thoughts from an airport...

hello from my layover in Atlanta, a city I have always loved.

(Just saw a tweet that Neil has won the Specsavers National Book Award for best audio book-- bravo!)

This will be brief, I have to catch my plane on to Boston, going in to work on the Boss' move to New York.

Am extra happy about going into some winter weather, but very hopeful not to get trapped out east, because I fly directly to SFO for the Mike Dringenberg/SANDMAN event at the Cartoon Art Museum.

Neil visited early this week and had this to say to his almost 2 million Twitter followers:

Just made a flying visit to the San Francisco @cartoonart museum. So much rare & original Sandman art, my jaw dropped & hasn't undropped yet

Cannot wait to see this exhibit, it's up until March 2014.

Meanwhile, I am very grateful, the Neverwear sale was very successful! I have been working overtime on getting all the orders out, have enlisted my handsome husband as the tallest elf of all time. I honestly didn't expect to sell so much of my jewelry, that put me a little bit behind. The "Cats don't need names" shirt designed by the foxy Olga Nunesare being picked up from the printers tomorrow- so all those orders will go out shortly.

I have been working on the new site, and that should be ready for debut before the new year. Dan Guy is going to help make sure there is a smooth transition, he is my modern-day tech witchdoctor. Love the Danth!

Am sending out these great holiday cards: lil' Neil discussing books w/ Cthlulu Claus (art by the talented mind of Sean Von Gorman)

if you need more, just ask, I have loads to share.

Will leave you with this gift that Lee Moyer sent over this week-- I had asked him to do a little sketch of me n' Husband as Vikings...and look:

I literally shrieked in the treehouse when I saw it. Lee is available for commissions and is hugely talented. Get him before none of us can afford his vast talent! Thanks again, Mister Moyer.

Winter is coming....

25% off everything in the Neverwear site...

hello loves.
Hope you had a grande time breaking bread with family & friends. I did. First time in perhaps nine years that I have been home and not on tour for Thanksgiving. Many years of holidays while on a tour bus, fun but not the same as being with blood. I am very grateful to have Neil Gaiman for my boss, he has allowed me to stay home & work on projects, a big one being getting Neverwear to the next level.
I am preparing to go visit Neil tomorrow & give him some updates on what we are doing with the website. Recently met with Greg from Likeable Development & got some excellent advice from my "brothers" Jouni & DanGuy. For the next two months, I will have a small pop-up shop as we give Neverwear.net a little polish & shine.
Stay tuned for that update soon, probably around Dec 5th.
Meanwhile, several items will be cleared out, discontinued or otherwise shelved. Now is the time to raid Neverwear, and for incentive we are offering 25% of anything in the store.
Use the code: HelpKitty9 at checkout to keep some money in your wallet.
I will leave this code up until Friday, Dec 7th, midnight PST.
for example: 25% off makes this $10.00 Anansi Boys teeshirt $7.50.
Art by the lovely & talented Dagmara Matuszak.
We debuted this shirt at ComicCon 2007, a landmark for us to track the first shirts we ever made. The details are the ones that hooked us. The delicate printing of "Neil Gaiman" on the back of the neck, the Neverwear sleeve mark & the fine spiderwebbed martini glass...amazingly detailed print quality of the fine line artwork of Dagmara.
here is our good friend & magician, CROW GARRETT modelling the Anansi Boys beauty:

detail on back of tshirt neck:
These are Hanes' cotton Tees, if that helps any with sizing.
all we have left are smalls, mediums, and larges.

OR you can get the gorgeous OLIVIA/NEIL print that is usually $150.00 signed by both, for $112.00--


The Michael Zulli IN RELIG ORAN prints are going away as are several of the other limited edition prints. Help us clear some space for some new ideas. Take a look around. All my Kitty's treasures will be going away over to Etsy. I'll leave things up for a few more days, while I travel to meet with Neil.
You all have been so kind and supportive over the years, I hope that you'll continue on my journey as we step into the new...Neverwear 2.0!

a little gratitude...& a SANDMAN exhibit tonight in LA

After a great year of travel, I am finally staying home for a bit and catching up with the poor little stepchild that is Neverwear.net

Started with the best of intentions at ComicCon 2007, lil' Neverwear got left behind by all the tour buses, coughing up airplane dust-- poor Neverwear was hailing a cab in the pouring rain, trying to keep up with me, while I tried to keep up with Neil Gaiman.

and everyone knows, that man is near impossible to keep up with.

With the help of many, (thanks Jouni & DanGuy & Christopher Salmon!) we are now working (again) toward Neverwear 2.0.

long story short, MANY of the prints/tshirts/products will be retiring.

They may turn up at conventions or in charity auctions.

For now, though, it's time for them to go into hiding. The new pop-up shop I am building doesn't allow for all the rambling products I have now on the current NEVERWEAR site.

in this light, I am offering a coupon for five dollars off anything, good from today, Sat. Nov. 23rd until it expires on Nov. 25th at midnight PST.

the coupon code to use at check-out is: grateful2013

(you will get this Neil-money-sticker in your order.)

in the meantime, I will be moving all my Kitty treasures: comic book magnets & jewels over to Etsy shortly. Get them now!

speaking of Sandman, I will be attending tonight's showing at Gallery Nucleus...

A Handful of Dust: 25 Years of Sandman

look at this list of artists:

Jason Shawn Alexander Yoshitaka Amano

Gary Amaro MIke Choi Mike Dringenberg Felipe Echevarria Emonic

Tony Guaraldi-Brown Marc Hempel Sam Kieth Teddy Kristiansen David Mack Michael Manomivibul

Dave McKean Jon J. Muth Barron Storey Jill Thompson Jenna Trost

John Watkiss Jonathan Wayshak Grim Wilkins J.H. Williams III Michael Zulli (**aww, poor mister Zed always the last in the alphabet--but first in my heart)

show details: up November 23, 2013 - December 8, 2013 Opening Reception / Nov 23, 7:00PM - 10:00PM (TONIGHT, LA people!!) 210 East Main St Alhambra CA 91801 626.458.7477

Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN exhibit @Cartoon Art Museum open now!

I remember exactly where I was when I read my first Sandman, in 1988.

everything changed for me then, and I went to work in Geppi's Comics Baltimore harbor in as a direct result. (i needed the discount!) Yes, Steve Geppi was my boss.

As in any job I've ever had, I tried to learn everything about the comic book world/history, my big brother always had Creepy and Tales of the Unexpected around, so we were raised on the panel page. Batman and Swamp Thing were my go-to guys. X-men loomed on the horizon. My cute Dad would follow Spiderman in the newspaper and he'd shake his head over MJ's antics, which always cracked us up.

But Sandman? That was a show-stopper.

When I met Neil, 12 years later, while working on the Tori Amos 2002 tour, I was a fan. Tori knew it and teased me regularly. He was such a legend, in our comic book circles, and 13 years later, the whole world has caught on.

We have been helping the good people of the Cartoon Art Museum along to track down some of the original Sandman art to show at their 25th anniversary exhibit. I quote curators Andrew Farago & Ryan Graff (aka Art Overlord)_

We’re off to a great start, as we’ve borrowed most of the first issue and have some promising leads on key pages from other artists, and we’re also planning some programming featuring Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg...

here are a few shots of what you will see, including some amazing pieces on the way from Neil's private collection.

ORIGINAL McKean! Bachalo! Zulli! Hempel! Amano! Doran! Vess! Dringenberg! Keith! Thompson! McManus! see Todd Klein's lettering up close and personal...and so much more...

The show catalogue with art by Barron Storey:

I was lucky enough at San Diego Comic Con this year to see the title page original art for Sandman #1 here's a link to my blog, here's the photo of Neil holding it up:

The exhibit is up now, artwork will be rolling and changing, until mid-March 2014. GO! DO!

Cartoon Art Museum 655 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94105 www.cartoonart.org follow them on twitter: @cartoonart

two other reminders about All Hallow's Read, the give-a-scary-book tradition Neil came up with a few years back.

1. the clever Sean Von Gorman 8" x 10" trick-or treating lil'Neil print is only $18.95 until Saturday night midnight PST, it comes with a SVG bookmark and an Ayesha Rubio skeleton sticker, get one HERE.

2. the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has a beautiful graveyard scent holder up for AHR. get yours HERE with more art from Sean. (Because I want one, we will be turning Sean's little Charles Addams tribute into a teeshirt for Neverwear soon, stay tuned for that one.)

Neil Gaiman's All Hallow's Read is upon us: NEW PRINT UP by Sean Von Gorman

how did i get so lucky to get such a enchanted job?

when i posted a contest for art to make bookmark/sticker for Neil's All Hallow's Read holiday tradition of giving a scary book for Halloween, I got bowled over by responses... There were zombies and ghosties and ghoulies and witches, skeletons camping out & creepies galore. (you can see the submissions HERE if you scroll through my archives.)

I had to refrain from "judging" just by the art, I needed the whole thing to convey the spirit of the holiday.

The ink master Sean Von Gorman dazzled me and the rest of the fine people paying attention to this little contest. Even as people entered their submissions, I heard over and over, we can't beat that trick-or-treating lil' Neil!

We printed the bookmarks and I started sending them out to independent bookstores via twitter nominations. Many people asked if they could just buy them, and I offered them up free with any purchase from Neverwear. (yes, i got many orders for three dollar stickers-- & that's fine!)

Sean sketched up a full size print for me, and so we are doing a very small run of 500 of these. (I am sending Sean 100 of them, to have for his conventions etc.) They are on heavy point recycled stock, sized at 8" x 10" with a little snip of Neil's video explaining All Hallow's Read.

These will be presale priced at $18.95 for the next three days, and then they will go up to $28.00 on Saturday Oct.26th at midnight PST time. (*eighteen bucks is cheaper than an IMAX movie ticket!)

These will ship in a super protective sleeve, like the almost-gone, dearly beloved David Mack: I WILL WRITE IN WORDS OF FIRE prints did.

Sean sent me this prelim sketch, he knew I love to see the behind-the-scenes.

So! for anyone that buys the AHR print, (CLICK HERE to buy one!) we will throw in an All Hallow's Read bookmark:

and the Ayesha Rubio scared-skeletons-at-a-campfire-with-a-kittycat 4" x 6" full color sticker!

Spook yourself silly this All Hallow's! We plan on going to the Magic Castle...stay tuned for photos.

ps. edited to add the text that Sean lifted out of Neil's video description of the holiday:

The idea of it is incredibly simple this Halloween give somebody a scary book, to read. That’s the idea.

We're not saying don't give candy, candy is important, fake blood is important, Zombie teeth incredibly important… Err do they have Zombie teeth? If they have Zombie Teeth, they would be incredibly important.

The point is, give somebody a scary book. Give kids scary books that kids would like. Give adults scary books that adults would like. If you have friends give them scary book that friends would like.

Buy scary books for them, borrow scary books for them.

Get them second hand. Check them out of the library…

Spread the joy…

and the terror.

the All Hallow's Read contest results are in!

this judging business was not easy.

It brought me back to January of this year (lo, those 10 months ago) when Neil was doing his Calendar of Tales Blackberry stories, there was so much creativity and wit, he had some difficulty choosing the "best" when they were all splendid entries.

I put "best" in quotes, because these are apples and oranges, ladies & gentlemen.

With that in mind, I tried to go with what most conveyed the actual intended All Hallow's Read holiday tradition of giving scary books as candy. (or in an ideal world, along with)

i had initially put up three prizes for offer in the Neverwear contest rules blog. now, in no particular order) I wish to add four runner ups.

because-of-the-slippers, Nora Thompson:

the studious bride, Christina Clemins:

the ghost holding the "How to Spook" book by Tina Modugno:

Matthew Sheppard's raven on book:

runners up! You will each get a signed-by-Neil Anansi Boys bookmark and some other Neverwear goodies.

Please email me for details here: neverwear@gaiman.net

now the envelopes please:

third prize goes to the haunted skeleton babies of Ayesha Rubio:

second prize goes to the bewitching art of Kate Laird:

This should come as no real surprise. We announce Sean Von Gorman as the first prize winner. Not only did Sean nail the essence of what All Hallow's Read is about, he did it with humor and gorgeous lines. Look at that cartoon Neil Gaiman!

Plus everyone was sending me messages about it.

A Halloween home run, buddy!

i love this so much, i want to marry it.

Sincere thanks to everyone who entered. I stand humbled by your talents, all.

The entries are up on my tumblr page, if you wish to see them all, here's a link to the archives.

next contest (should I announce it now?? nah, maybe next week) will have more lead time and I will get a second judge.

Maybe even Neil himself will be kicking around.

I also wanted to leave with this piece, it doesn't really convey All Hallow's Read (to me, anyway) as it's really hard to read while hanging upside down (especially with no book) but i can't stop thinking about it. It reminds me of my Alfred Hitchcock book from when I was a kid...

special mention goes to Nathan Szerdy:

All Hallow's Read art contest--win some treasure!

calling all artists!

maybe I should say all artists that love graveyards, ghosties, nixies, goblins, tombstones, the lot of haunty-style Halloween spookiness as much as I do.

What I need is an 4" x 10" OR 4" x 6" image celebrating Neil Gaiman's All Hallow's Read holiday to turn into a bookmark & sticker. (this measurement is meant to be in inches, by the way)

You are invited to draw, paint, depict in ANY medium.

Three top prizes will be awarded: third place:

this very rare CORALINE press card, signed by mister Neil Gaiman.

second place:

this signed-by Neil very rare Craig Thompson Last Angel silkscreened print used to promote the COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND.

first prize:

$100 cash (greenbacks-wampum-moola-lettuce-dollahs!) and 100 stickers/bookmarks to use as you like.

I would only license this artwork, not own it. If i ever wanted to use it for anything else, I would have to renegotiate with the artist. everybody wins, in this one.

We want to SUPPORT THE ARTS.

CONTEST RULES: (there aren't many)

1. to enter, you can do one of three things:

*post your entry on this ALL HALLOW'S READ TUMBLR PAGE

or *email it to me: neverwear@gaiman.net

or *post it on the Neverwear facebook page: HERE.

2. you can enter AS MANY TIMES AS YOU LIKE. *FROM ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET!

3. you can send/post me a small res version, but if I pick yours, I will need a high-resolution file to print them up.

300 dpi 4" x 10" for the stickers--or if you like 4" x 6"--landscape or portrait view, any is fine!

think spooky, loves. it would be nice include "All Hallow's Read" somewhere on it (*actually, that's just a guideline-) THIS CONTEST IS OPEN UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2013. (5 days before my birthday...)

Hold the phone: editor's note! I am going to amend the "rules" a bit, since I have gotten SO many emails/comments from worried frustrated artists. You can use WORDS as images, it's wide open. I have heard from a nice lady who wants to know if it's ok to use fabric, OF COURSE! anything that says SPOOKY to you! Photos are fine! Collage! Spraypainted macaroni! just MAKE GOOD ART as Boss wisely said.

Click here to get to the All Hallow's Read website.

even more wonderful things people have mailboxed to Neil Gaiman...

It's been a bonkers September, but now is the time to do a little mailbox round-up. Always a joy to see what people send through the postal services of the world.

When Neil lost his Tardis pin, he was a very sad best-selling author. Lucky for him, his pin came from the aptly-named Two wacky pin guys! They sent him a replacement Tardis pin, along with some other goodies, and issued this caveat: 3's the limit! (which i found hilarious, but it's easy to amuse me)

They included a photo taken on the Canadian leg of Neil's book tour, when Neil realizes who is standing in front of him...

here is a great envelope housing a letter from Germany..."no favors.."

some great books came in:

this ghostly one was actually a gift to me...thanks, Emily!

and a play.

the inscription was so great, I had to photograph it. As for SANDMAN being a play for the stage, talk to DC!

some of the beautiful art from Bethany's Song by Donald Juengling, the lettering is delicious. (i'm really picky about lettering, can stop me from reading a comic, sad but true)

Boss, you will want to read the letter that came with this card...

the new Hera! thank you, you Icelandic beauty.

A young American named Tyler stationed in Afghanistan sends this touching gift to Neil and Amanda from the Afghan bazaar, I sat there on the floor after I opened the very battered smashed-up box and almost cried. The heart opens in face of such kindnesses.

this little movie, Mouse and Grudge, I will watch tonight before sending on to NG, stop-motion by Reita Piecuch!!

this next one I believe I am going to submit as a selection for Neil's All Hallow's Read H'ween book giveaway. William Rosencrans brings back to life, the works of V.V. Swigferd Gloume.

I think it's a tie between Steve N. King & Clarve Biker for my favorite blurb!

Speaking of All Hallow's Read, I will announce a Neverwear contest for some spooky art, with some mighty yummy hard-to-find prizes.

stay tuned, as I tinker a bit on that end with the help of our beloved WebGoblin. Special thanks to Mr. Christopher Salmon of Silverfish Productions for haunting up the Neverwear blog, we will get a better look at that gravestone shortly...