Delightful Event

 

On the Chicago stop for his signing tour of his lastest book, Neil Gaiman delighted the 800 members of the Music Box Theater audience. I was in the crowd and shared their enjoyment of hearing him read from his book Ocean at the End of the Lane as well as an excerpt from a soon-to-be-published children's book titled "Fortunately, the Milk...".

Preceding three photos by Alicia Tippins

The entire experience was made possible for me by my sister Alicia whom I accompanied to the event. We both waited in line as the very gracious and engaged author signed a book for each attendee who could stay. For those who could not wait around there were pre-signed copies they could have. I'm glad I waited as my book now has a personal inscription to me from Neil. As he signed it for me, he exclaimed good-humoredly, "A Douglas book!"

I was too shy to exchange words with him but Alicia told him how much we enjoyed all his appearances we had been to in the Chicago area in the past. He said he always enjoyed meeting his readers and felt bad that some could not stay for the personal signing.

Notes from Neil Gaiman's 2011 event:


The auditorium was too dark for me to take notes this time around. But in 2011 the author's book "Neverwhere" was chosen for Chicago's annual One-Book city-wide reading project. Below is what I wrote about it at that time. Above is the scan of some notes on my sketchbook from that time.


Notes on Neil Gaiman's reading and comments on the occasion of the Windy City's One Book, One Chicago program. April 13, 2011.

Held in beautiful and spacious Rockefeller Chapel on the University of Chicago Campus.

Neil was introduced by Chicago writer James Kennedy who did a hilarious send-up of Neil complete with fictional back story of growing up with "Little Neil" in Saginaw. Michigan (Gaiman is actually from the U.K.). The intro routine ended with Kennedy singing part of Katy Perry's Fireworks song to Neil (confusing Neil and his musician wife...... with Russell Brand and singer Katy Perry).

Upon ascending the tall Chapel lecturn, bemused Neil said he's never been given such an introduction before.

Gaiman then read from Chapter 4 and other selected passages of his book Neverwhere the sections involved the books villians and another one upon the meeting of protagonist Richard Mayhew and Lady Door.

He then read a humorous section of a fictional Chicago Walking tour narrative from a book he co-wrote with writer Gene Wolf, A Walking Tour of the Shambles.

During the Question and Answer Time ("A question is a short interragative statement that ends in a question mark and is possible to be answered," he reminded the audience). He revealed a variety of info bits that included:

--His childhood memories of grandparents allowing him to watch Dr. Who when his mom wouldn't.

--His desire to write another American Gods novel.
--Acknowledging work on another Neverwhere book entitled "Seven Sisters".
--The origin of Neverwhere villians Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar (sp?) from a childhood encounter on a country lane.
--The Sandman movie pitch to Warner Bros. Execs which included art by Jill Thompson. The movie prospect was killed by the execs saying it didn't have a clearly defined villain so they didn't want to do it.
--Good Omens TV series is on track
--That writing for TV has many budget constraints as opposed to writing for print.
--"As a child everything scared me because I had an imagination."
--Writing is like hoping your parachute opens before you hit the ground.
--Of all his work that he hopes will live on in the far future, he would most want it to be his childrens' books Coraline and Wolves in the Walls.
--Creating his own stories is much harder than working with Publisher Owned characters and concepts.
--The comic event he is most excited about nowadays is the 25th Anniversary of the Sandman series. He plans on writing a "Sandman Zero" story for the event.

It was a wonderful crowd. Phenomenal artist Jill Thompson was in attendance. And many people bought copies of his pre-signed editions of Neverwhere.

For some terrific photos of the event see the flickr posting of ninniane