Rust and Ruin

yeah your rituals may be intricate. But have u ever placed a real gun in the hands of your eternal and fated enemy, watched his hands shake as he points it at you, and trusted that he will not let the bullet touch you, all for a magic trick that was your idea in the first place? have u ever seen true fear in his eyes and still known that even without miracles, he will let no harm come to you, even if that harm is only a ridiculous amount of heavenly paperwork?

Janet does have a thing she can say that does make me realize she is really not her. I called Janet "girl," but she didn't say, "Not a girl. " The real Janet always says, "Not a girl. "

Good Omens (2019 -) // The Good Place (2016-2020) // Nimona (2023)

I see all your posts about having Two Nickels because of The Corinthian and Crowley but you know what:

It’s actually Three Nickels.

And yes they’re all Queer.

Neil Gaiman definitely has a type.

As for me ? I like the eyes 🖤👁

Paying homage to The Sandman comics and Kirby Howell-Baptiste's beautiful acting as Death.

Art by my twin sister.

Neil Gaiman’s covers novels illustrated by Robert McGinnis

he wondered whether home was a thing that happened to a place after a while, or if it was something that you found in the end, if you simply walked and waited and willed it long enough.

-neil gaiman

So to begin with, Mr McGinnis said yes. He was, at the time, almost 90, and we were unable to believe our luck. We had talked about getting someone to work in the style of book covers of bygone days, but Bob McGinnis was there, and he had painted those covers. And he was -- and is -- still painting.

The brief from me was as simple as I could get it:

Mostly, for all except American Gods, which could be haunted spooky American landscape, I'd love people, and the feeling that we are looking at the kinds of book covers nobody does any longer.  Mr Nancy in the foreground for Anansi Boys? - something that says Funny, Thorne Smith, slightly sexy, strange. Stardust, a beautiful study of the Star ? Very fairy tale. Neverwhere, very Adventures, and perhaps Richard and Door, or a scene or moment from the book?

Jennifer Brehl, my editor at William Morrow, came back with:

I think there should be figures/people on all four covers. Looking at McGinnis's art (and the other covers you sent me) it seems that the characters are extremely important. I was also seeing TWO characters per cover. Rough images: AMERICAN GODS: Shadow and Mr. Wednesday, standing in a rugged landscape beneath a lightning-streaked sky ANANSI BOYS: Mr. Nancy in his yellow hat (didn't he have a yellow hat, or am I misremembering?) holding mike singing to young woman STARDUST: Tristran leaning over a sleeping (fallen) Yvaine (Star) NEVERWHERE: Richard carrying/supporting a wounded Door through a door -- leaving the World Above and stepping through to Below.

That seemed like enough to get going with.

We did American Gods first. Landscape and lightning, Shadow and Wednesday. We lifted the "Underground novel" blurb from a 60s paperback of Stranger in a Strange Land.

When we did Anansi Boys it followed the same pattern (although I knew what I wanted as a blurb):

Mr McGinnis sent in some cover sketches. He honed in on the opening scene, with Mr Nancy singing Karaoke to tourists in a Florida seaside bar. We had told him we wanted it to feel like it was a book cover from 60 years ago, and that all these covers would have slightly different sensibilities. We knew that he was the one painting the most memorable book covers in the 50s and 60s, so our brief was to paint what he would have done if he'd read the book back then.

He sent in 5 sketches and I picked a few of the ones I liked best and sent them to Todd, to start talking about visual book styles. (Here are a couple.)

Everyone's favourite was the first.

Todd mentioned that it reminded him of this kind of style, and sent me book covers to show what he meant. He suggested that we have the title over on the left (like the ALL THE WAY cover here).

The finished cover painting came in...

and Todd did a few versions, always picking up the green from Mr Nancy's hat and tie:

(There were lots more versions than these, but I'm limited to 10 images on Tumblr.) I suggested that we lost the Awards stuff, which made it feel cluttered. And I picked the typefaces and versions I liked best, which gave us:

The publisher wanted the #1 Bestseller information back...

I suggested that if we were going to do that we should add an adjective of some kind, like "rollicking" or "magical" just to make it less dry. So Todd did a few of those...

(We actually went with "Magical" on the finished book.) And we had a book cover.

One that felt way out of time, like it had been designed and painted 60 years ago.

Coraline is a masterfully made film, an amazing piece of art that i would never ever ever show to a child oh my god are you kidding me

Nothing wrong with a good dose of sheer terror at a young age

“It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares. It’s the strangest book I’ve written”

-Neil Gaiman on Coraline

@nightlovechild

This is a legit psychology phenomenon tho like there’s a stop motion version of Alice and Wonderland that adults find viscerally horrifying, but children think is nbd. It’s like in that ‘toy story’ period of development kids are all kind of high key convinced that their stuffed animals lead secret lives when they’re not looking and that they’re sleeping on top of a child-eating monster every night so they see a movie like Coraline and are just like “Ah, yes. A validation of my normal everyday worldview. Same thing happened to me last Tuesday night. I told mommy and she just smiled and nodded.”

Stephen King had this whole spiel i found really interesting about this phenomenon about how kids have like their own culture and their own literally a different way of viewing and interpreting the world with its own rules that’s like secret and removed from adult culture and that you just kinda forget ever existed as you grow up it’s apparently why he writes about kids so much

An open-ended puzzle often gives parents math anxiety while their kids just happily play with it, explore, and learn. I’ve seen it so many times in math circles. We warn folks about it.

Neil Gaiman also said that the difference in reactions stems from the fact in “Coraline” adults see a child in danger - while children see themselves facing danger and winning

i never saw so much push back from adults towards YA literature as when middle aged women started reading The Hunger Games. They were horrified that kids would be given such harsh stories, and I kept trying to point out the NECESSITY of confronting these hard issues in a safe fictional environment.

Also, in an interview, he said that Coraline was partially based on a story his not yet 6 year old daughter would tell him 

SAGAL: No. I mean, for example, your incredibly successful young adult novel “Coraline” is about a young girl in house in which there’s a hole in the wall that leads to a very mysterious and very evil world. So when you were a kid, is that what you imagined?

GAIMAN: When I was a kid, we actually lived in a house that had been divided in two at one point, which meant that one room in our house opened up onto a brick wall. And I was convinced all I had to do was just open it the right way and it wouldn’t be a brick wall. So I’d sidle over to the door and I’d pull it open.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: And it was always a brick wall.

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: But it was one of those things that as I grew older, I carried it with me and I thought, I want to send somebody through that door. And when I came to write a story for my daughter Holly, at the time she was a 4 or 5-year-old girl. She’d come home from nursery. She’d seen me writing all day. So she’d come and climb on my lap and dictate stories to me. And it’d always be about small girls named Holly.

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: Who would come home to normally find their mother had been kidnapped by a witch and replaced by evil people who wanted to kill her and she’d have to go off and escape. And I thought, great, what a fun kid.

It’s anxious adults who desperately want to “soften” stories. Kids prefer the real thing: with monsters, bloodthirsty ogres and evil murderous stepmothers; where the littlest brother always wins and all the villains are horrendously punished in the end. The world is threatening to the eyes of a child, so they need a fictional universe where the little people have a fair chance against the big and strong.

Lost Hat (A short comic) 

This was the scene that inspired me to draw the comic. The idea has been in my head since June, after the release of the Good Omens episodes. It went lying in my folders for a while, but I’m glad to finally have it finished!  Thank you for reading :)

❤ ❤ ❤

concept: a death god that is actually surprisingly supportive and on the side of the good guys, supporting actions and promoting policies that will lead to the kingdom growing and thriving instead of being destroyed, because the more the kingdom grows, the more people there are, and the more people there are the more people will eventually  die, and when you’re an immortal god of death, you know there’s no need to rush. you’ll get them all in the end

i like how the responses on this post are cleanly split between “hey this is a great story idea i love it” and “this is absolutely terrifying”

Yes. A Death that is kind, and patient, and inevitable.

A Death that need not fight against you, that will often fight for you, because why not? It will gather you home eventually. Why not enjoy you first?

A Death that treasures those who fight it most ardently. That loves healers and defenders and survivalists and necromancers and mad scientists and immortal gods. That lets them pour everything they are into fighting it, denying it, adoring every desperate scrap of strength and will and brilliance and raw determination poured out against it. That catches you when your strength is done and all your will and brilliance run out, that gathers you close beneath a warm, dark cloak, and whispers well done, oh child, you were magnificent, well done.

A Death who will not seek to hasten an inevitable end, who will chastise those who seek to hasten it for others in Death’s stead, who will slowly and patiently plot and sow and siphon away from the great monsters of the world. Because who are they to hasten Death’s domain, who are they to deny Death its time and its place, who are they to cut short these vital glories that illuminate it so? Who are they to presume upon its will, that is so much larger and so much longer than theirs?

Who are they to call, and presume that Death, of all beings, should obey?

A Death that is not a hunter but a gatherer, who is always and eternal, who loves you, and can afford to wait. A Death who will fight for you and defend you, who will place its hand upon those who would speed you to its embrace, who has no need to rush you, only to greet you when you call.

A Death who is kind.

And patient.

And, before all and above all,

inevitable.

I CAN WAIT.

Death Sandman is that u? Queen???

Make Good Art - Neil Gaiman

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requested by @rustandruin​