Buffini's Blog

Image by kwc via FlickrWent to the launch of Mr. Gaiman’s newest, The Graveyard Book, last night. Great experience. Was initially worried I wouldn’t get in because it was a ticket event, but turned out I needn’t have worried (or turned up quite so early…) as tickets were just to get a seat for the reading.

Listened to the Master read from his new piece (unfortunately I’d already read the book while in the que, got bored waiting), and he then did a Q&A. Some other git got my question in – Neil spent a month recently in China on a research trip, and wanted to ask was this for his latest work and what type of effort would it be – and he stated that it will be a non-fiction book revolving around mtyh, 7th (I think) century Chinese legend, and various such things. He has a very distinctive sense of humour, warm and dry at the same time, almost giving the impression of being a big kid who’s delighted that people came to see his latest fun and games. ( The picture here is not mine, but was similar enough that I thought it added to the post, thanks to original photographer linked at photo)

He told several funny stories, my favourite of which revolved around the two versions of the book, one illustrated by Dave McKean, long time collaborator, and one by Chris Riddell. Story goes like so (as far as my caffeine addled wits can recall):
Neil and Dave standing talking at the official launch of The Grveyard Book when Dave’s young son comes barrelling up: “Daddy Daddy!! Guess what!! Look, the book was illustrated by Chris Riddell, he’s like my favourite illustrator ever!!”. Silence from Dave, the kind of silence that can only be produced when horribly embarassed by a well meaning loved one. “Can we go and get him to sign my book daddy, please please please??”. “um, yeah, sure..” says Dave , and allows him to tugged away by his wide-eyed little boy, presumably glowing beetroot red. If I was Neil at this point I would have been rolling on the floor, struggling to breathe as the tears of laughter course down my face…

Someone also asked will he ever go back to comics, to which he replied that he was currently extremely behind schedule working on 2 part Batman story, apparently on page 25 of 32. Of part 1. Something to look forward to….

Neil very generously agreed to sign anything bought in store last night, plus 2 other items people had brought along, which suited me perfectly as I had bought the book, plus brough my copy of Absolute Sandman Vol. 1, and my copy of 1602. Signed all 3, and did little sketches in Sandman and Graveyard Book, see pictures below.

A very fun event, and massive thank you to Neil for taking the time out to talk to everyone, and spend so much time signing and personalising sketches/messages for everyone.

I am a happy fan-boy.

Image via Wikipedia Its getting frightening now. More so because I’m starting the course in November and still think I can pull off the 50,000 word book. On the bright side the plot is starting to flesh out a little bit, which, on the down side, only gives me a deeper insight into how much more work there is to be done.

Thought I’d start off the day with a little comic talk. Recently bought (had bought for me ) a copy of V for Vendetta, and it was the first time I’d read it. Shameful, I know. I saw the movie when it came out a few years ago, and was a big fan, but couldn’t understand why people kept telling me it wasn’t as good as the book, and why the inestimable Mr. Moore wanted nothing to do with it. I finally get it.

While the film could well have been a decent stand up piece on its own, when compared to the book it was a poor shadow. It lacked the depth and insight into the characters that were the heart of the book, for example, there was next to nothing about the Leader in the film, and Evey’s character wasn’t correctly interpreted as the terrified child-woman that is depicted through the dialogue and images. All through the book you get a real feel for her character, from the first clumsy frightened attempts to make money selling her body, which dives into not only her despair at her life and all thats been taken away from her, but also the state of the society as a whole. Its the ultimate dog eat dog, survival of the fittest world with the just the faintest veneer of order and civilization thrown over it.

Coming back to finish this post after a few days of hiatus and hangovers. Its amazing the extra insights into someone’s work you can gain given extra time and re-reading. One thing that struck me this morning is the relationship between Cain and Abel in Sandman. Cain is the elder domineering, generally assholey dude who murders his brother on a regular basis. But wha tyo’ve got to consider there is the vicious cycle that he finds himself in. Back in the dawn days he killed his brother in a fit of rage and so became branded for all time as the first murderer. This then plays out over and over again in the dream. But, and this is the important bit, you get occasional flashes of insight into the character that speak of an unholy amount of pain caused by this recurring action, and the odd flash of tenderness towards his half-wit fluffiness and light brother, who basically just wants them to be friends. At times it seems like he wants to break out of it but, knowing that he can’t, it just serves to make him all the more bitter and enraged. I’ve re-read it a couple of time and, as I say, this just came to me this morning. Amazing what careful thought can give you.

Image via WikipediaSo here we goes, a test to see how well the train of thought can handle a very large black coffee first thing in the morning with no effort at censoring the brain diarrhea. Mmmm lovely words.
This morning I’m attempting to build stuff, which can get on your nerves pretty quick when each build process takes about an hour, and its someone else’s code your building so you got no guarantee it’ll actually work, gah people, so sitting around waiting for stuff to finish gets real old real fast.
On my right I can see Zemanta is pulling all sorts of strange images and related monkey poo, its funny cos the stuff its coming up with is just as disjointed as the gibberish I’m writing. Read an interesting comic there yesterday, “Death – the time of your life” by Neil Gaiman, gives a quick insight into the life of a gay singer and her lover, and what happens to them and their friends when Death, portrayed in this case by a teenage girl (I think), or a gothette as described in the book. Pictures of Mr. Gaiman in various states of rough looking-ness have now appeared. I wish I could get away with writing stuff and looking like that all day. Sweeeeeeet….

Was also reading stuff on lucid dreaming, something I’ve long been interested in. Imagine being in a really cool dream and being able to take control of it, going on a wild rampage through the solar system, trying to make the sun go nova. Actually there’s an interesting thought, if you could take control of your dreams and do anything you wanted, in an environment where there can be no consequences, what would you do? Would you go on a murderous rampage, slaughtering millions for the hell of it? Imagine yourself to be a giant zeppelin, possibly made of lead, that farts its toxic wayt through the sky causing untold disasters? Or would the fantasies be…. naughtier? Untriguing….

Damn caffeine and its wearing off-ness.

So lets say the new iPhone launched on Tuesday, that being two days ago, by the way if I was an early adopter I would probably be WHOPPINGLY pissed at Apple right about now, and you’ve decided you can’t live without one, and like me are too cheap to sign up for a long and expensive contract to get one, just how long do you think it will take the new beasties to appear on eBay? A swim sounds good right about now actually.

Clever lad that I am I managed to bust my glasses last Friday, and (should’ve gone to SpecSavers) had no spare pair to tide me over. I’m quite lucky in that my prescription is pretty light, so I really only need them for computer work. On the downside I’m a Software Engineer so computer work accounts for approximately 9 hours of my day. Went to SpecSavers on Tuesday and got a new pair, two actually, substantially stronger and sturdier than the last ones, so hopefully the ear piece coming off in my hand wont be such a problem.

Something else I was about to write has just disappeared.

Came across “The Lives of Others” group blog there recently thanks to a friends page (Prototype of a Person) and its a really interesting blog, a fascinating project. Obviously one of the appeals of the web is anonymity and the ability to say what you normally couldn’t, but with this one there’s got to be an element of group think kicking in at some point? If people are posting regularly to this thing, is it possible that the tone and content of the posts will begin to influence each other so that the blogs will become more and more similar so that the many becomes the one? Will each poster be able to maintain their individuality or just become part of the gestalt?

I’d love a really good speech to text interpreter so I could spew this stuff out nice and fast and top of the head instead of having to slow down and do it all through the irritation of the keyboard. A neural interface would be good too.

Comics Rock. Redshirts are expendable. Buy low.

My brain hurts now.

Recently subscribed to Neil Gaiman’s blog, and reading some of the comments on it and what people have to say on other sites it got me thinking.

I’m a big fan of the Gaimanator’s work, so much so that I’ve just ordered over €100 worth of his work off Amazon, including Vols 1 and 2 of The Sandman. Never read it but I hear its fantastic work. I already have several of his other works, including 1602, a fantastic piece set in 1602 in the Marvel Universe.

Frequently people write into him asking, How can I become a good writer, What are your secrets, blah blah blah, and to do him credit he doesn’t just tell them to fup off, he does give a reasonable answer to people. But a separate question still stands of what actually makes a good story?

For me personally, its got to have characters with real depth, or at least the possibility of depth. Characters that are blatantly two dimensional are, to put it bluntly, crap. Similarly the universe it’s set in needs to provide a convincing backdrop to the story, so it can’t be hard sci-fi set in pinky pony land. You’ve got to have some real meat to the story, something that will draw you in and hold your attention, something that will physically stop you from putting that beast down until you’ve milked every last drop of literary goodness from it.

The more I write and think about this, the harder it actually appears to be to quantify… Obviously there are always different criteria for different people. Some of my favourites would include the almighty HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy, the Discworld series, a short story called Flowers for Algernon, I am Legend, and sweet Jeebus too many to write down. But its an interesting subject, one of those things that drags you off on a tangent and wont let you go.

Maybe that means that the question itself qualifies as a story