Sorry for the prolonged period of radio silence. I’ve been neck-deep in a new project and the thing is a time hog; it hasn’t left a lot of room for blogging.
There’s a lot happening with LOCKE & KEY over the next month. Maybe a visual will help. This, from editor Chris Ryall:
You’re looking at the small avalanche of LOCKE & KEY stuff that will be arriving in comic shops and bookstores on August 11th. They are: the hardcover edition of LOCKE & KEY (Vol. 3): CROWN OF SHADOWS; the beginning of the new story arc, KEYS TO THE KINGDOM #1; and WELCOME TO LOVECRAFT #1: LEGACY EDITION, a $1 reprint of the very first LOCKE & KEY story.
For those who haven’t been following the comic, KEYS TO THE KINGDOM #1, and the $1 LEGACY EDITION are great places to jump in and give it a try. KEYS will be a series of standalone LOCKE & KEY stories (except for the final two issues, which work as a two-parter). You don’t need to be a devotee or a longtime follower to drop in and enjoy them. And LEGACY is more than just another edition of a story which has already been reprinted a few times. It also includes an 8-page “Story So Far” feature in the back – hosted by a damn fine looking hunk of manmeat – which covers everything else that’s happened since LOCKE & KEY began. It isn’t the same as reading the stories themselves, but it does catch you up on the highlights.
And for those of you looking to lay hands on signed copies, there are a few ways to get them:
Signing: July 29th (Thurs), 7PM — NYC. BARNES & NOBLE (82nd and Broadway). IDW has hooked the 82nd St Barnes & Noble up with advance copies of CROWN OF SHADOWS; I’ll be there this Thursday to sign CoS, other volumes of LOCKE & KEY, HORNS, HEART-SHAPED BOX, and 20th CENTURY GHOSTS. Don’t let me be lonely, guys… come see me!
Pre-Sign: August 12th — SALEM, MA. CORNERSTONE BOOKS. Between now and August 11th, you can preorder a signed, personalized copy of CROWN OF SHADOWS, and up to two other books, through Cornerstone Books in Salem, MA. They’re happy to ship wherever you live (although the shipping costs are on you). Note that this is not an in-store appearance. The only way to get your books is by contacting Cornerstone to preorder.
There are a few ground rules: I’ll only sign up to three books per household. One of them has to be CROWN OF SHADOWS, but the other two can be anything else I’ve written. All three books will be autographed, although I’ll only personalize and/or doodle one of them. Cornerstone Books will make every effort to deliver your books to you in mint, but they won’t accept returns. No one can promise there won’t be a scuff mark somewhere on one of your books. Here’s the info on Cornerstone Books:
Signing: August 14th, 4-6 PM — PORTLAND, ME. CASABLANCA COMICS. I’ll be in Casablanca Comics on the afternoon of the 14th to sign KEYS TO THE KINGDOM #1, WTL: LEGACY, CROWN OF SHADOWS, and all the other volumes in the LOCKE & KEY series. This is a great comic store in the Old Port. If you’re in the area, come on down and say hello.
Stay tuned… if there are other signings to announce, I’ll post them as soon as they’re scheduled.
I wrote the first draft of this story – it’s a standalone titled “Beyond Repair” – as part of HEAD GAMES, but when I hit the last page, I realized I was going to have to put it aside for a while. Because when you get to the last page, it’s pretty clear that we’ve reached the halfway point of the overarching story, and I didn’t think it had been properly prepared for way back in HEAD GAMES. So this one has been waiting for about a year and a half. Oh, and also, it’s the first and only time I’ve ever had to make a chart to write a story.
I just wanted to thank Chris Ryall, Robbie Robbins, Jay Fotos, Ted Adams and all the IDW crew for their hard work on CROWN OF SHADOWS… and I want to especially thank Gabriel Rodriguez, who turned in some of his best work ever, while battling through a series of personal setbacks that would’ve kicked the legs out from under most people (including his whole fucking country falling down around his ears). I can’t imagine a more fun collaboration.
Thanks as well to everyone who’s been reading these stories. At the time of this writing, I’m about midway through the fourth storyline, KEYS TO THE KINGDOM, and for the first time I have more of LOCKE & KEY behind me than I have ahead of me. I hope you stick around for the end. I’m gonna try real hard not to screw it up.
Next Tuesday, Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio are out with STORIES: All-New Tales, a collection of genre-fuzzing fictions from an eclectic mix of great writers. I consider myself fortunate to have a story of my own in there, “The Devil on the Staircase” (my current favorite thing to do at readings).
On the same day STORIES is released, Tuesday the 15th, Neil Gaiman and Al will be in New York City, at Columbia University, to talk about the imagination and the increasingly scuffed line between genre and mainstream fiction. Several contributors will be on stage with him, including Kurt Andersen, Jeffrey Ford, Walter Mosley, Lawrence Block, Kat Howard, and yours truly; ace editor Ellen Datlow will also be a part of the panel.* Here are the gory details:
Horace Mann Auditorium
Teachers College
Columbia University
7:00 PM
Hope to see you there.
In other news, as of this morning, Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2, edited by William Schafer, is up for preorder here. I’ve got a story in that one, too, “Wolverton Station,” which is about a corporate hatchet-man who climbs onto a train in London and finds himself carried away into the sort of country that lies at the heart of the darkest sort of fairy tales. Dark Fantasy 2 is set to feature cover art by Dave McKean, and will be out in January 2011.
* ace editor Ellen Datlow will be in attendance, but not actually on the panel; my bad.
I’m not going to hide my fuckin’ light under a bushel anymore, folks – I got mad skilz in the kitchen and over the grill. Especially when it comes to making man meals for men. I’m talking lamb chops so rare they bleat when you poke ‘em with a fork, and fish grilled in the skin, with one baked eye staring up at you in despair as you go nom nom nom on its innards.
I was thinkin’ about scrapping this fiction bullshit and writing a cookbook, but then when the publishing world pissed themselves laughing and told me to get a real job, I remembered the blog and figured it would just be easier to post my recipes here.
So here’s the recipe for The Roswell Invader, so named ’cause it looks like a UFO, and if you cook it right it squirts alien death juice down your face when you bite into it. Also every Invader carries a crew of two alien meat-slivers, hell bent on ruling the world, or at least your lower intestinal tract. Put a grease-slicked smile on a child’s face, and cook this one for your kids next time you’re in charge of breakfast. Check it out – after the jump:
So about a month ago I made a decision – one that I suspect will be unpopular, but which I hope will be received with a measure of understanding ‘round these parts. Don’t hate me too much guys… but next week I’ll be shutting off the lights and bolting the doors on the good ol’ message board.
I’ll get into my reasons (some of my reasons), but before I do, let me say that this isn’t a reflection on the folks who visit the board. Quite the opposite – if not for the fun, pleasant, sweet, and supportive community that frequents the MB, I probably would’ve shut it down last fall. It’s been a digital hangout for some great people (Betsyboo, Mark and Mary, Patrick, Barry Wood, this_girl, New England Gothic, just to name a small few). You guys are the best. I’m flattered as all get out that you had some fun with the board; it’s been a pleasure dropping in to eavesdrop on your conversations over the last couple years.
Blair Butler’s vote, anyway… Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows #5 is out as of last Wednesday, and Blair Butler just named it her pick of the week. Today is Free Comic Book day, so it’s a good time to visit your local comic store, and if you’re going to be in there anyhow, why not pick yerself up a copy? (No, it’s not free, but a practically-free L&K is in the works for sometime down the road)
And here’s what Miz B had to say about the penultimate issue of CoS:
So get this – right now 20th CENTURY GHOSTS is available over on Amazon, as a download for Kindle, for a big fat .99. No, not the title story of the same name… the whole collection. I’m not sure whether this is an AmazonFail, or a one-day promotion; apparently Neil Gaiman’s FRAGILE THINGS was also available for .99, around this time last week, for a single day, leading me to believe the latter. Whatever the case, if you got one o’ them Kindlethingees, here’s your chance to fatten your library with a book of stories on the cheap. Go help yourself.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t hear from me round these parts for a month, then I go and blog twice in one day. Go figure.)
A singer-songwriter named Aubin Thomas got in touch with me through Twitter, and passed along some old photos of me as a kid; her mother, Robin, used to work for my family back in the early 80s and had a few kicking around. And I hadn’t put anything up in a while, and thought everyone would enjoy seeing me in clownface. The clown in the backseat would be my sister. This particular pic dates from a trip to someplace called “Circusworld” which might’ve been in Florida. I figure I was 8 at the time.
Yes, it was also out last Wednesday. But owing to a kink in the distribution chain, Locke & Key #4 didn’t arrive in a broad swath of the US last week; didn’t turn up in the UK either. It finally made it into most stores today, however, and Newsarama says you should run out and pick it up (scroll down to find the review).
I blasted through Toronto on Monday, to do about a week of events in 24 hours. There were a lot of highlights, but I especially enjoyed two. The first was an appearance on The Hour, a late night show hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos. Link is here – it was an unusually long interview for a TV thing, and we had some fun. Although I apparently need to say “Y’know” a whole lot less. The interview starts at about the 26:00 mark.
And the last reading of the tour, at the Merril Collection, a part of the Toronto Public Library, was great fun, and the ideal way to wind things up. Did you know the Merril Collection has the biggest collection of scifi and fantasy novels in the world? A collection so valuable, the entrance to the library is protected by a Griffin and a Hippogriff? Well, I mean, obviously. You don’t guard books this important with just a couple rent-a-cops:
I had a good time on the tour, and was glad to spend time with some old friends, and some new. Big thanks to all the editors and author escorts who showed me around the west coast, the east coast, England and Toronto. Hopefully it won’t be three years between tours this time.
That’s also a wrap on the website for the next couple weeks. I’ll probably burp up occasional, completely inessential comments on Twitter, but other than that I’m laying low, and getting some work done. Be well everyone, and a whole lot of thanks for being so good to me while I was out on the road.
The flight was delayed by a couple hours in London, so I didn’t get to my hotel in Toronto until 3, and only wound up snatching about 3 and a half hours sleep. But I don’t feel too badly. It’s the last day of the tour, and then I get to go home and vanish for a while.
I’ll be reading tonight at a place with a very long name: The Toronto Public Library/Lillian Smith Library in the Merril Collection (239 College Street). Hope you can make it. The reading gets going at 7 PM.
Had myself a good time in England – and here was a particularly nice moment. St. Paul’s Cathedral, out in the sun by myself, listening to the bells. Only now it’s like you were there too. (Quicktime video at the link – cool, huh?).
