Journal

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Waxworks walk

Flew in to San Diego, went to Paramount's hotel-room base (where a hair-and-make-up lady named Doris worked her magic on Jane and Charles and me, because after the panel we had to go and do TV interviews. I'm used to TV make-up being a dab of slap and powder and an attempt to turn the panda-like circles under my eyes into something marginally less scary when seen on the screen. Doris, however, used an airbrush, which meant that when she was done we three soon looked like really well-constructed waxwork versions of ourselves) and then to the convention centre and on to the Paramount panel.

The photos of us on this site are a little strange, because they are photos of the big screens in the hall and not actually of us, and they don't really quite get the waxwork quality across, but the Hollywood Reporter reporting is pretty good:

http://reporter.blogs.com/risky/2006/07/sprinkling_fant.html

The Beowulf teaser and animated Logo that I introduced is now up at http://www.beowulfmovie.com/

(I hope we can get a Stardust movie website up soon...)

And then, panel over, I left San Diego for another year.

I was asked by Jackie Estrada if I'd be an actual Comic-Con convention guest next year, and I've tentatively said yes.

...

Many years ago, back when I could do signings that had few enough people that I got to know everyone in the line, Del Close turned up in line at a signing in Chicago and introduced himself, and we chatted. He loved SANDMAN, I got to tell him how much I had liked WASTELAND. I looked forward to the next time we would meet and chat, but there wasn't to be a next time.

This recent Chicago Tribune story by my old friend Rob Elder tells of a macabre Del joke (or is it?) from beyond the grave...

...

I see from Amazon.com that Publishers Weekly's reviewer didn't like Fragile Things, a book consisting mostly of horror, fantasy and science fiction short stories, and that its criticism seems to be that "most of these stories rely too heavily on the stock-in-trade of horror, sci-fi and fantasy", an odd sort of put-down which left me wondering vaguely why the editor didn't give the book to someone who liked, or understood, or even read horror, science fiction or fantasy for pleasure to review (as Kirkus and Booklist did). (Mostly because I figure that the main point of these kind of advance reviews, which are capsule things aimed at the book trade, are just there to answer the most basic consumer question, ie., If You're the Kind of Person Who Likes This Sort of Thing, Would You Like This One? But there we go.)

The bound Fragile Things galleys, going out mostly to bookshops and early reviewers, were found to have some strange misprints in them just before they went out (the adverts that start each part of "A Study In Emerald" were gibberish), and are now being pulped and reprinted, which I suppose means that the gibberish ones will be the rarest of all things. I'll donate mine to the CBLDF to auction, I expect.

...

Hi.
I’m a big fan of Neverwhere and Sandman and recently I heard somewhere that Neverwhere is getting the big screen treatment with Jeremy Irons as Islington? Also from the same somewhere I heard that Lenny Henry and you are going to try writing a screen play for Sandman? Is either of these rumours true or should I stop listing to ‘somewhere’?
Yours
Pat Fox


Since 'somewhere' is currently wrong a hundred percent of the time, I'd stop listening to it. (Which isn't to say that a Neverwhere movie is impossible -- Hensons have had the film rights since about 1998, and keep reoptioning them -- but I don't believe anything is currently happening.)

Correction master writer, "He's taller than I".

-kris


In formal writing possibly (it's arguable), but this is a blog, and thus it barely qualifies as writing, let alone formal writing, so I'd not let it bother you.

...

A couple of people wrote to tell me that I get a mention in an article about how ugly guys seem to do okay these days -- http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/220475/1/.html, which made me smile.

And finally, a Future Bible Heroes interview about the Mr Punch song... http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/000843015.cfm