Regarding Neil

Originally published October 22, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1353

Shana really, really wanted to go to the Tori Amos concert. But it was an extremely small venue, and tickets were going to be absolutely impossible to come by. However, I figured I had one shot at accommodating her: Tori Amos, as everyone knows, is rather tight with Neil Gaiman. And, in the best spirit of six degrees of separation, I know Neil and therefore had (albiet) limited access to Amos.

So I called Neil and asked him if there was any way he could score a couple of tickets to the Tori Amos concert (apparently narrowly beating a deluge of other people asking him very much the same thing.) Neil said that he would see what he could do. And several days later, Neil called me back and told me that he had indeed managed to make some calls and it had been all arranged that Shana would be able to attend the sold-out concert.

“Neil, I really owe you,” I said.

And there was a pause at the other end of the line.

And then Neil said, very slowly, very deliberately, “Yes. I know.”

It was the single most terrifying, most sinister enunciation of those three relatively harmless words that I had ever heard.

Somewhere inside me, my soul screamed in fear. What had I gotten us into? Just to give my daughter some temporary happiness… what unholy bargain had I unwittingly opened myself to? When Neil, at some point in the future, wanted to cash in that chip… what would the hideous price be? Whom would I have to hurt? To kill? Or would it simply be that, many years hence (hopefully) I would be lying on my death bed, a long-forgotten writer whom some people once considered vaguely important long ago. And suddenly, at the bedside, Neil would appear in a burst of smoke, looking much the same as he does now. “Time for payback,” he would say, and he’d remove the sunglasses and there would be no eyes there, just twin sets of little jagged teeth…

Well…

Other belated Neil recollections (belated since the Neil theme issue was a few issues back, but what the heck.)

At a convention a few years back, Neil signed a book to me, and he rendered in it a very nice, detailed ink sketch of Sandman. And I looked at it and realized that this guy could really draw, conveying remarkable detail with just a few meticulously rendered line. It was at that point that Krause was publishing the first But I Digress trade paperback collection, and we hadn’t settled yet on who would do the cover. I knew that I wanted to get someone unusual, someone unexpected, and as soon as I saw Neil’s sketch in the book, I decided he was the guy. I approached him about the notion of doing the cover for the paperback. He seemed rather startled by the notion, and I assured him that he would have complete freedom to do whatever he wanted. “Okay,” he said after giving it some consideration.

We then made a point of not announcing who was going to be doing the cover, thereby creating a minor mystery and a good degree of speculation. All we said was, “The cover will be by someone who’s very well known, but the last artist you’d expect to see.” Naturally fans figured that it was Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, or assorted other folks who held me in tremendous esteem (sh’right.)

At another convention, I approached John Byrne about the prospect of his doing the back cover. John said, “Only if I know who’s going to be doing the front cover. I want to know who I’m following.” The subtext of his statement wasn’t very sub, and I could understand his sentiments. He’d been as openly dissed by certain artists as I had been, and he didn’t want to run “second fiddle” to one of them. “Fair enough, I’ll tell you… but word of honor, you keep it to yourself.” He nodded. “Neil Gaiman,” I said. His eyebrows knit, he considered it a moment, and then said, “Okay. I can live with that.”

Then I get the cover from Neil. I’m flabbergasted. It’s this rendering of me as Moses, descending from the mount with the Ten Commandments. At the bottom of the mount is gathered a group of rabid worshippers (also visible are a clearly less-than-worshipful Neil, as well as a little mouse dressed as Dream). The first words I uttered were, “Oh my God.” They were also the second and third things. I thought, How the hell can I go with this? Everyone’s gonna think I came up with the idea, and I’m going to come across as the most pretentious schmuck in the world. Maybe I should just tell Neil we can’t use it and apologize profusely. But then I considered three things: First, I had indeed told Neil that he had total freedom to do what he wanted. How could I consider myself a supporter of free expression and then stifle it on the cover of my own work? Second, it was probably balanced to some degree by the cover on the back cover art which depicted a cackling John Byrne feeding copies of my column into a paper shredder. And finally, it may very well be that people who read the column regularly have already come to the conclusion that I’m the most pretentious schmuck in the world, so where was the damage being done, really?

So that’s the cover that adorns the collection. And it all worked out, and just to show what a schmuck I am, if we ever do a second collection (one the most-asked questions I get) then Neil is certainly welcome to do that cover. Because, y’know… I just don’t learn.

When Neil’s marvelous limited TV, Neverwhere, debuted, Neil offered to send me a copy of the series on tape. So the tapes arrive, and I pop the first one in.

The story starts, and it appears to be set in a courtroom of some sort. I’m impressed by the British actors, because they seem to have completely mastered American accents. The thing is, what little I know of Neverwhere tells me that it’s set in sort of a underworld somehow linked with the London underground, so I’m not sure what this trial sequence has to do with anything. But you know what? I had faith in Neil. I mean, sure, the more that I watched, the less sense it seemed to make. The dialogue was not what I was expecting from Neil. It seemed rather stilted, tortured. But then I figured, He’s doing it on purpose. He’s going for some type of effect. And there was a woman judge who seemed to be pontificating on what the supplicants were telling her.

The show wore on. I began to get bored. Whatever it was that Neil was trying to express about the American judicial system, I was missing it. I tried speed searching past the scene, hoping the next one would be more interesting. But it was no use. When I punched the tape back on, we were still in the courtroom. Still boring people, still stilted dialogue.

“My God, Neil’s lost his mind,” I said. “How am I going to tell him that this show is just awful? How can I…”

Then suddenly I heard an announcer say, “Well be back with ‘Judge Judy’ right after this.” And the logo appeared for a TV station in Seattle. “Judge who?” I wondered. Suddenly there were TV commercials, and I finally figured it out. Neil looked very pained when I described it to him.

Once, at the Chicago Comic Con where Harlan Ellison was the guest of honor, Neil flew in as a surprise. We were doing a “Friends of Harlan” panel and, while on the panel, I started making snide remarks about Neil (much to the clear puzzlement of the audience). And while I was in the midst of dissing him, Neil walked in and stood behind me. Audience went nuts.

I’ve always been impressed by Neil for any number of reasons. His selfless dedication to the CBLDF, for one, and his numerous money-raising readings. His apparently boundless talent. Those nifty shades. But one of the things I remember most vividly was at a convention, when DC had black and white photocopies of Sandman #50 out. While at the convention, Neil asked me if I’d happened to read the display copy. “Yup,” I said. And to my surprise, he asked me eagerly, “What did you think?” I was, frankly, stunned. I’m not quite sure how to put this without sounding either disingenuous or pompous, but… I couldn’t believe he cared what I thought. I mean, I don’t think I produce garbage (not intentionally, in any event) but I’m simply not at Neil’s level. I know that. Doesn’t bother me. Gives me something to aspire to. And then I realized that one of the things that makes Neil great is that, despite all his accomplishment and accolades, he hasn’t let it get to him. He has as much insecurity about his work as any novice might have, still has that need to have people tell him, “Good job.” It’s kind of like the year Billy Crystal was absolutely killing ’em at the Oscars. The audience was roaring… and yet, during commercial breaks, Crystal kept reportedly running around to everyone—prop people, grips, whoever—and saying, “How am I doing?” And you’d wonder how he could possibly wonder such a thing. I think all the truly great writers need that insecurity to remain great, because once they become too smug, too confident in their abilities, that’s when the creative rot starts to set in. I don’t foresee that happening with Neil any time in the near future.

Which won’t stop me from shuddering in dread fear of Neil calling in the favor.

Hit him up for Tori Amos tickets at your own risk.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)