The Hypothetical Library

Neil Gaiman Part III

Announcement

I am happy to announce that 1 very real, non-hypothetical copy of If You Read This Book The World Will End is being donated to The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and will be auctioned to raise funds for this very crucial organization. It will be 1 of the only 4 existing copies. 

Sadly it will not have the "Raven" padlock, but I promise it will have it's own unique antique security device, and no key will be provided with the book. The actual date of the auction has not yet been determined, but should be in the next couple of months. It will come with a Hypothetical Library card signed by Neil Gaiman, and date stamped, like all good library cards. 

Why anyone would want the responsibility of possessing this book is beyond me, but I am certain that the more money that is bid, the safer the world will remain.

Introduction

This is the third and final entry of the Neil Gaiman series, and it's a special one. Such a unique project deserves a unique finale. When I told my friend Nick Abadzis (the voice for audio reading) about what I had planned for these Neil Gaiman posts he told me "He's given you a gift, mate" and I have to agree. So let me take a moment to thank Neil for such a fertile idea—this was exactly as much fun to do as it looked. Thank you.

As I worked on the 3 parts of this project I spent some time reacquainting myself with Mr. Gaiman's body of work in all of its many incarnations. Rereading the Sandman series in comic book form, and his collection of short works, Fragile Things in hardcover book, listening to the audio of The Graveyard Book, and reading American Gods on my iPad. The thing I already suspected became apparent—format is irrelevant. His stories, like all good stories, stay good no matter what form they’re told in. 

There is a great deal of hand-wringing going on right now about the state of publishing and the future of books and reading. This is mainly due to the impact of e-books. But the one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that people need and want stories, and always will. 

All of us—readers, writers, publishers, and even the lowly book cover designer—are in a unique time and place to guide the future of books. My particular concern lies with the effect e-books have on the state of book cover. Which as it stands now means near extinction.

Before I started The Hypothetical Library I had been working on an idea for e-book covers—or as I’ve been calling them, digital book covers—for over a year. The premise is that if a cover can work in a digital space, why should it remain a static image? It could be a short film, or animation with sound and music or as you will see, even an interactive puzzle.

While working on the ideas for If You Read This Book the World Will End, it struck me that Mr. Gaiman's strange proposal was the perfect way to show what could be possible for a strange and new kind of cover. A hypothetical cover for a still-hypothetical format.

Some technical notes, disclaimers, and caveats:

This cover was built in HTML 5—which is a very new way to do things— by the very talented programmer and designer Jeff Gray. Both he and I would have preferred to build this in Flash, but since I wanted it to run on smart phones and the new iPad, this was simply not an option. As a result, this cover is best experienced on a web browser, on your pc. It will run on your other devices, just a bit slower, and those of you using Internet Explorer 6 or below, won't have much luck at all, sorry. This is both the thrill and frustration of dealing with new technologies. Figuring out the best paths and workarounds takes time, and I gave Mr. Gray about 2 very short weeks.

If you like what you see please share it with others, and after you’ve tried it you can see some other digital book covers I’ve done here.

So go ahead and click on the image below, if you dare. Don’t be frustrated if it takes a few tries to get to the end, after all you shouldn’t open this book anyway.

If You Read This Book The World Will End—the digital book cover

 

Credit

Jeff Gray is an artist, musician, and developer based in Brooklyn, NY. Some of his work can be found here. He's also found rambling about tech, art, culture, and gaming here. Mr. Gray’s computer suffered a slight drawback after finishing this project. At the shop where they attempted to restore his hard drive, and two backups they asked with ashen faces, and barely hidden disgust “why is there dried blood in your machine?!”

Neil Gaiman: Bibliography

Neil Gaiman has an astonishingly large body of work including novels, comic books, audio recordings, plays, and movies You can see a comprehensive listing of his work on his website. 

Of special note is his upcoming anthology Stories: All New Tales which Mr. Gaiman co-edited with Al Sarrantonio. It includes an amazing scope of writers including: Joyce Carol Oates, Jodi Picoult, Roddy Doyle, Stewart O'Nan, Walter Mosley, Chuck Palahniuk, Peter Straub, and many more. It will be released on June 15th. 

Available now is Instructions, a wonderful story book with beautiful illustrations by Charles Vess. It's a book you can read to a child, and then read again for yourself, which is probably the best kind of book there is.

Mr. Gaiman remains unscathed by the process of bringing this idea into the world, but then again he must shoulder the weight of having this book sitting in his personal library, waiting for the bolts to finally rust through, and the lock to finally give. Sleep well Neil.

 

Next week: Rest. Sweet, sweet, rest.

Neil Gaiman Part II

Introduction

One of the keys to understanding the loyalty of Neil Gaiman’s readers is his willingness to engage them on a personal level. With his daily Twitter comments and frequent blog postings, Gaiman’s fans are privy to his weekly activities on a level that most writers wouldn’t dare encourage. But above and beyond the Tweeting, and blogging, his live readings and audio recordings constitute a tangible connection with his audience that Gaiman has nurtured over the years. These efforts bring an added level of drama and nuance to his own work, and have the effect of personalizing the writing for his fans.

While not all writers are suited to reading their own work, Gaiman is a natural. He reads with a gentle authority that allows the listener to sink into the story. Never forced or overly dramatic, his tone has a rhythm and flow that pull you in, just as reading a good book will do.

It was this aspect of Gaiman’s career that I had in mind when I decided to do an audio treatment of If You Read This Book The World Will End. As I developed this notion I thought I should approach it as a sort of radio play, not unlike Orson Welles's infamous War of the Worlds broadcast. Welles brilliantly did a radio play about a radio play, and it was something I wanted to emulate for this piece.

The script for this book is purely speculative, and are not the words contained in Mr. Gaiman’s "cursed book"—how could they be, the world would end after all. What you will hear is an approximation of what I imagined the book contains, and are not the words or voice of Mr. Gaiman. As you will hear, even an approximation of this hellish text is a precarious endeavor. With the help of audio wizard Mike Degen and the impressive dramatic reading of Mr. Nick Abadzis we hope that you will enjoy this bit of audio speculation. And while it would be sheer madness for you to listen to this (do you really want the world to end?), I imagine curiosity will win over common sense in the end. You have been warned. 

If You Read This Book The World Will End—the audio book

(just click on the image to listen)

 

If You Read This Book The World Will End—the audio book CD's

 

The Hypothetical Library's new logo for audio books 

 
There will be future audio books so stay tuned...
 

Credits
 

Nick Abadzis is a cartoonist, and author of the award winning graphic novel Laika. He was featured in The Hypothetical Library two weeks ago for his series The Korolev Trilogy. As it turns out he is also something of a thespian with two years of theater arts under his belt, and it shows. What you just heard was essentially done in two takes. If you've ever witnessed the recording session of someone reading, you will know how improbable that is. He also co-wrote the script with me. You can check out Nick's non-recording efforts at his website. It is with a great degree of sadness that I report that Mr. Abadzis and his family, after completing this project, has mysteriously vanished. The last thing he was heard to utter was, "I should've bloody moved to France..."

Mike Degen is the audio wizard who twisted and distorted the voice and effects for this recording. He is a composer, producer, and musician who also does commercial recordings for film, television, and video games. You can hear samples of his work here, and  here. He can be contacted here. Mike has not returned my messages since he completed the final version of this recording, although I received a strange and desperate call late one night from a woman (his wife?) telling me to "leave us alone, haven't you done enough to this family already?"

Neil Gaiman has recorded several audio books and pieces over the years, many of which you can find on his website. Although they are too numerous to list, here are some highlights. Warning: Contains Language is a great collection of readings by Mr.Gaiman, with some amazing music and audio effects. Also of note is Two Plays For Voices: Snow Glass Apples & Murder Mysteries. This recording has outstanding cast members, and is evocative of the great days of radio dramas. I have a distinct memory of laying in bed late one night listening to Murder Mysteries on an NPR station...KCRW? I may have heard it over the Internet, but I choose to remember hearing it on the radio. The Graveyard Book, is a well loved classic (after only 2 years), and the audio book is wonderful. Some of the covers you've seen on this blog were designed while I listened to it. One last mention is Mr. Gaiman's return to his journalistic roots, an NPR piece he did about audio books, which features David Sedaris—Neil Gaiman Asks—Heard Any Good Books Lately?. 

Mr Gaiman, unlike the other participants, seems unaffected by the release of this hypothetical book and it's incarnations. One more entry to go, however.

Monday May 24th: If You Read This Book The World Will End—digital book cover

Neil Gaiman

Introduction

Author Neil Gaiman isn't just liked by his readers—he's adored by them. With a Twitter audience of more than 1,480,000, he has a daily following that hangs on his every word. But his writing strikes a chord that extends beyond fannish obsession. Its appeal has everything to do with Gaiman's uncanny grasp not simply of the mechanics of storytelling, but the spirit and joy of it. 

Gaiman has a Jungian grasp of archetypes and an encyclopedic understanding of both mythology and the modern novel, from fairy tales to Wodehouse. He draws on that knowledge to write compelling stories that cross the divide between what are often blinkered categorizations of genre and age group.

Gaiman has a style that is hard to pin down. As a long time reader of his, I have what I consider a certain "Neil Gaiman voice" in my head.  I was amazed to see that assumption undone as I revisited his body work—the comics, short stories, poetry and novels. Each effort, while obviously by Gaiman, is uniquely its own thing. He is a writer in a constant state of growth, experimentation, and restlessness.

Gaiman was one of the first names on my very long list of authors who I had hoped would contribute to this blog. As I’ve said before The Hypothetical Library was born from many of sources: Jorge Luis Borges, Stanislas Lem, cartoonist Dylan Horrocks, and many others, but most directly Neil Gaiman. 

In Gaiman’s comic book series The Sandman, his main character has an entire library of books that were dreamed into existence by their authors, and which only exist in that library. I have a very specific memory from the late 90’s of reading an issue of  The Sandman where the Dream Library is mentioned, and I thought that someone should design the covers of those books. The idea stuck with me for years, a blog waiting to happen. 

Which brings us to this week's entry into the Hypothetical Library. It is going to be a little different from the previous ones, because author Mr. Gaiman provided a very different kind of proposal. Here it is as I received it.

"The trouble with imagining a book I would never write is that when I think of it, I think 'but I could WRITE that...'

So it would have to be a book of books I would never write. A book of ideas I would never have. A book of things I would never do in prose or in fiction. A book of things that should have remained unwritten, fragments and dreams and moments. Secrets too terrible to be learned. Things that would destroy me if I knew them, or hurt my friends. It would contain the secret name of God, and tell you how to pronounce that name.

It would be called IF YOU READ THIS BOOK THE WORLD WILL END."

At first I thought this email was a cleverly worded rejection note, but after the second reading I took it to be what it was—a challenge. How do you design a cover for a book that should never be read? The idea you will see below hit me right away, but knowing that the first idea is not always the best one, I kept sketching. Rather than get different cover ideas, my train of thought expanded into other places—what about an audio book (for which Mr. Gaiman’s dramatic readings are famous), or what would an eBook that you should never be able to open, be like?

So I decided to do a 3 part, 2 week long entry for If You Read This Book The World Will End. Todays entry is the book cover. On Thursday I will post the audio book, and on Monday the 23rd I will post a very special kind of e-book cover.

If You Read This Book The World Will End—the cover

  
How do you design a cover for a book that should never be read? You drive bolts through it, wrap it in steel, and put a padlock on it so it can never be opened, that's how. With the help of sculptor Kevin Johnson we did just that. The image above is a still life, taken by photographer Seth Kushner of the actual book that was fabricated for this post. The bolts are real, as is the metal band. The padlock is an antique from 1906, and has the perfect logo for this purpose—Raven. 

It is the sincere hope of this blog—and Mr Gaiman—that this book never be opened. After the photography session, the book was moved to a secure and undisclosed location. Mr. Kushner is recovering nicely from what the good doctors at Bellevue referred to as an acute bout of "the nerves".

Credits

I couldn't have pulled this project off without the help of many talented people, so I will be giving credit where credit is due for each entry.  

After I designed the cover art, the physical dust jacket was printed by Alex Rader and Kevin Mutch at POD Gallery (they also publish the comics anthology Blurred Vision). The book was then delivered to Brooklyn based metal artist and sculptor Kevin Johnson, who drove the bolts through and wrapped the metal around it. 

Photographer Seth Kushner then captured the whole thing on film (actually, digital pixels), and we shared retouching duties. On a related note, the current author image of Mr. Gaiman now running in The Sandman books was shot by Seth, a fact that I was unaware of when I asked him to help out. You can see his work work at his official site, blog, and at Graphic NYC.

Finally, Ellen Lindner edited the text for these three blog entries. Ellen is a London, England based cartoonist and you can see her work here. Ellen is one of three editors that help keep me from sounding illerterate illiterate. Hypothetical Library pals Susanne Reece and Shanna Compton have also helped me in the past few months. Shanna is a poet and the publisher of Bloof Books.

Thursday May 20: If You Read This Book The World Will End—audio book

Marilyn Orr

Introduction

Welcome to a very special Mother's Day edition of the Hypothetical Library. This week I am featuring Marilyn Orr—my Mom. The book, Hair to Bones: The Evolution of an American Woman is her first (hypothetical) book. 

(Dad, guess what you’re getting for Father’s Day.)

It's safe to say that without my mother, I wouldn’t be here today, so I thought I'd take this opportunity, and public forum to pay her the proper respect. 

As you move onward into adulthood you begin to appreciate your parents with what starts as a begrudging acknowledgment and turns into amazement, coming to understand the things they have navigated in life. That’s followed by embarrassment, as you realize how you missed that effort while it was happening. Finally, with gratitude you understand good parents simply accept their lack of acknowledgment for guiding their children into adulthood.

It took awhile, but at some point in my late 20s I began to consider what my mother had actually accomplished in her life. A child of the 1950s, not quite a baby-boomer, and missing the summer of love—my mom was more Elvis than Hendrix— she evolved in her own way and on her own schedule. 

She started college at the age of 40 after raising two children, and a lifetime of working, even when she didn’t always need to. Her working life happened at a time when many—if not most—women stayed at home. The incongruities of the workplace for women in the 60s and 70s were a defining force in my mother’s life and are what I think made her finally demand equity in her own way—by changing her own life. It wasn’t easy with one son in college already, and one heading there soon, and the impact on the family finances was considerable, but with her own war chest and a supportive husband, she made it happen.

And that is what Hair to Bones would be about if this hypothetical book were ever to be written. There is nothing hypothetical about my mother’s drive and ambition however, and I hope to capture that with this entry. To paraphrase a fellow New Jerseyan—she did it her way.

The one thing my mother’s life has taught me is that there is always time to realize who you are, and what you want to be, regardless of how busy you are.

I started at the beginning of this post with a dumb joke about “how I wouldn’t be here without my mom,” but what I meant was that I wouldn’t be here, now, at this time and place without her love and support. I wouldn’t be pursuing my dreams in New York City without her patient influence. I wouldn’t have my sense of humor, I would have never had a grasp that there is a larger world outside of south central Ohio. I would have never pursued art, or felt loved and safe enough to risk comfort or security, without her quiet strength or example. I wouldn’t be me without her. 

Thank you, Mom. I love you.

Charlie

The Cover

  
Hair to Bones: The Evolution of an American Woman—The hypothetical flap copy 

“From the dime stores and beauty parlors of 1950s Tenafly New Jersey to contemporary archeological sites spanning ancient midwestern earthworks, to 7th century B.C. digs in Cypryss and Greece, Marilyn Orr’s life has been a journey of experience and growth. Never settling, and always patiently moving forward, Ms. Orr bares witness to and describes her path through America’s most defining period in its history. A dizzying jumble of jobs, careers and motherhood Ms. Orr recounts her triumphs—becoming an anthropologist in her early 40s—and travails—attending college while managing a household, and a troubled teenager*—with concise and often hilarious prose. Hair to Bones: The Evolution of An American Woman, is a book for all those who have followed their hearts, to become the people they always knew they were."

*The troubled teen mentioned is me, and I wasn’t really a “troubled teen” but it sounds more dramatic than “argumentative little jerk”. I'd like to take this opportunity to formally and publicly apologize to my mom for the years 1983-1989 when I was between the ages of 16 to 22. Sorry mom, I'm much better now (depending on who you ask).

Biography

Marylyn Orr is the co author of the paper Stature Variation Among Civil War Soldiers. which was published in the Smithsonian Newsletter of the African American Archaeological Network titled African American Archaeology, Spring 1991. She has worked as a physical Anthropologist for the Ohio Historical Society, and The Ohio Department of Transportation. She has also worked on two excavation projects overseas for the Ohio State University: Atheniou Archaeological Project (Mallora), Cyprus, 1992 field season, and Excavations at Isthmia—Sanctuary of Poseidon Project, Greece 1993 field season, doing field work and artifact analysis. She is currently a Fellow of the Explorers Club.

She has worked as a beautician, a secretary (when she types it sounds like machine gun fire), and a paralegal. She has painted, acted, and advocated for historical preservation of buildings in Ohio. She is the mother of two boys, Keith and Charlie Orr; and grandmother of three unbelievably beautiful grandchildren, Kaleb, Carlie, and Kelsey Orr.

Next week: Neil Gaiman... week

Nick Abadzis

Introduction

If you’ve visited this blog before, you know that the covers displayed here are usually based on hypothetical flap copy provided by the writer. And if you saw last weeks entry, you know that I’m prone to break my own rules. It’s in this spirit that I present this week’s entry—The Korolev Trilogy by Nick Abadzis. Rather than provide flap copy, Abadzis wrote a peek behind the curtain of the creative process of developing his award winning 2007 graphic novel Laika. 

 

The Korolev Trilogy are the books that could have been if one of its main characters, Laika, hadn’t taken over the narrative.

A mainstay in England’s comics scene, Abadzis established himself in the late 1980’s with his well-loved story, Hugo Tate, which ran serialized in the magazine Deadline. With Laika, Abadzis had something of a breakthrough. It has been translated into 9 languages and garnered 3 international awards. It’s a book that showcases his talents as a visual storyteller. Abadzis strikes the perfect balance between text and image and reminds the viewer how and why comics work differently than prose or film.

 

Laika is the story of the first earthling to escape Earth’s gravity—a little dog. In the book we follow Laika as she moves through 1950’s Soviet life until fate brings her to the fledgling Russian space program. Its subject is epic, and Abadzis’ precise, and skillful telling of it makes Laika and her journey come to life for the reader.

Laika is available at many fine book stores, and comic shops, and also  here. I recommend you pick up a copy and immerse yourself in this wonderful, and ultimately heartbreaking story.
 

This marks the first bilingual Hypothetical Library post. Friend of the Library and former Russian (now American) Masha Rudina has graciously translated Nick’s writing and the text on my covers into Russian. 

Here's Masha (the redhead) in an unattributed cameo in Laika...

 
Take it away comrade Abadzis...

The Korolev Trilogy—The back story, and covers

Laika was originally conceived as a book about Russian cosmonauts. For years I thought it’d be interesting to do something about the Soviet Union’s space program, the two biggest emblems of which were Laika and Yuri Gagarin, respectively the first earthling and man in space. The story of Laika had always caught my imagination as a child: why hadn’t they managed to get her back down? I had no idea why, and began researching the facts behind the mission. I thought it might be good material upon which to base a short strip.

That was when I became fascinated by Korolev, the Russian Chief Designer behind the Soviet Space Program. He almost single-handedly marshaled the combined abilities of a few small Russian engineering agencies against the might of the USA’s aerospace industry and made it appear that the USSR had far more resources than they actually did.

I began thinking of a graphic narrative that would tell Korolev’s story. If I had gone ahead with my original plan, I’d have created three books. The idea was that scenes from the first book – Laika – would be reiterated from a different point of view, in the second and third books. Yuri Gagarin would be the main focus of the second book, which would tell his life story as the poster boy for the Soviet space effort and his tragic end.

 

 

The third book would tell the life story of the mastermind behind it all, Sergei Korolev, uniting scenes and themes from the first two books. It would cover his early life and inspirations, his incarceration in a gulag during the Stalin purges, his friendships with the various cosmonauts, to his failed attempt to put a Russian on the moon before the Americans did.

Then new information about the circumstances of Laika’s death came to light in 2002 and I focused upon her again. I decided to concentrate on her mission, to do a kind of biography of her, as so many of the themes I’m interested in beyond the Russian Space Program were echoed in her story. I condensed a lot of the ideas I had down and made them into one book. But Charlie Orr has here provided an intriguing glimpse into what might have been had I followed that original idea.

Королев: Трилогия – история создания и обложка

Лайка была первоначально задумана как книга о российских космонавтах. Много лет я думал о том, что было бы интересно создать что–то об истории Советской Космической программы и её символах – Лайке и Юрии Гагарине, первом живом существе и первом человеке в космосе. Меня с детства увлекла история Лайки: почему же они не смогли вернуть её обратно на землю? Я понятия не имел почему,  и начал исследовать историю этого проекта. Мне показалось, что из этой истории может получиться хороший корткий комикс.

Именно тогда я увлекся фигурой Королева, Генерального Конструктора Советской Космической Программы. Он смог собственноручно объединить способности нескольких небольших конструкторских агенств и противостоять всей космической промышленности США,  создав иллюзию того что у СССР было гораздо больше ресурсов чем на самом деле.

Я начал думать о том как передать историю Королева через графический рассказ. Первоначально, я планировал сделать три отдельные книги. Идея состояла в том что сцены из первой книги – Лайка  будут рассказаны с разной точки зрения во второй и третьих книгах. Юрий Гагарин был бы главным героем второй книги, которая поведал бы о нем как о символе успехов Советской Космической программы и о его трагическом конце.

 

 

Третья книга описала бы историю жизни человека благодоря которому увидели свет все упомянутые ранее события, Сергея Королева, используя сцены и темы из первых двух книг. Она рассказала бы о его молодости, о годах проведенных в Сталинских лагерях, о его дружбе с космонавтами, и о неудачной попытке первым послать человека на луну.

В 2002 году были расскрыты новые детали смерти Лайки, и я снова сосредоточился на ней.  Я решил сконцентрироваться на её миссии, сделать что–то типа ее биографии, так как в этой истории переплелось так много того, что интересует меня за гранью Советской Космической Программы. Я уплотнил много идей и превратил их в одну книгу. Но Чарли Орр дал возможность заглянуть в то, что могло бы произойти, если бы я последовал своей первоночальной идее.