among other things, swedish vampires

The SAUCER prints are now all shipped, we have sold about 500 of the 750 and we at Neverwear would love to hear your feedback on them.
Dave, one of our customers new to my old hometown of Baltimore, reports that his print arrived and he loves it--he also sends wishes that we weather the Economic End of days, which made me laugh. It is so good to hear from the world. We got a beautiful message from Benita from Anchorage, Alaska: "May Amun Ra walk between you and all darkness in your path." My personal favorite was a thank you from one of our customers Brandon in Utah, who got the gemstone bracelet bonus, he tells me that it is now one of his favorite possessions. That means so much to me.

In fact, I did send some of you jewelry IOUs since we got so many orders, I was a bit swamped and didn't want to delay the shipments. So there are many who will have the bracelets coming under separate cover. A new year surprise... I put myself through college without student loans with my gemstone jewels, so it is a return to my roots...I made the necklaces for Tori's Beekeeper tour, here is a photo of her modelling one of the three designs we sold on that tour.



To celebrate getting all the prints shipped, Drew took me to see the movie I have been hearing so much about, a film from Sweden, "Låt den rätte komma in" or "Let the right one in" in English. A little trivia, the title refers to a Morrisey song... If it is playing near you, go see it. I can't stop thinking about it. It is haunting and gorgeous....take a look....

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

GRAVEYARD BOOK CONTEST:round one

Now that the big batch of beautiful Jouni/Neil SAUCERS prints are all shipped out, I can return to some paused projects...

Awhile back Neil announced a little contest for the most creative ways to promote The Graveyard Book
and I have gotten some interesting emails...some great, some very creative, but almost none with a photo to illustrate their cleverness...conversely, one entry, which was adorable, from Mallory in New Bedford, Mass, asks that her photo of the sixth grade class she's been reading Graveyard Book to, stay off the interwebs, because they are minors...I completely understand...

I still have some posters and BPAL scents and tshirts to give away.
Please let me see what you have been up to.

and happy new year, it is going to be Coraline-icious.

post-office elf

The prints have arrived and they are beautiful. Jouni and Neil, you are supermen.

We Neverwear elves are very busy filling orders and challenging the lines of the post office.
My local post office here in Los Angeles is never quiet and at Christmastime, it is a madhouse. When I was little, I told my dad I wanted to be a postman. I love all things stamp-y and mail-y. Now I am an honorary postal worker. I was at the automatic postage machine in the lobby at 6 am this morning
and left hours later--- Jun, my favorite USPS worker helped me. I told him I wouldn't blow his cover, but I wanted to show him processing some of the many international orders.

We are have sent prints to Japan, Ireland, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Philippines, the mighty United Kingdom, and countless points in between. Drew, Ethan, Red and I have been fulfilling orders to try to get as many as these out as quickly as possibly. It has been a whirlwind. A lovely madness.







even little Selina Kyle, our new crimefighting kitten, lent a paw.



Thank you all for your support. We are having a great time in the treehouse, trying to get these out to their new homes as quickly as possible.
Happy holidays all.

SAUCER madness

I got the funniest email fromJouni yesterday, wondering if we sold any of the Saucers prints.
Happily, I was able to give him great news, this thing blew up---like fireworks.
Neil's dead clever words
matched with Jouni's truly gorgeous artwork made for a grand marriage.
A cyber home run!
I was down to 17 prints this morning when Neil called me with even more generous good news.
As he said on his blog, we printed 1,000 of these and split them, he kept his to use for his holiday greetings.
He decided to release 250 back into the wild---so this will be an edition of 750. Neil's present to you all.
isn't he magic?
We even got a mention on Gillian Anderson's website, anyone who knows me knows THIS makes my inner X-Files fan very happy---thanks Skully and Mari!

some other reviews and mentions:

IO9 the "strung out on Science Fiction" site

kaboodle.com reviews SAUCERS

I am getting lots of emails from people who are spreading the news about The Graveyard Book,
next blog will have some of the lucky winners.
Thanks so much all!

NEW Neil Gaiman print: The Day the Saucers Came

all the way from Finland, the smokin' hot Jouni Koponen illustrates Neil's poem:
"The Day the Saucers Came"---a personal favorite of ours here at NEVERWEAR



This full-color print will be arriving any day now, hot off the presses.

It is a high-stakes take on obsession. This print is filled with magical imagery: zombies and geniis, UFOs, giants, fairies...even killer bees. Sized at 10" x 28", you can practically fall into this wonderland. I will have 500 prints, each hand-numbered---I expect them to arrive in hand on the 16th Dec.

They will not be guaranteed for a holiday delivery, while they illustrate magic, I am only one kid in cahoots with the United States Postal Service. go figure...They should arrive--- if ordered now--- by the 27th December. They will be shipped in a practically bullet-proof shield made of recycled cardboard. For preorders, I will send out a little Neil postcard saying it is coming, if you want to give it as a gift.

We are donating 20% of the poster price to CBLDF
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out fighting crimes against our important Constitutional rights, so to support them is our pleasure.
thanks all! they are available here:

NEVERWEAR thanks you....with some specials...

We are running a little holiday spirit special...

When you buy any NEVERWEAR teeshirt:

(like this GRAVEYARD BOOK babydoll being modeled by
the amazing Amanda Palmer )





you will receive a FREE handmade gemstone
bracelet, made by me, Kitty...our gift to you.

it is made with glass sead beads from Japan, Svarowski Austrian crystals, garnets from India,
woven with love & magic. I then "clear" the gems by burning sage and whispers, so that it is ready for your own personal imprint.
Garnet has long been thought the stone of passion, worn to stir the blood.

I call this the "phone-ringing-off-the-hook" stone, get ready for some attention!
They are sized to fit the average size wrist (7-7.5") but feel free to drop me a note with special
size needs, I make them-- not robots--- so you can get what you want...




you CAN also purchase them, if you like. They are under "Kitty's Treasures" in the NEVERWEAR store.
I will be putting more things up, like treasures from past tours,
other jewels, one-of-a-kind specials, my glass comic-book magnets....check back often...

ALSO!
a FREE Beowulf promo hat (officially licensed promo-not for sale)
with purchases of fifty dollars of Neverwear..while supplies last...

so... here I am at Neil's....

...and he gets all these great ideas, i don't know how, or from where,
but he always seems to be brewing up one thing or another--
maybe because he's British and living here in the United States,
or maybe it is because his IQ is exponentially off the charts,
who can say.
Maybe during his childhood, he shook hands with a demon on a highway
or perhaps saved an angel from drowning, not certain.
There are legends...certainly he was born under some kind of lucky stars...

Anyway, last night, Neil came up with a plan which he posted on his well-read blog
a blog which brings people from every undusted corner of
this planet, people who love to witness his ideas, to watch over his shoulder
as his stories spill like gems from his pen...
this plan of his was simple.
He put me in charge of fifty precious GRAVEYARD BOOK posters,
fifty which I watched him sign, to give to you bright stars out among you...

here is Neil's plan and i quote:

So what I'm going to do is this:

First I'm going to sign a bunch of posters -- probably about 50. Then I'm going to give them and the BPAL Graveyard Book scents to the wonderful Cat Mihos. And I'm going to tell her that we're running something that isn't exactly a competition, but is sort of smaller and more informal and a bit more easy-going. It's this:

From here until the end of the year (and further out than that, if the stuff holds out), if you do something effective to help get other people reading The Graveyard Book, tell Cat, and she'll send you a signed poster.

(Something effective in this case would include persuading your bookshop or library to do a Graveyard Book display, and taking a photo of it and sending it to Cat, teaching it in your school, reviewing it for your local paper or doing something equally as imaginative.)

If you do something Awesome and Amazing to get other people reading The Graveyard Book (for example, talking your whole town or city into having one of those months where everyone in the town reads the same book, and it's The Book In Question...) then you get a signed Graveyard Book poster and you get one of the BPAL Graveyard Book scent collections. And she'll probably throw in one of the Graveyard Book Neverwear tee shirts as well.



(Like this one.)

Possibly even give you a Kendra Stout Graveyard Mousepad.



(Like this one)

Send email, photos, cuttings from your local paper, proof that it was you and you alone who talked Oprah or Richard-and-Judy into doing The Graveyard Book on their TV book clubs, etc., to Cat Mihos, Furrytiger@Gmail.com . Do not send them to me. I will not have the swag. I will not be handing it out. I'm merely going to set this thing in motion and sign fifty posters -- twenty five on the McKean side, the other twenty five on the Riddell side.

Cat's decision is final. She'll blog the things she gets in as she goes along at the Neverwear Blog (http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/). And then every now and then I'll do a round up here.

How does that sound?

It is Kitty here again,
I have already started to receive some emails with big claims, so I will be evaluating them,
and in the meantime, will be doing some specials here at Neverwear.net.
Thanks go out to all of you readers, with each book you read, you earn an angel some wings...

ps it is snowing here at the Gaiman Mansion. Thank you, Quiche!

moonlit planets and new kittens

Look up to the southwestern sky around twilight....

Last evening (Thanksgiving) Jupiter and Venus began moving closer so that by Sunday/Monday, they will appear right next to eachother. On Monday night, they will be joined by the crescent moon...

The three celestial objects come together from time to time, but often they are too close to the sun. The next time the three will be as close and visible as they are this week will be in 2052. Venus and the moon will be rejoined on New Year's eve this year, though.

I am out at Neil's Addam's family mansion for a week, with hopes for a snow storm while I visit, just a little winter to take me through to the new year. In LA, an east coast girl can get bit tired of sunny & 70*. Last night at Quiche's Spooky House, we had a punk rock Thanksgiving. Vegetable soup from the big garden with oven-toasted crusty bread. Dessert was an oddly perfect tombstone cake, which Q calls "The Death Cake". I loved this Thanksgiving, even though I wasn't with my cute little parents.



I am bringing Batman home a fellow crime fighter, miss Selina Kyle:
(she looks as if she is part screech owl in this photo)



This week we have a to-do list a mile long, but it will include a drive to Chicago to see Miss Amanda Palmer play a show and to pick up Q's newest Bengal cat additions. I will also attempt to get over my age-old fear of horses, whether I was kicked to death or rode one into battle to the end, I am not sure. More in the next report from the magic midwest. FIngers crossed for snow...and now we are going for just a quantum of solace, no more, no less...a little sad about a connery-less bond, but needs must....

a Chi update

here is a video posted by the Deftones filmed here in Silver Lake at Spaceland, I thought I would put it forward.
Chi is making some progress, and can still use as much healing love possible.
His Mom has been giving out homework for his fans to do,
simple things such as forgiving someone or bringing blankets to the homeless.
I never met Chi's mom, but she is surely where his lovely energy comes from.
On the Deftones blogspot, they report that Chi moved his lip on his Dad's request,
so he is in there, will come up to the surface when the time is right for him.

Check out this video: For Chi...

a week of shows....

Watching the build for the Madonna rig was an educational experience for me,
it grew and grew.



Spent 5 days at DOdger Stadium looking after the touring and local crews that were constructing
the stage. At one point, I saw a crowd of guys fast-walking away from the ball field,
and all i could think "there's a fight in the parking lot"...Not a fight, the stage roof had
some faulty hardware, and they were cleared from the area but the show went on.



Hodgey was there doing his stage managing duty, i love this photo of him.



He was out with Drew for the year of Timberlake, who also was there, JT making coffee in the big tent.
Spinky and Abby on the tour as well, so it was a good dose of old friends. I worked the VIP tents, and there was a glittery crowd of supermodels, actresses, etc. My favorite sighting though out of all the beautiful people, Donald Sutherland. He is a very commanding performer, same in real life. (thanks Red for the heads up)



my old boss Britney was there as well, looking good and ready for her comeback. Madonna handed her back the crown...



then on to the Who. Just hearing Pete Townsend's voice in regular conversation, it really got me. i am a huge Who fan.
i mean, a sight like this gives me a real chill:



Beck opened the Nokia Club right next door to the Nokia Theatre. I was working the Who, but then went to the show the next night with Red & Lily (thanks Rabbit!) The club is quietly beautiful, with a clever layout, you can view the band from above or level. They are really turning downtown around in that Staples LA Live area. We are watching the map unfold.








I have seen Beck several times, always a master, but this time, he was positively lit up, the crowd was responding in kind.
It felt like the start of something new.

Almost forgot Halloween in all the shuffle. Miles and Malena invited us to the Magic Castle, and we had a spooky night of it.
I dressed up as a Wish Granter (cross between a genii and a fortune teller) and gave out over three hundred wishes. Red was a sort of alien bondage fairy queen, Malena a red-eyed geisha, Sylvain...a religious leader and we had a Mr Hyde in Bob. But the Dude! Miles was not only the most outrageous Dude, he also won first prize in the costume contest. A feisty Dude, indeed.









The Magic Castle was full of little nooks and levers and bits and passageways. I only took a few photos, out of respect. You must go there. You must.





I walked over to the Marilyn Manson party at the Roosevelt, to see my friend Tori in town for AFI, and we found ourselves up on top of the hotel (this is the back view of the huge neon sign):


then went down and hung out by the pool.



It made up for my last Halloween, in which i did nothing....thanks, friends!

Now, back to NeVERWeaR business---we are getting more photos to do another Neverwearing post. Send me your shots! Please?
There is going to be a print out for the holidays, and some of my jewelry and more. Next post, i swear.
Neil is home for a bit now (that man travels so much) and I will visit him over Thanksgiving. I am hoping to get snowed in!!!
stay tuned, and thank you all again for your support.
Kitty Cat

Chi

This is a heart-felt plea to the gods of rock to watch over our friend Chi Cheng,
he is laid up from a car accident in California.
Please send him your thoughts and love.
My first tour was with Chi, he plays bass for the Deftones, and there is no brighter spirit to be found. Be well, little Chi.



i took this photo on the 2001 tour, Jones Beach.
Steve Kidd, Chi, Rabbit, Linus & Abe

now back to the Madonna work camp.

Halloween & Bernie Wrightson....

Wendy and I both had little missions to accomplish today, we agreed to co-pilot for eachother. She had to go to Fry's to exchange something. Yes, Fry's with the endless aisles of gadgetry and bits, as you can see, even the stores here in Los Angeles gets dressed up for Halloween...



actually it is a permanent UFO embedded in the building, i should have photographed the inside of the place, with the other side of the craft (complete with neon!) hovering over shoppers. In the computer section, a giant Kraken, tentacles everywhere...it got me in the mood for Halloween...

from there we zipped over to Dark Delicacies for my part of the mission.

Bernie Wrightson was signing in Burbank.... celebrating the 25th anniversary of his illustrated version of Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, the story of the cobbled-together being and his creator, Victor. Wikapedia says this is "arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel." Hmmmm, that I did not know. I honestly never thought about it. I didn't even remember that it was subtitled "Modern Prometheus", after the cheeky Greek human who stole fire from Olympus. (and received a fairly harsh punishment for it as well...) It has been so long since i have read this story, written by Mary Shelley, who wasn't even yet twenty years old...

I remember Michael Stewart (he of Beauty Bar fame) gave me a copy of the Frankenstein book in the good old days, illustrated by one of my very favorite artists from horror comics...He could draw the look of fright perfectly, complete with what we called "mouth strings" when we were little... i mean, look at this cover...gives me a good chill.



That book Michael gave me--it is long gone... the artist, very alive and well. I was telling Del of Dark Delicacies that I once had that edition of the book, and he said, "well you are out about 200 bucks then..." I loaned it out and never chased it down. I don't know who has it, honestly.
The new version is out on Dark Horse and at thirty bucks, a true classic of a treasure. (Bill, I DID get you something, but it wasn't this. Sorry, my brother!)

Here is the gracious Bernie and his sweet wife, Liz, i took this today at his signing:





tonight is Sharle's birthday party, which i will go to after babysitting the tiny elf Ava.
Happy 30th, little "big Shurl"!!!
She is the one that I will always love for taking my parents to a Redskins bar on one of their visits to California...
she shoved everyone out of two seats right in front of the big screen tv, so my Mom and Dad could have a unobstructed view.
You see why I adore her...
here she is (grey coat) with Red at Miles' art show last October...(see a painted Malena in the background?)



tomorrow is Halloween at the Magic Castle... when I first moved to LA, i drove past this, and thought, well I must go there.
Then I was told, mere mortals cannot just "go there". You have to be invited by a member, and that to become a member, you must be a magician. I do know you can stay at the hotel, without being a member and I have been to the hotel...

proof!



as for the actual Castle, this is the most I have seen:



so tomorrow promises to be a wonderland adventure. Extra thanks to Miles for getting us in. (well, let's not put the cart before the horse, how about for getting us Invited..)
Malena is going as a geisha, I am going to be a spooky wish-granter, Red has amassed a fortune in rubber clothing, which looks spectacularly flattering when on (well, when on her!), don't know what Miles is going to be....sadly, I heard no photos allowed.
(WHAT?!!!)
we will just have to see about that...none allowed at many places I go, but those rules, I look at them more as guidelines.

and a final word, as next week I am going to be off-the-hook busy in Madonna-land:

Please remember your right to vote is a precious one, don't take it for granted.

{what, did you think my final word would be a plea to Joachim Phoenix to just take some time off, not quit acting entirely???}

(ok, well, maybe he will consider it)

LA WEEKLY

The LA Weekly ran a story on Neil's appearance here in Los Angeles, with a great shot of Neverwear:

see here!

we all SCREAM....

it is my birthday week.
I spent my technical real day of birth working the Tina Turner show @ Staples Center, she was simply amazing.
Drew is on the tour and he is running hard on this one.
Look at this production, she is over the crowd in a Mick-Jaggeresque cherry picker.
Tina really seemed to be in awe of her back-up dancers, each of them a genetic miracle. I didn't get a photo of the gigantic lights that spelled out T I N A, but trust me, a show not to miss. She says it is her last world tour...



Drew had a day off and he took me to the Arclight, where we saw Rockn'Rolla, i jumped and cheered in my seat. The soundtrack was perfection. Looks like Guy Ritchie is back to himself.

That night we met a bunch of friends at the Good Luck bar on Hollywood, even though I was still fighting off the dread sick.



i took this with my birthday present, the new iPhone. thank you honey. I named phone-y "One-Two" after the character in the film.





Last year @ Comicon, Neil was told that he was going to be presented with the Scream/Spike TV ICon Award (& deservedly so, says me.)
This year, they invited him again, only George Lucas was being honored as the Icon.
He was unable to attend and, very sweetly, gave his tickets to Red & Malena. (I had been invited by HRH Michael Levitt, thank you buddy)

we girls all gathered at the treehouse. Christy was in town on a break from Maroon 5 tour, and she got a kick out of Red & Malena flinging around the latex and false eyelashes. Red & I met Christy on the Rob Zombie tour, she is our roadie sister.





we went in through the security gates and Malena got stopped with her camera. For some reason, the guy looked directly at mine and waved me through. My mind meld ability? perhaps. ANyway, the first person I saw going in the gates was the tour manager for Smashing Pumpkins...Doug went and rescued Malunka n' her camera. The Pumpkins played the show as did this little lady:




Brandy, my aerialist buddy from the Motley Crue tour, opened the show by dangling high above the stage. My photos of her didn't quite cut it, sorry Brando. Here we are at my birthday party the night before, I hadn't seen her since the Tool show last year.




the stage was a huge chrome and neon dragon, and the Scream sword logo spit pyro fire from the top.
here is Mr. Manson:




Batman took many of the honors, and Gary "Drexel" Oldman was his charmingness as he accepted his crowd-favorite award.

more fire....



this photo I pulled from the LA Times site:




is confetti littering?



they brought Tim Burton down in a balloon basket and he seemed a little green around the gills as he disembarked...




there were Watchmen previews-- (all of which I had seen, but never the less---stoking the anticipatory fires..)

the show closed with a four star tribute to George Lucas, complete with a great number of Stormtroopers.
In his speech, Lucas did something that was very touching, almost brought a tear to my glass eye, he wished us all bright futures. LIke Bill Murray said in Caddyshack, at least I got that going for me.





Afterward we piled over to the Roosevelt Hotel for the afterparty, a real fairyland.
There was an absinthe bar, and I tried a little glass. Yes, I saw fairies...but not from the drink.



here is our Red in front of one of the many mostly-naked-sprites...



but the highlight of my evening, i turned around right into Kyle Gass, Jack Black's partner in Tenacious D. I really was a goofy fan girl, shouting "KYLE!" he was a sweetheart and we talked for awhile, he says they are doing some shows in November. I told him I wanted ON that tour...but I didn't make him take a photo with me.....shoulda.....



it was another smashing event and I really thought they would have scaled back in light of the financial world we are now finding ourselves in, but they went man overboard. The show aired last night, but you can catch it in reruns....

now to get rid of my sick...it is really hanging on for dear life....