Visiting Neil: An Epilogue, Of Sorts
* An oversight in my previous post (see link, below): It was Special Collections librarian
Meredith Gillies who led
Neil Gaiman, Hank Wagner, Jack Zipes, Casey Hoekstra and I into the subterranean vaults of the
University of Minnesota Children's Literature Research Collection. As promised, upon my return home I rushed a care package off to
Meredith of my own work, and I hope in time to find a way to tap the collection there for my own research project on early children's literature on dinosaurs and prehistoric life. Mayhaps a reason to revisit the Midwest, when the time is right? I've many cool old samples of that genre in my collection (some of which I've already shipped off to the
Bissette Special Collection at
Henderson State University's HUIE Library), going back to the late 19th Century, but
Meredith's tour and the mind-blowing scope of their special collection was a mouth-watering overture to arriving at a more definitive grasp of the roots of the prehistoric genre. Wish me luck!
In Part III of my posts on my visit to Neil Gaiman's, I mentioned Neil's signing session after his reading: "After the long line has been moved once to another room and each person (including a lanky pair of identical twin brothers) given time for signatures..."Well, what d'ya know, an email arrived the next day from one of the brothers,
Nick Folkman:
"I just wanted to say that I read your blog today and was delightfully surprised to see you mention my brother and I (we were the lanky pair of identical twins at the Fantasy Matters conference). Had we known that you were there as well we would've attempted to say hello and try to pick your brain about comics. Anyways, I just wanted to say hello and good luck on the Gaiman biography!"Thanks for writing,
Nick, and a care package of comics (identical batch, signed to you and your brother) is already on its way to you; enjoy.
* To clarify: it's not a biography we're working on, it's a 'companion' -- an unauthorized overview and analysis of
Neil's body of work to date, as complete as we can make it.
Neil granted time for an exclusive interview, and when he's had time has answered some of our email questions, but this
isn't a book
Neil cares to have in existence, really -- to his mind, he's not done enough. Again, I'm a late-comer tagalong on this venture, happy to be working on it, invited in during the eleventh hour to help with this and that; it's
Chris Golden's and
Hank Wagner's book, I've done only a fraction of the work involved as and when asked, and
Hank has been hammering
Chris and I with completed chapters this week. We're in the home stretch, so I won't be blogging much this weekend due to workload on the project.
As of this week, I'm trying to excavate my set of
Miracleman comics for that writeup this weekend, and have one more polish of
The Wolves in the Walls to tackle before I fire the final draft of that chapter off to
Chris and
Hank. Again, wish me -- and us -- luck... I think the book is turning out pretty well.
* Last night, one of my
CCS students asked me a question about
Alan Moore, then flinched and covered their mouth and said,
"Oh, God, sorry -- !" I laughed and answered their question, brushing off the unnecessary apology. Funny, though, that someone I've never discussed any of this with had that immediate a reaction, suddenly aware this might still be a sore point. Funny, too, I'd thought of it yesterday AM myself, for reasons noted below.
One of the first things
Neil said to me almost immediately upon
Hank's and my arrival to
Neil's home two weekends ago was,
"I just thought you should know I saw Alan the other day, and he seems very happy..." Alan and
Melinda (Gebbie) were of course married earlier this year, and
Neil was there, too; I posted links and congrats here when that popped up on
Neil's blog.
Neil's immediate comment was completely appropriate, and it's nice to know
Neil knew it to be.
Neil is my only remaining 'lifeline' from the often intense ten-year friendship I enjoyed with
Alan (
Rick Veitch and I just don't talk about it any more, and haven't for a couple of years). It was a kindness indeed for
Neil to share his news with me. I've made my peace long ago with
Alan's exile of yours truly, but all this came to mind yesterday morning as I listened to one of my current favorite tunes on
Mirror Mirror, the gift CD
Lorraine Garland sent me home with from the visit to
Neil's home. The following lyrics resonate in the context of all this:
"Every cold mile between us is painful,
All of the words we could never unsay in full,
Moments are magical, pain universal,
Frozen like ice and it's just too damn personal..."- "Personal Thing," lyrics by Neil Gaiman, music by Neil Gaiman and Graham K. Smith, from Lorraine a' Malena's CD Mirror Mirror
(Again, the link...)That's how it felt for a few years, but no more: the song, heard in the context of musing over lost friendships, captures the initial grief and melancholy that followed, but it's past history. It's no longer personal, when so many people know about it; and it's nice to know, per
Neil's kind words, that
Alan's doing well these days. What's done is done; life goes on. Thanks for the kindness,
Neil, via the comments, via the song.
* One more followup to
Neilland for this AM: I mentioned the backdrop of gunshots and deer hunters in the Midwest during our visit. Deer hunting season is closed here in
VT now, but the aftermath lingers! But --
Goona Goona? No dice!
Marek Bennett asked if this (click link) counts as goona-goona ---- sorry,
Marek, that's not exotica, a necessary component for
goona-goona. It's just
New England nature at work. I've stumbled on far worse in the woods in northern and southern VT -- but those are tales for another day...
Have a thumpin' Thursday --
Labels: Alan Moore, Chris Golden, Henry Wagner, Lorraine a' Malena, Marek Bennett, Meredith Gillies, Mirror Mirror, Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman Companion, Nick Folkman, University of Minnesota
