Martin Millar's Blog, page 12

Book Cover Humiliation. For Me.

I really liked the Piatkus Cover for Lonely Werewolf Girl. Nice fonts, and a picture giving an indication of what a desperate Kalix MacRinnalch might look like. All in all, a very suitable cover. I'm still keen on it.




Unfortunately, as was soon pointed out to me, Piatkus weren't the only people who liked the cover image. So did the designers who produced this -



Well that seemed bad, two books with the same cover image. By the time anyone realised, it was too late to do anything about it. The b...

August 15th - On this day in 1977...

...I was at a punk gig in the Vortex Club in London. I saw the Slits and the Prefects. (I was surprised to actually find the original advert for this gig, on punk77.co.uk) The Vortex was never as hip a punk rock club as the Roxy, because it opened later, but I still saw a lot of good gigs there.

Off the top of my head, bands I remember seeing in this small venue include Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Rezillos, Generation X, Penetration, The Models (featuring Marco Pirroni) The Slits, The Adver...

Curse of the Wolf Girl, UK

Today, the 5th, is the official publication day for Curse of the Wolf Girl in Britain. Or I think it is, I'm a bit vague about the exact publication date. And it seems to have been available for a few days anyway. Hmm. This isn't the most impressive publication announcement ever made. But it's out now anyway. I think this edition should now be available in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as well.

In London, Kalix is on her way to remedial college to try and improve her reading skills,...

Messages

I miss my old, simple message board. If you'd like to leave me a message, you can use this page.

Punk Rock Ephermera

I'm sometimes surprised by the stuff that appears from old boxes I haven't looked in for years. Yesterday I came across these items of punk memorabilia which I'd forgotten about.

There are two issues of Sniffin' Glue, the original punk fanzine. This was founded by Mark Perry in 1976 London, and ran for a year or so. I bought these two issues in 1977, in the King's Road in Chelsea. (I'm fairly sure that's red ink, and not blood, on the cover)



On the cover of one issue there are pictures of John...

Hello Kitty

I'm finding Twitter confusing. I didn't realise there's a link you have to press to see if anyone has replied to your posts. I only found out after I asked my friend @Abby about it. I'm still confused about what posts go where.

This brings on some gloom about the modern world. I've been through websites, newsgroups, message boards, forums, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and God knows what else, when all I really wanted to do was generate a little publicity, sell a few books, and spend the rest of ...

Soo Catwoman T-shirt

Here I am in my new Soo Catwoman t-shirt, which I love dearly. Notice the expression of deep concentration as I struggle with the difficult task of taking a picture and talking on the phone at the same time. Afterwards I had to sit down and rest.

Also in picture - MacBook Pro, box it came in, nice little tartan head-scarf, World Fantasy Award, box of tissues, edge of trusty old Mac iBook, blue mug, assorted books, wicker basket containing socks, TV remote and envelope containing bill for some...

Chinese Good Fairies

Here's the cover of the new Chinese edition of the Good Fairies of New York, to be published at the end of this month. ( ISBN 9789861736518 )



My name in Chinese, I think  -  馬汀．米勒

(I'm saying 'Chinese' here, but that's probably not quite accurate, because there are different types of written Chinese.)

Here's some of the blurb from the back cover -



Notice the important words, in brackets in English - Jane Austen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Sex Pistols.  Good choices! I'm pleased to be known...

Mysterious Painted Mark

Outside the front door of my block there are some small metal covers, all marked 'stopcock.' Recently one of these metal covers has been mysteriously painted blue. I'm very suspicious about this. Why has it happened?

I walked down the block, looking at the other entrances. There are similar small metal covers on the pavement outside other doors. None of them have been painted blue. Or painted at all.

It all seems very suspicious to me. And a little worrying. What can it mean? At present, I'm...

Malveria's Shoe Catastrophe

Here is a digital painting of Queen Malveria, by Sam Causon, which she's posted on her deviant art page. I am very fond of this image.

An angry Malveria, with flames flickering around her eyes, is complaining to her friend and fashion designer Thrix MacRinnalch that the heel on her new shoes has broken. It was a very upsetting experience for the Queen. Though, as Thrix does point out, she shouldn't really expect a fashion item like these high heels to survive a harsh environment like the Grea...