a prize for your clever ideas...

we have announced the newest NEVERWEAR tee designed by Olga.
I am putting up a contest, with the winner getting a solidly gorgeous signed-by-Mr.-Neil-Gaiman limited edition SAUCERS print. (We only have about 75 of these prints left! you can still buy them HERE)
{note: they come unsigned though, which is why you want to give this contest a crack...get out your thinking caps...}



CONTEST DETAILS:
I am thinking of where and how to market this clever new shirt, and i thought I would ask you clever people.
One example i already got, advertise in Cat Fancy magazine.
That's good, but let's do some lateral thinking.
You can either:
a. email me the ideas here: neverwear@gaiman.net
b. post comments here on the blog
c. go to to twitpic and comment on this photo , i will receive the comments as a twitter...


You have a week, on June 4th, I will post ideas here and we can pick the finest of the fine.
thanks all.
here is the tshirt:

Neil mailbox part 3 (and #teapix winner)

several things came in recently, and i wanted to post them up while waiting (patiently) for the new Neverwear site to go live...

a foxy artcar with a foxy artist leaning upon it:






a pinky ring came from young Sara in Saskatewan for Neil that I covet:



Tyler wearing his Scary Trousers tee so well....



getting-big miss Selina Kyle helping out with the mail call, in her own p.o.box:






i thought i had announced the #teapix winner:

grande prize:
@shonaP87 Don't you wish that sometimes your tea leaves would be just a little more specific?



contact me for your prize!

this little Vampirella magnet went out to Nikki K for her entry of favorite comic book character (there were so many great entries)
she got me with her love for Destruction of the Endless, who has always been one of my favorites...(Sherpa, thought you'd enter with Conan!)




so back to the subject of the new website...



Olga Nunes (the former WebElf) and Dan (the present WebGoblin) have been working for over 7 months to get the live & shiny new NEVERWEAR site ready for you lovely readers...

The WebGoblin Dan is doing Guest of Honor handling at Balticon, I am in Vegas for the weekend, Neil is somewhere off the grid (i miss him, but you can see an stunning moonbeam photo of him w/Cabal by by Kyle Cassidy), Olga is out giving song-filled interviews,
Dr. Wicked is working on updating my furrytiger site...it is exactly like a hive of bees, but we don't sting so much and Quiche is the queen....

in other news:
we are about to announce this new Coraline cat tee designed by Olga, watch the skies for the website to go live...hopefully today:

VAMPIRELLA, are you my mother?

have been doing a contest a week over on Twitter.com
writing as @Neverwear

the newest contest up is to win this Vampirella magnet:



I want to know your favorite comic book character and why.
Will leave this up until Sunday May 17th (day after my brother’s bday!)

Last week’s contest was to tell me your favorite ANANSI BOYS quote.
winner Dawn from Canada submitted this (as did Em, but 5 days later):

"You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could."

this Sandman magnet is going across American borders to live with her:



and the winner of the week before was the lovely Muted Dragon,
correctly identifying where this comic panel originated:



she wrote in:
World's Finest, issue #175
May 1968
Featuring "The Superman-Batman Revenge Squads!"

now do you see why I spilt many a diamond tear over my water-logged comic collection?
oh well, i gave them new life as art...

you all really seemed to like the “name the comic” contest.
...maybe another one of those next week?

meanwhile on the case of #100K Twitter contest that Neil posted. The winner was @Middlesmith
with the entry of "There was a hand in the rain, and it held a milk bone..." riffing on the opening line of GRAVEYARD BOOK.
I did a "doodle" of this entry and posted it on the GILLIAN ANDERSON (Scully from X-Files) charity website My writing partner Ethan did one as well.
I love his version of The Drunken Angel, an old Japanese classic.

And here is the link to the entire auction, including a doodle by Clive Barker...meow! (do you think i covered all the bases??) Please help them out and bid....


Olga Nunes, our resident design queen, who lives in London and runs The Fabulist
is hard at work with Dan Guy/Web Goblin to make the new Neverwear site come alive.
We are waiting patiently. The amount of work is triple, nay quadruple than first thought, sorry web geniuses...

Olga is also designing the “Cats don’t need names....we know who we are” tee, from Neil’s haunting CORALINE. It looks gorgeous so far, we are just working out logistics & should be able to announce it shortly.

now off to finally finish my Aquaman/genii tattoo. photos soon!

NEW CONTEST UP: identify the comic?

First one to tell me which comic this panel was rescued from, will win it.
please send your answers to: neverwear@gaiman.net

winner of SMOKE AND MIRRORS contest announced tomorrow.
happy Sunday to you all.
Kitty

SMOKE & MIRRORS contest up!

that was a rollercoaster ride!!
I can always count on Neil's readers to bring smart to the party & be funny at the same time.

thank you all.

I am (despite the cat naysayers) going to crown
VERONICA the queen of the contest.

she won with her suggestion of :

On the front, "Cats don't need names..."
And on the back," We know who we are."
got the most commenting back and forth.

(and it was a personal favorite of your ol' miss Kitty)


although with entries like these....yeow, the choice was tricky.

Ethan's SHOGGOTH will show up down the line, in some incarnation.
pint glasses have been a thought all along, just have to research packing & shipping so
they don't come out the other end in a shower of glittery broken bits...

and i WANT a JACKS tee, thank you @Jesteram.


there will be many upcoming contests to look forward to-
will usually announce them via TWiTTER.com (@Neverwear)
but will repost here & on the various social outlets...

in related news:
this is the winner of the FAVORITE FRAGILE THINGS QUOTE contest:

@nothnbuttherain
'we save our lives in such unlikely ways'

something we can all live by.

she will get this homemade recycled comic-book magnet:



I know I have told the story, but once more, I had a flood and lost a huge chunk of comics to water damage (look how old that Spidey was!) and just couldn't throw them away. So i dried them in the sun and began to save the panels that needed saving.
I cut the glass, which is rescued from the cast off bins at my local Baller hardware...and I use recycled bits for the backing too.

(name the products?)




the new contest up until Monday is:

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE FROM SMOKE & MIRRORS?

please send me your entries at NEVERWEAR@GAIMAN.NET

the winner will receive this:



@Kinravipmade me laugh with this tweet: What a dumbass you are, Mr. Sinister! The Devil ALWAYS reneges. That's how he got the job!
to which i responded: haha, mister sinister always did seem a bit one-dimensional... and apparently easily duped... but what great make-up!

Now must tend to Drew (@thinkceltic) who just returned late last night from the final load-out of Coachella. I made him let me take photos of his hands, it looks like he just crawled out of a grave filled with razors and charcoal. Poor bruised and battered roadie! Quiche never looks this destroyed after a gig...do you, Q?

in which we judge another contest....

when i announced a contest for this handmade reycled Batman magnet,
i opened a floodgate of response...
unleashed a torrent of glittery twitters...

should not have been surprised, but i was.
and then i looked in my spam folder, after i thought i was done viewing all the entries,
and there were more...and more and even...more.

and so many of them were good.

I sent several on to Neil. He laughed and used some choice blue language to show his delight.
our Newbery Medalist, with every word in the English language at his ready command, swearing like a sailor....in all caps, to boot.

so...how to judge this contest?
(many of you pleaded to win, seems you like that magnet)

We pulled out the ideas that stood out as shirts I could see in my mind.

i am going to detail the finalists here,
and let you all decide:


lots of you love the green bowler from ANANSI BOYS.
many spider God ideas...

Demeter's Child asked for the words to the Macabray on a shirt, illustrated with some of the white flowers that are being passed around in the GRAVEYARD BOOK.

Andrew made this very stark & clean suggestion:
"A simple, foreboding quote: "FEAR IS A WEAPON OF THE SLEER.""

*******he also asked for Neil's original and un-edited Newbery winner tweet on a tee.
(you'll just have to google it...)

John suggests a Coraline tee, with the words to the rat song::
(perhaps illustrated with one of Neil's doodly rats)

We are small but we are many
We are many, we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall.


another Coraline tee thought up by Katie:

"The mice have a message for you."

"The Fan's Belief" submitted by Scott made Neil laugh:






great idea from Veronica:

. On the front, Cats don't need names.
And on the back, We know who we are.

(I want one of these myself, Veronica!)


Ben writes in:
I know I’ve always wanted a shirt with Richard Mayhew’s back as he’s drawing that final door on the London wall. Also, a Croup and Vandemar would be awesome. (perhaps with the caption, some of us are SO SHARP… we could just CUT ourselves.)

the ever-lovely Oona/Oz suggestes a quote from Neverwhere's Hunter:

In human years I am
“as old as my tongue and slightly older than my teeth”

Norm sent this great bumpersticker idea (would work on a tee as well:

This one is fresh from Neil's tweet last night.
"Dream dangerously."


we got several (SEVERAL!) requests for an OLD SHOGGOTH's label/pintglass/teeshirt.
you really love this idea. only Ethan went the distance and drew one:




thank you, Foz, for this:

You can't make an omlette without killing a few people. (quote paraphrased from Neverwhere)


a gorgeous little drawing from Elise:



Lauri's idea? a simple declaration from Stardust:

"I've been through the wall"

while on that topic, Katie and many others asked for this:

"Have been unavoidably detained by the world..."

Ruth sent in this visual inspired by THE GRAVEYARD BOOK:

a grey shirt, tomb stones print all over it and right over the right breast
(pocket) leaning against a stone is "Bod". here and there, little ghosts of
the "residents": kind of like a shirt map?


Rachel wants to see this printed on cotton:

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people in the whole world. I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing, worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."

Meg wants to see a "Snow, Glass, Apples" design.. in fact, many mentions for this one. We do have plans for a future print...

Teresa, you picked my favorite HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES line:
"You wouldn't want to make a universe angry."



Evelyn sent us this zinger:

I only consume one food, and it is not bananas. <--For those bloodsuckers who despise Twilight.

BillyBones suggests this:
London tube sign that says London Underneath, or a gothic version of the tube map with Neverwhere locations.
(me: will have to check on copyright infringement, but like it!)



RYAN has this beautiful idea:
I still would love to see a fading Cantrip shirt. The text from The Witch's Headstone chapter of the Graveyard book. You know, the spell that she uses to help Bod fade when he's in the back of the pawn shop.

the ever-lucid @PERGAMOND:
i would buy a "slaughtered prince" pub t-shirt in a heartbeat.

Ryan @Jesteram, whom i swear I do not know personally, he just is full of grande ideas, suggested two ideas:

1. blood-spattered text: "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale" .
and
2. How about a shirt with a playing-card jack on it and the names of all the Jacks from the Graveyard Book? I love how Neil tends to have a secret society in just about all his books ...


Nikki also thought of a Jack's tee, but the day after Ryan. Good call, Nikki.

Lara sent me this, which i love, from The White Road :

"Ultimately, everything comes down to Foxes."

lots of you wanted to see the new and old gods from AMERICAN GODS having a face off/show down.


there were many other great ones, and believe me, you can always write in with ideas on what you'd like to see....neverwear@gaiman.net

for now, go in the comments section and say what you like.
I will let you decide... and perhaps Neil will ring in too. Quiche? thoughts?

also with the Batman prize, i threw in a BEOWULF swag hat from Paramount Pictures.

this post is getting way too long.
thanks so much for let me know what you think.

Neil's Mailbox, part two

more items arrive in the LA mailbox from the wonderful friends of Mr. Neil Gaiman:




"GOOD OMENS"! Neil and Terry's gorgeous award from Audible.com for Download:



this glittering beauty arrived from Tori in Eliicott City, MD for THE FABULOUS LORRAINE Neil's on-site right hand woman: (apparently Tori forgot to send mine...wah.)





Steven Archer and Donna Lynch, my old Baltimore friends from EGO LIKENESS
sent Neil a few thank-you gifts....

Donna finished her new book ISABEL BURNING & sent Neil a signed copy, while Steven sent one of his detailed paintings that live on vintage book covers:





here they are in their Neverwear!






look for them on their upcoming tour....


So, we have closed the contest for the new Neverwear tshirt, I will be mulling over the submissions and consulting with
Neil on the finalist......results up Monday evening. Follow us on Twitter.com @Neverwear
for more random prizey giveaways... I just posted almost all of the #100K prizes, some goodness coming to your mailboxes, winners.... See Joke Contest winner Rob here
thanks everyone for your imaginations.