Tag Archives: Neil Gaiman

eBay faux pa

Uh oh! I just bid a maximum of 50 dollars instead of 50 cents on an eBay item! I sure hope not many other people bid on this item. At first I freaked since I thought that was my bid, and then I remembered it’d bid up to that amount. There’s only a little bit of time left so cross your fingers for me!

LATER: Whew! No one bid higher than the 50 cents!!! It was just for a Beowulf (Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery) movie tie-in advance six page comic that I thought might be interesting. This guy was charging a little more for shipping ($4) than the others so no one even beat my 50 cent bid….

Speaking of Neil Gaiman

Yesterday, I commented on how I haven’t heard much about Neil Gaiman being tied to the Stardust Movie even though he wrote the book. And I think that’s strange. Here’s something stranger, but shows you his diversity in projects: This album, called “Where’s Neil When You Need Him?“, has 17 songs about his stories by a bunch of different artists (including Tori Amos). Here’s the description on Amazon –

A unique collaboration between a collection of talented musicians and a best-selling author. Seventeen top international acts offer 17 exclusive songs inspired by the diverse work of Neil Gaiman. Includes a lavish 20 page booklet with extensive liner notes from Neil Gaiman about the project and each of the songs and an assortment of all new artwork from Dave McKean, as well as a foreword by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance. The songs on this disc are inspired by Gaiman stories including Coraline, American Gods, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, Stardust, The Goldfish Pool, Sandman, The Wolves in the Walls, Mr. Punch, Mirror Mask and Neverwhere.

Seriously, who ends up with something like that?!? How is he not getting more recognition on this?

His stuff is kinda complicated and you’ve really got to pay attention, so don’t be afraid to start with the kid books, they’ve got all the cool art by Dave McKean too!

Stardust – The Movie

So I’ve been excited since I originally saw the preview for Stardust a few months ago and I got to see a preview of the movie a few weeks ago (the movie is out now). I really enjoyed the movie and the cast was great (Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Charlie Cox). They didn’t follow the book exactly and I have no problem with that, I’m re-reading the book and I’m finding that I really enjoy it after just seeing the movie.

I really like Neil Gaiman but I really haven’t seen them promoting him much in relation to the book and the movie; the book came out about 10 years ago as both a regular book and as a graphic novel (illustrated by Charles Vess). And I’ve seen this book in so many variations of the cover not even including the movie editions or the graphic novels…

Claire Danes as the falling star was wonderful, technically she was a fallen star but that sounds like it has a negative connotations and she didn’t have any. From the previews I wasn’t sure how Claire would be in the part (I eel they edited the preview oddly) but I thought she was perfect. DeNiro played a different part than I expected from the previews; I guess it was a different role than I’ve ever seen him in before. Charlie Cox was great, I’m not sure where I’ve seen him before.

Stardust – the movie preview

They’ve finally got the preview for Stardust up. This is based on the Neil Gaiman book of the same name. I’m thinking they’ve taken some liberties but it’s been a while since I read the book so maybe not.

This is what started me thinking about Neil Gaiman a few days ago, but the preview they had up at Yahoo didn’t seem as universally playable as this one at the official site so here you go to the official site. But back to the preview and check out this cast: Robert De Niro, Michele Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, Sienna Miller, Peter O’Toole, Ian McKellen (Narrator) and Charlie Cox (the main character).

Win Odd Stuff…

So there’s a raffle at the Open Rights Group and one of the items is the keyboard that Neil Gaiman used to write most of his Sandman stories. It’s missing a key, but it’s autographed and for some reason he doesn’t think this would be a very cool prize. This would be so cool to have! There’s lots of other prizes too (more from Neil too).

If you don’t know who Neil Gaiman is, someone summed it up the other day (and I don’t remember who I found it, so now I don’t have to paraphrase it).

Most geeks swear by him (Neil Gaiman).
If Joss Whedon is their god, Gaiman is their Jesus.

Peter Sciretta at SlashFilm.com

Actually, I’d rank Neil higher than Joss, but he’s definitely more of a parable/quote person (IMHO) so maybe the latter fits more.

So back to the keyboard – However I wanted to display it I’d have to put a little tag on it that says something like, “This author writes stories that transcend reality as we know it, but still fits in with it. Don’t ask any more because it’s a really really long answer”. He’s one of the few people that I really enjoy that I haven’t pushed on people. You really need to read more than a bit of it to get someone to really get it and before that point most people give up.

I’ve mentioned Neil Gaiman lots before but I’ve never really posted a lot. If I mention him on-line people either know him or they don’t and I’ve generally left it at that. But I think I’m going to change that. Continue reading

Gift Certificates

So I know you’re thinking the winter holidays when I say gift certificates but really that’s not it. I’m thinking of my birthday which was ten weeks ago and that I finally just ended up spending the last of my gift certificates. And yes, I know that was ten weeks ago, but I didn’t want to waste them.

Yesterday I spend the last few at Best Buy for memory for my computers. After moving some around between a few I ended up doubling the memory in the one and increasing the other by 50%. I thought it was going to work out a little better than that (I thought the one had more memory slots) but you can still tell the difference on both of them.

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MirrorMask Preview

Mirror Mask PosterSo I’ve seen the preview trailer for Neil Gaiman’s Mirror Mask a few times now. It’s very surreal and if you have any idea who Dave McKean is you’ll look at the imagery and immediately think “Hey! That’s what it would look like if Dave McKean did the effects for a Neil Gaiman movie!”

What Neil writes is generally a bit surreal and with Dave McKean doing the effects I’m sure it’ll be amazing, I’m just not sure how it’ll appeal to the general public. I don’t think this is based on anything Neil Gaiman has previously written. He’s done a variety of books and a short stories and graphic novel/comic books. I just finished his latest book, Anansi Boys yesterday, I’ll talk about that sometime…

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Four for Friday

Was thinking I’d do a meme or two before bed. I’ll do this one from Four for Friday

Q1: Which is a bigger waste of time in your life… being stuck in traffic or being placed on hold during telephone calls? Which do you find more annoying?
Probably being stuck in traffic for two reasons. I’m probably not getting anything done and now I’m probably late… On the phone on hold I can at least get other stuff done (if you want them to answer quick, just start brushing your teeth).

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