Neil Gaiman’s “Last Angel” tour

Originally published November 10, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1408

The worshipers sat in respectful, anticipatory silence in New York’s St. Marks church, waiting for His arrival.

Usually when the faithful attend the church, they have to settle for communication with He Whom They Worship to be within the confines of the heart, or the mind, or the soul. People don’t go to church expecting that there’s actually going to be a visitation from the Divine One. That he’s simply going to materialize before them, smile boyishly, say, “Hi, how you doing?” and proceed to chat them up for the next few hours. At least, I don’t think a lot of people expect that. Maybe a few. Hëll, maybe all of them. I’m Jewish. I know from latkes and the lyrics to all the songs from “Fiddler.” From Christian church services, I know zip.

With that said, there was nevertheless a thrill of anticipation in the air that was (by my guess) atypical for church gatherings. The lights went down, all eyes on the stage. Light shone on the pulpit. The wait stretched over minutes. Nothing happened. The folks in the crowd began to laugh or talk to each other. One idiot started chanting under his breath “Let’s go, Mets” (hey, I had to keep myself amused somehow.)

People started guessing that a sensational entrance was being planned and had momentarily misfired. “Maybe he’s going to be raised up on a platform behind the podium…” one person speculated. “No, he’ll be lowered down by ropes from the balcony,” guessed another.

Nothing quite so dramatic. Nevertheless, there was a healthy cheer splitting the air as the evening’s featured (and only) attraction, Neil Gaiman, walked up the central aisle and up to the podium. “Sorry, I was going to come in this way,” he said, pointing to a side entrance, “but someone locked all the doors between the back and here so we couldn’t get to it.”

Anyone reading this who doesn’t know who Neil Gaiman is… well, hëll, why are you even reading CBG if you don’t know who Neil Gaiman is?

The St. Marks Church was the New York stop in Neil’s “Last Angel” reading tour. For some years now, Neil has gone around the country doing readings from his work (usually called the “Guardian Angel” tours), the benefits from which go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization defending the First Amendment rights of the comic book community. Neil has either done seven such tours or eight such tours, depending upon whether you believe the signed promotional poster or the program handed out to everyone coming to the reading. Personally I’d believe the poster, because I paid twenty-five bucks for the poster at the CBLDF souvenir table, while the program was free, and this being America, money automatically makes it right.

This was the midpoint of the reading tour, with the last appearance slated for Los Angeles on October 26. After that, Neil is slated to retire such reading gigs, which he likens to running a marathon (although he has not, to my knowledge, done any readings dressed in t-shirt, shorts, and with a large number stuck on his back.) Then again, Streisand and Sinatra both had farewell tours and then came back, right? So maybe Neil will change his mind. In the event that he doesn’t, though, and you’re not able to catch his act live, the New York appearance was taped for audio release, so at least you’ll be able to get some of the flavor of a Neil Gaiman reading at a future date.

Whether it was because the reading was being taped, or because the New York crowd was so pumped to see his performance, or whether he’s just being professional, or whether everyone there was just jazzed to be in a place where—for a few hours at least—none of us would have to hear that dámņëd “Who Let the Dogs Out?” song (which we should all be well and truly sick of by the end of the World Series)… for whatever reason, Neil was in fine form.

His first selection was a short story written some years ago (the title of which I regret I didn’t catch) that’s something of an oddity. It details the adventures of a beleaguered American tourist who stupidly relies on a guide book to take him on a walking tour of the English coast. It’s certainly something I can relate to, because I tried to do the same thing in Scotland when I was bopping around Loch Lomond. After becoming increasingly frustrated in being unable to find roads to get where I wanted to go, I showed the book to a woman running a local tourist shop. She flipped through it, laughed derisively, and said, “In order to follow this, ye’d have t’be the Savior. This book’s got ye visiting towns one after the other that are located on opposite sides of the Loch, so unless ye can walk on water, it’s useless.” So take all such guide books with a sizable grain of salt.

In Neil’s tale, however, the misplaced American stumbles into a small town called Innsmouth which just happens to be (according to the locals) the place upon which writer H.P. Lovecraft (or, as he’s referred to with indignation, “H-Bloody-P-Bloody-Love-Bloody-Craft”) based his tales of C’thulu, all without so much as a by-our-leave to the inhabitants. And the tourist discovers that Lovecraft wasn’t exaggerating. It’s a curious little tale which Neil stated he wrote because “it seemed like a good idea at the time” (an assertion Harlan Ellison claims is at the root of every excuse and rationalization in the whole of human history. “Why were you speeding?” “Why did you launch the Inquisition?” It seemed like a good idea at the time.) I doubt the story would be nearly as effective without Neil doing the reading, because you really have to be able to hear the Brit accents to make it work properly.

Next up was Neil’s Christmas card. Envious of the artistic talent displayed in the cards he’d receive from comic artists every year, Neil opted one year to send out a Christmas card with a one hundred word original story on it. When word of it spread, he was getting calls as late as the following April from folks asking to hear the very short, but depressingly hilarious, tale of the poor, tormented soul known as Saint Nick. Following that, in deference to the fact that a young person in the audience was celebrating their eighth birthday, Neil read the text of his next children’s book. And for my money, this one—entitled Wolves in the Walls, and currently being illustrated by Dave McKean for release next year—is even better than his previous juvenile endeavor, The Day I Swapped My Dad for 2 Goldfish. But just remember, when the Wolves come out of the walls… it’s all over.

After finishing with a story entitled “Instructions” which was taken from a short story collection of fairy tales aimed at kids which were retold for adults (a number of which were then put into another collection which was aimed at kids; I don’t know what’s up with that) there was a twenty minute intermission, during which questions from the audience which had been written on cards were collected. Upon Neil’s return, he endeavored to answer as many as he could. The stack of cards was two inches thick, and if that doesn’t sound like a lot, go stack up two inches of index cards. A couple of the questions were along the lines of “Would you have sex with me just for fun?” and “Do you need a love slave?” Neil simply smiled, not answering those queries (or perhaps the smile was the answer.) Several of them resulted in interesting updates to Neil’s career, including that Terry Gilliam is signed on to direct a movie version of Good Omens and that, after lengthy delays, Neil is now 39 pages into the script for the “Death” movie. The question that most amused me was, “Are you ever afraid of your fans?” To which Neil replied, “My fans are very sweet people. Clive Barker has fans who will come up to him and say things like, ‘Here. I’ve slashed open my arm. Would you autograph it in the blood?’ Mine come up to me and say things like, ‘Here, I made this card for you.’ And I’ll say ‘Thank you.’ And they’ll say, ‘Can I have a hug?’ That sort of thing.”

He then read a poem called “Blueberry Girl” which was written at the request of singer Tori Amos to celebrate the birth of her daughter. I would not be the least bit surprised if it shows up set to music on her next album. And then he finished out the evening with a short story from his upcoming, recently completed novel, American Gods—a book that endeavors to have the best of both worlds by employing a running narrative that takes breaks for short story inserts. The one he selected for this reading was, appropriately, set in New York, involving a taxi-driving Djinn, and it is by turns funny, heart-wrenching, and startling (“a knee-to-the-crotch story,” as Neil later described it.)

The evening ran until eleven o’clock, and although the audience left happy and satisfied, I suspect they could just as easily have been there until dawn. So if you do have a chance to catch Neil doing one of his performances, either at one of the upcoming venues or at a convention or even at an eighth or ninth (depending) “Resurrection Angel” tour, by all means, do so. Potential love slaves need not apply.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, wants to remind readers that in regards to the World Series (which is probably over by the time you read this) that it’s not whether you win or lose… it’s whether the Mets win or lose.)