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I'm at Clarion. Which is in San Diego, about ten miles from where Comic-con will be. I don't have any plans to be at Comic-con, my plate is pretty full here. I also won't be blogging -- I want to give teaching my full attention. I haven't done this before.

But Charles Brownstein from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund asked me to get the word out on a couple of things:

1) Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have done a limited edition of their amazing "Snow, Glass, Apples" scent. It smells like green apples and like sex and vampires, all at the same time. It's coming out with a limited edition illustrated chapbook of the story, with art by Julie Dillon. There are going to be a few signed ones, and some unsigned. The donation for the unsigned ones will be $50. As they say:

The long-awaited Snow, Glass, Apples perfume will be making its debut at San Diego Comic Con! The SGA package includes Neil Gaiman’s short story in chapbook format, beautifully illustrated by Julie Dillon, and a 5ml bottle of perfume inspired by the tale. This set is a limited run of 1000. 250 will be sold by CBLDF at Comic Con 2008, and the remainder will go on sale July 30, 2008 on the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab web site and will be available as long as supplies last. All proceeds from this project go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

(I just want to say that Beth at Black Phoenix has proved herself an amazingly staunch supporter of the CBLDF, and has been a complete joy to deal with in all this.)

2) You remember I signed a hundred tee shirts for the fund? (I signed them in thick fabric paint.) They will have some of them for sale at San Diego. Probably $50 each, with a few of the rarer tee shirts going for more.

3) and then there's the auction on Saturday night. As Charles said in his letter,

In our Saturday night auction, we have a number of tremendous items. The coolest is Ryan Graff's Endless Reflections, offered here to commemorate Sandman's 20th. Serious bidders should come by the CBLDF booth (1831) to learn more about this book, which is probably the rarest of all Sandman items. We also have some other cool items including:

1) Dave Sim, Neil Gaiman, "Lithograph 1: Neil Gaiman," signed by Sim, collage retouch by Gaiman (prints/original art)
2) Neil Gaiman, The Dangerous Alphabet #260/400 (prints)
3) Neil Gaiman, Murder Mysteries HC, #122/250 (book arts)
4) Neil Gaiman, The Sky At Night broadsheet #1/5 (prints)
5) Neil Gaiman, Stardust Movie Premiere ticket, signed (ephemera)
6) Cerebus #147, featuring Neil Gaiman's 24 Hour Comic, signed with sketch by Sim (comics)
The full list is terrific, and has some other great pieces, including work by Jack Kirby, Jeff Smith, Matt Wagner, and many more. Full list is here: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000365.shtml

The auction is Saturday at 7:00 in Room 2 of the convention center

The Lithograph #1, is the third of these, and the second to go on sale. (The second one we did was lost by the post office between my house and the CBLDF, and despite being insured for $1000, the Post Office declined to pay. Sigh.

Anyway, I took Dave's original multiple portrait of me, and then painted it, attacked it with a knife, and collaged strange machines onto it. It's one of a kind...

Hi Neil!

I greatly enjoyed the story and photos of all the signed black t-shirts, and of your first black t-shirt. But something's been bothering me ever since, and I only just managed to put it into words.

My brain can't quite cope with the thought of you having a *first* black t-shirt, in much the same it struggles to cope with the Big Bang. What came before?

Mili

Grey. But it didn't work, because, I discovered, there are brown greys and blue greys and greenish greys and they don't really match, and if you want to dress in grey you have to work at it. Black is so much easier...

Who do I have to approach to get you for a UK bookshop event? How small a shop are you willing to do?

You talk to the publisher. In the case of The Graveyard Book, you'd talk to Bloomsbury. And I go where I'm sent, but try and do shops that are big enough that the people who've come for a reading or a signing fit inside the shop and don't have to stand outside in the rain.

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The great American playwright Edward Albee is celebrating his 80th birthday next month, and numerous Albee plays are being mounted in distinguished Off Broadway theaters in New York. The playwright himself is directing two of his one-acts, The American Dream and The Sandbox, at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, where they were originally produced in 1961 and 1962. Both plays are included in the new paperback edition of The Collected Plays of Edward Albee 1958-1965, available from Overlook.

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