Author: Chad Wyszynski
It was a Monday night, and the auditorium of Santa Monica’s Lincoln Middle School was nearly full. Adults, teenagers, and children alike sat in focused silence: Neil Gaiman was reading from his latest book, The Graveyard Book.
Monday Oct. 6 marked the seventh stop on Gaiman’s promotional tour for The Graveyard Book. “The Graveyard Book is called The Graveyard Book for the same reason The Jungle Book is called The Jungle Book,” Gaiman said. “It’s about a boy who is adopted by dead people and taught everything that dead people know.” At each stop, Gaiman reads a chapter from The Graveyard Book. His crew films the readings then posts them on the Internet, so devoted fans can catch up before Gaiman arrives in their town.
Although most frequently associated with his critically-acclaimed comic series The Sandman, Gaiman’s work appears in nearly all forms of popular media. He has written novels, such as American Gods and Anansi Boys, several screenplays, including Princess Mononoke, and dozens of comics. “Given the opportunity to do something similar to what I’ve done before… or something that is totally new for which I have no experience and there is no definite audience, I will invariably choose the latter,” Gaiman said during the Q & A session that followed his reading.
A Gaiman fan myself; I was both elated and mildly disappointed by the event. To be in the same room with the author of The Sandman, by far my favorite comic series, thrilled me enormously. However, that’s all it was: being in the same room. I’m used to readings where one can interact with the author. In this regard, the event felt more like a rock concert than a traditional reading. Perhaps because Gaiman has reached such an elevated status in our culture, he can no longer do such informal events.
The format, however, was consciously chosen. He told us of the last time he came to L.A., fans waited in line for hours to have him sign their books. “I would get back to my room at 4 a.m. and have to catch a plane the next morning at 8 a.m.,” Gaiman said. “It didn’t seem like anyone was having fun.”
Though I lament the lack of intimacy, the night was by all other accounts exceptionally fun. I had read an excerpt from The Graveyard Book before, and was not impressed, but Gaiman’s reading won me over without a struggle. The middle-aged Brit kept the audience captivated for over an hour. Part of this is due to the subversive wit of his prose, which pokes fun at nearly everything. The other part is the way he reads: he does accurate Scottish, Irish, and English accents, voicing the mannerisms of his characters superbly.
After the reading, Gaiman showed us a few “never before seen” clips and a short “behind the scenes” look at the upcoming Coraline film, which is based on his book of the same name. Director Henry Selick, the man who gave us The Nightmare Before Christmas, adds his characteristic touch to the film in its aesthetically rich stop-motion animation. The style compliments Gaiman’s fantastical storytelling.
After the Coraline clips, Gaiman held a short Q & A session- what originally attracted me to the event in the first place. I had saved up a question about his creative process for two months only to find that, by some clandestine process, Gaiman already had a bunch of questions on little note cards. Despite my selfish chagrin, this portion of the event rivaled the reading for its fun-factor. Gaiman has wit. In response to a question about writing in the winter, he described his current hometown in Minneapolis, MI as “science-fiction cold.” “It’s the kind of cold in which old women die when they walk to their mailboxes because their slippers freeze to the ground,” Gaiman said.
Gaiman’s wit kept all aspects of the night entertaining. Were it not for that, I think the distance between the crowd and the author would have been much more apparent.
If you’d like to hear the recordings of Gaiman reading from The Graveyard Book, visit The Graveyard Book tour section of his website at http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Video_Clips/The_Graveyard_Book_Tour.
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