I am back from my mini-tour with Maynard from Tool's solo act, Puscifer. It was a great little tour, with the sad exception of me being hit by a car in San Francisco!
I was getting my luggage out of the bay of the tour bus, we were parked facing on-coming traffic and I got whacked by a car. Thanks goodness as I broke was my rib. The tour wanted to send me home, but it takes a bit more than a broken rib to get rid of me.
Here's our crew photo (can you see me in the stripeys?):
so. I am home now and am shipping out holiday orders. Wanted to give some thanks for all of your kind support this year by doing a giveaway contest, an item a day for the next 9 days, via Twitter & Fbook & this blog, everyday will be a different thing, from signed prints to t-shirts to my glass comic book magnets--
this is the first gift I will put up for the contest:
A Jouni Koponen-drawn print of Neil's poem CONJUNCTIONS.
(see it HERE for more information)
I will send to anywhere in the world, at my cost, as a gift for you or who you specify, if you tell me why the gift is deserved.
Fit it into the comments here or on my Twitter feed @neverwear OR if you don't want your "nomination" made public, you can write to me: neverwear@gaiman.net
I will decide each day who deserves the gift.
Your nomination can be as simple or complex as you wish, funny or serious, from the heart or from the cuff. Make me laugh, make me cry, it's up to you---
Any orders made by Dec. 20 will be shipped out before the holiday season, anything shipped by Dec 18th should get to where it needs to go, after that, more of a gamble--
my sincere thanks to all of you!
**next gift will be this magnet, made from water-damaged Sandman issue # 68, May 1995, a panel of Lucifer by his piano, get your nominations ready!:
18 comments:
I am a 29 year old dead broke college student. I barely have enough money for food and rent let alone the money to fly home for Christmas, so I will be spending another Christmas alone in my apartment reading and playing video games.
If I get any presents at all this year it will be from my parents in the form of rent money or grocery money, and i truely truely appreciate it.
However, I will not get anything not a necessity, no books, no music, no posters, and in fact I havn't gotten a present in years over the holidays unless it was grocery money.
And while I very much appreciate all the help my family gives me it would be nice just once to get something I want rather than need something beautiful, rather than ground beef.
I want people to stop telling me Christmas is jsut a day another ordinary day so stop being sad about being alone and get something that makes me smile that day rather than cry.
Oooh, awesome. Okay, I wish I could win this for my fiance because he is the biggest Neil Gaiman/ Sandman fan I know (besides myself). After buying our daughter's Christmas gifts this year I don't have money to get him a gift.(Almost every year Christmas for us involves some Gaiman-related gifts. Last year he bought me The Complete Sandman.) Also, he is an awesome guy and deserves something cool. So save the poor man from one of my handmade gifts! ;)
I have only read Fai Fai's comment and I think he/she should get it. I don't know them at all, but I've been there. Sometimes your soul needs nourishment, not just your body. Even if the parents send a huge amount of money/the paycheck is bigger/you get a bonus/whatever, it can be really, really hard justifying spending that money on something frivolous.
I would give this to my mother, because she is the reason I read. And I don't just mean the reason I *can* read. I mean the reason I read at all.
When I was little she used to read me books like Barenstain Bears and Madeleine, and she would do all the voices of the characters exactly how I imagined them in my own head. I remember wanting to learn how to read so badly so that I could do the voices, too. And I did. And over the years she introduced me to other amazing books and authors, and more recently, to your work. Every time you come up in conversation she claps her hands together and says "OOOHH!!!" with the excitement of someone who is getting a new puppy.
Her love for books and authors has inspired mine, and I would love to give her something like this from an author she has so much adoration for.
Plus, I'm sure she'd like something for Christmas for once that isn't pajamas or a cookbook.
My friend Rebecca.
Right now she's going through chemo and all sorts of very uncomfortable things for breast cancer. Her prognosis is good, but it's very invasive and really quite horrid to thing about.
While her strength and grace under this would be reason enough, it's not my reason right now. I worried a lot about Rebecca, thought of her constantly until last month.
Last month I lost one of the loves of my life, my best friend, closer than a sister, someone I've shared nearly 2 decades with, and I'm afraid that during everything, I quite forgot about Rebecca. She didn't forget me. She called when I was able to talk, she comforted me even through everything she's been going through.
So.. yes. I think Rebecca is deserving of a lot of things, and she would truly appreciate such a gift.
Look I get it.
Life is unfair.
But it has to have a limit.
Here I am, stuck in Malaysia, which has probably the least appreciation for literary genius and is also one of the countries that's always passed over for Singapore.
Look, Neil Gaiman went to Singapore.
And I couldn't go.
It sucked enough that I would never be able to meet the man, let alone know he was in the next country.
It's like trying to jump over the fence in order to touch the hand of a legendary artist but failing because you were tackled headfirst by the burly security (see Fate and Destiny, they are built)
If there was anything I could have done, it was to buy merchandise on the Internet.
But nope, I got the type of parents who thought I was going to use their credit card to buy phone sex credit and that blasted Paris Hilton sex tape.
When I told them you could get the latter for free, well, it didn't help.
So I've never bought anything through the Internet because sexual favours aren't accepted as a viable trade medium.
Except maybe ChatRoulette and craigslist, but I'm too scared to even go there.
So no, I'm not asking for phone sex or the chance to see Neil Gaiman nude, all I ask is that for once, the tables will turned and I will have Fate and Destiny on my side. Preferably without beating me up.
Neil Gaiman is amazing and to hold more than just his books would be brilliant.
And maybe, just maybe, I might be able to shake his hand and then, I would know, that everything would be okay.
So glad you are OK despite the cracked rib.
I like surfing, cooking, meeting people & world peace.......oh, sorry, I think that is a different contest. But while I'm here I'd like the Neil Himself prize. Thank you. x
I would love anything like this as we are not having a christmas between a layoff and medical bills nothing worth celebrating the only good thing is I will be able to spend it with my husband but that's it I am grateful for that because I almost didn't even have that as I don't really expect to win anything from this as I never have won anything and my story is nothing anyone hasn't heard before you never get anywhere if you don't try.
I know I don't deserve it, but maybe someone else thinks I do.
I live in a small town where most of the jobs are not family wage. I work at one of those jobs where it is so bad, I had to sell my vacation just to make ends meet as well as things I have collected from my youth when times were good, including my Sandman comics and several personal items.
There will be no presents for me this year, as I feel I don't deserve any since I can't give any. There is even a small chance I may be homeless for a short time.
I am just wishing everything going on in my life works itself out soon for the better.
Thanks for all you've created. It was a joy to read.
Thank goodness it was "only" a rib that was broken, and that you're healing. I hate to think how much worse that could have been Cat.
I would like to nominate my friend Ed.
She's an amazing person who, for Christmas this year, is trying to adopt her sister's 7 year old boy. Otherwise he will be put into a group home because her sister is no longer allowed to care for him.
She is also a huge Neil Gaiman fan. She had a first edition signed copy of Coraline that was leant to a friend and never returned (harsh lesson!) and I would love to find something equally personal and unique for her. I looked at the CBLDF fundraiser but by the time I saw it the Coraline option was out of stock!
I would like to nominate my boyfriend Alec. He is the biggest Neil fan; I think he would marry him if Amanda hadn't gotten there first.
Alec is an amazing person. He is a new graduate from the University of Iowa and overcame a tumultuous childhood and adolescence to get himself a where he is today. The job market sucks, especially for philosophy majors, so like many people he settled for a (soul-sucking) job in customer service. Comic books and video games are his lifes blood and keep him from becoming a corporate robot.
He is in love with everything Gaiman. He introduced me to Sandman when we first met, saying it truly changed his life. I was lucky enough to work in a library and get my paws on the discarded copies of Sandman vol. 1-8, so I made a series of 9 collages he has posted all over the apartment.
We are broke, like many people, and I can't get him everything he deserves this year. It would mean so much to us both if he could get something Neil related. I know he would just pee himself.
Thank you :) Happy 2012!
My little sister would love this!! I introduced her to Gaiman and she fell in love. She is also the kindest person I know and I cannot afford to get her a gift. She says that she doesn't need anything and is very understanding which makes it worse.
My story is not as tragic or sad as some but I'm 28 and left college because I couldn't pay for it anymore.
I worked overtime over thanksgiving thinking that the huge paycheck would pay for Christmas pressies for my family but due to the "catch up tax" Connecticut put into place and my job not starting it until that week. My "huge paycheck" was reduced down to less than my regular pay. Meaning that even eating ramen for the entire month and never leaving my house I will still be short on my bills and no one is getting presents.
OMG! So happy it was "just a rib". And I wish I had realized you were out with Pucifier, I would have made more of an effort to make it to the show near me! Doh!
Also, just reading through your comments, I think Fai Fai, should get something. And if she happens to be near me (DC/MD/VA) I would be happy to make her something for the holidays.
tick
Kitty,
Add my voice to the chorus of relief that you 'only' broke a rib...does hurt like *** though. Sending healing thoughts. And gratitude that I don't have to decide among the moving stories who should get the gifts.
wow.. I want it.. But I feel bad for wanting it now.
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