Then we went to Academic
bookstore where Neil bought books of Finnish mythology and some Moomin books. In the evening (half an hour after shopping books) we took Neil to have sushi with friends of his (and ours) in a japanese restaurant Kabuki which owner/cook is a big comic book and Star Wars fan (every single day Christina was wearing a different Star Wars T-shirt and I was wearing a different Sandman related T-shirt). The food was excellent, Neil said that it was very good, and the green tea ice cream was the best he had ever had. We were supposed to go see the championship competition of fireworks after dinner but all the
roads were packed because of people trying to get to go to see the
competition, so we called it a night.

On Saturday Neil had two speeches to the public and two signings (one of each in both conventions, signings lasted 90 and 80 minutes, over 200 people got autographs and dedications, and some of them got the small drawings he does in certain comics and books). We herded the signing sessions. Christina and I were totally pooped after that and Neil even more so. We staggered to Kiasma (Museum of Modern Finnish Art) after the second signing session (because Neil hoped that some good art would bring life to him) and were majorly disappointed with the exhibition. Only the theremin and a room that was shaped as a upper half of a sphere were cool. After Kiasma and dinner we escorted Neil back to the hotel.

On Sunday we started by picking up Neil and then Gary Groth (founder of Fantagraphics, editor of Comics Journal and a really nice guy). He was an unannounced guest of the comics festival, and had met Neil during the signing session on Saturday. We went to Good Fellows comics store (as was agreed with Jari Laitinen, owner of Good Fellows on sushi dinner on Friday). Neil and Gary bought a lot of stuff there and I took plenty of pictures of which I will give copies to Jari.
Then we took Neil to a panel discussion which was followed by an
interview and a reading session. Then Neil arranged a surprise (even to us signing session that lasted 10 minutes. With the official programme finished we took Neil by a ferry to Suomenlinna (Sveaborg, the Finnish Castle in Finnish, the Swedish Castle in Swedish) where we had dinner with a bunch of friends (again both Neil’s and ours). In the evening we took Neil to Dead Dog Party which was arranged to honour the organisers of Finncon. While in there he checked from his own papers at what time his plane was leaving on Monday. Ours said that that time for departure was 1:35 pm, his said it was 7:15 am!
Because his tickets also said 7:15 am, we decided to believe that
unless his assistant would say otherwise. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to reach his assistant, and it was getting late. So Neil visited every table in the party and everyone got their chance to talk with him and then we took him back to his hotel.

On Monday morning Christina and I got up at 4:00 am, we phoned Neil at 5:00 am, and arrived at his hotel room at 5:25 am. I wore the Wake T-shirt, it was a nice touch although it was far too early to appreciate the many meanings of it. We arrived at the airport at 6:00 am. Neil checked in and then it was time for goodbyes (I will not share them). We made sure that he got in the international part of the waiting lounge and waved him goodbye.

Now that I think back of Neil, Finncon, Comics Festival and the fans, I am surprised that there weren’t any stalkers. Well, apart from Christina and I, but this year, we had gone pro.

Eisner-Nominated writer Ed Brubaker (Deadenders, Batman)
has announced he has found an artist for his upcoming Sandman Presents mini-series for Vertigo, The Dead Boy Detectives
and the Secret of Immortality - Luther Arkwright and
Sandman - World`s End creator Bryan Talbot.

According to Brubaker, Talbot will return to the world of
the Sandman and to the children`s book roots of One Bad Rat
with this new mini-series, Brubaker calls, “My homage to
the young adult fantasy books of my youth, John Bellairs
and Edward Gorey`s House with the Clock in its Walls, and
others in that series, which predate the Harry Potter
series by about 20 years.”

“The Dead Boys really appealed to me, because of that young adult aspect, and because of the mystery side of them,
obviously, so when [Vertigo editor] Shelly [Bond] asked me
if I had any ideas about them, I practically rushed to get
them onto the page.” said Brubaker.

And Brubaker couldn`t be more thrilled to have Talbot
onboard. “I have been a fan of Bryan`s for so long. It`s
amazing to get the chance to work with him, and something
never thought would happen. I tried as hard as possible to
woo him when I met him this year in San Diego, because I
knew how great it would be to get him on this project.”

According to the writer, the project will star the Dead Boy
Detectives, two characters that Neil Gaiman created in The
Sandman, and who also starred in The Children`s Crusade,
and concerns their exploits upon being hired by a lovely
young homeless girl to look into the bizarre deaths of her
friends.

“It`s a weird mix of horror and magic and humor, and it has a lot of themes in it that are central to me and my
thoughts about life. It`s a coming of age story about two
kids who never can.” said Brubaker. “I hadn`t planned on doing anything Sandman related, but this is just the right
project for me to try my hand at yet another genre, and
it`s fun to play with Neil`s toys.”

On Gaiman`s involvement, Brubaker noted, “Neil read the
initial proposal, and had some thoughts on it, which were
valid, and I incorporated some of his suggests into the
final proposal. It`s funny actually, because I was trying
to not tread on his territory too much, and he encouraged
me to go further into the Sandman field, instead. So,
expect to see a few other familiar faces in this book.”

Though the project is currently unscheduled, Brubaker has
begun work and Talbot will begin drawing soon, so it should
see the light of day sometime in the first half of 2001.