Q: Can you give us some details on 'Neverland', what it's about, when it will be airing? Living in America it'll probably be some time before I'll get a chance to see it.

NEIL: True First of all it's called 'Neverwhere' and it's a television series, 6 parts, about a world underneath London, the idea being that there's two Londons. The one where everybody gets to live and the London in the cracks, for the people who fall through the cracks. And a result of which, I spent the last 8 weeks in England doing fun things like picking out a director.

Writers in English TV have power, it's nothing like America in that respect. I commented on this at one point to my director from the BBC. He said "Well you have to understand official BBC policy, is that we're paying you fuck all so you might as well get artistic satisfaction." And it's wonderful. I got to spend time doing things like... it's really exciting going through the sewers in London, abandoned underground stations and things.

Let's see, we're shooting in February & March, it'll be out in England sometime in Octoberr 1996 and in England it'll be going out in the sort of cult TV spot. The place they did Absolutely Fabulous, Red Dwarf, Hitchhiker, Monty Python, things like that. How I think you'll probably get to see it in America, I have no idea how, or when. I mean the odds are all of you will get to see it 'cause you'll buy bootleg copies of the video from your friends. Where people who aren't you will see it eventually it will show up, I assume, on HBO, the Sci-Fi channel or on PBS or somewhere. But if any of you have English friends... or if any of you don't have English friends start making them.

Q: Have any artists ever surprised you in drawing a comic, by putting in something you didn't tell them to do but was perfect for the story?

NEIL: Rarely in a comic, but occasionally on covers. Dave McKean has done it for me. I remember when I did "The Sound of Her Wings"--Sandman #8-- I'd been talking to Dave about death and he'd done this painting and I phoned him up and said "Dave, Dave, if it isn't too late can you put some wings on her, cause I've called this thing "The Sound of Her Wings," even though she doesn't have any wings and I thought some sort of ghosty wings in the background would be really good. And he said "Sorry, I've done it," and I said "Oh Well" and he said "but it's OK 'cause I put wings on her."

Q: What is your favorite issue of Sandman and why?

NEIL: Normally the answer on that is something like, well it's the next one to write, but right now I'm three quarters through writing the last one, ummmm. [laughter, followed by noises of disgruntlement] You don't want it to go on forever, no you don't, it would get sad. One of my favorites right now is Sandman #74, just cause it's one I never would have done anywhere else in the run. It's an old Chinese poem that I made up, drawn by J. Muth in this wonderful sort of calligraphic style that he made up and it's the kind of pretentious arty crap that you're only allowed to do once, and you're only allowed to do it right at the very end, cause it's like if you don't like it, what are you going to do? Not buy #75? You know, so.

Q: What question have you always wanted someone to ask you and nobody ever has?

NEIL: I don't know, would you like an infinite amount of money?

Q: Are they ever going to make a movie out of "Good Omens" or a really bad Sandman movie?

NEIL: Funny you should ask me that, the last time I was asked about that in public, I said I'd seen the script, the first draft script of the Sandman movie, which is sort of generally being made, and that it was interesting and Warners saw it too, and thought it was interesting in ways that I didn't think it was interesting, and then they had the writers rewrite it to make it a rock 'em sock 'em love story with a sympathetic lead character. Now they've decided they don't want that script at all, but interesting things are happening in the world of Sandman films, and I can say nothing more than that.

Q: Have you sold the TV movie rights to Sandman?

NEIL: No I haven't, DC has, they owned them.

Q: If not would your agent like to speak with mine about me writing a feature film?

NEIL: Go and talk to Warner's, I think they may need some screenwriters. [Neil notes: At that time Warner's had just decided they didn't like the script for the Sandman film they had. Now they have decided they do like it again, because they got a director who liked it -- Roger Avary.]

Q: In a college freshmen's English class (I teach such), which of your books could you see being taught successfully and why?

NEIL: All of them, most of them, and why - because they're readable. I don't know, try Mr. Punch, I love the idea of teaching Snowglass Apples.

Q: What was your childhood like, what were you like?

NEIL: I was a kid with a book, that's really what I was. I was one of the kids who had a book in my pocket, people would kick me under the table and tell me "Neil, people are eating." That was the kind of kid I was.

Q: I hear that Tori Amos is your third child's godmother [NEIL: It's true], how you did you and Tori become friends?

NEIL: She sent me a tape in 1990 - 1991 cause she'd sung about me in one of the songs and I think she wanted to make sure I wasn't going to sue. And it had an address on it and a phone number so I phoned her up after I listened to it, and people send me--I'm sorry if you've heard this before, but it's true--people give me dreadful tapes, the nicest people. I mean if any of you here have done this, I'm sorry. But people will make up Sandman songs and give me tapes, and it is my Karmic burden that I will listen to them. And very often they will accompany themselves on something like the Euphonium, or you get the Scandinavian death rockers, you know, these lugubrious "Oh, Lord Morpheus, come down from the sky" and "bring your Sister Death because she's cute."

So one day I got this tape, and I played it, and with the Scandinavian death rock and stuff, what would tend to happen is I'd put them on in the car and I'd play a track, and as if by magic, these things would become blank tapes and I would use them for other things. And Tori's one I put on, I listened to the first track, I listened to the second track, I drove around for two or three days just playing it, I found the number, I phoned her up, and I said "This is really good, you should go professional." And she, to her credit, she was not insulted. She said "Actually it is coming out, from Atlantic, in six months and it'll be called Little Earthquakes" and I said, there you see. Which is good because I was going to recommend she start doing Bar Mitzvahs and weddings and that, no I'm lying.

Q: Do I see her often?

NEIL: No, I see her about three or four times a year in strange places. I bumped into her in Stockholm, odd places like that, and I did see her about 10 days ago, in a tiny farmhouse in England, and it was the day the clocks went back in England, cause they go back about a week earlier than they do here. And it was something because the clocks went back--there's no other explanation for it because I'm not really completely scatterbrained--but I did manage to go out to this tiny little town, about 80 or 90 miles outside of London, and when I got to the town, and I got off the train, I realized that the piece of paper with the address and phone number of the studio was on the table where I'd left it in the flat. You know it was really interesting, I discovered that if you cry at operators, they give you numbers that they're not ... "I'm sorry, I'm not authorized to give you that number" PLEASE!!!!! "Well, I'm really not authorized but here it is" and I got the number and I went out to see her.

Q: Do you ever find yourself disturbed by some of the things you think of?

NEIL: I like that question. No, not really, I can ... you have to understand, I'm a wuss. I'm not just a wuss, I'm really squeamish. I'm useless at this stuff until I get interested. The point that I think it could really be a story, I could be there checking out livers with the best of them. And it's the same with disturbing ideas, they're very rarely disturbing when I actually think they should be part of a story. They go down with such enthusiasm, later sometimes I find them disturbing.

The CD, which I did, which is called "Warning: Contains Language"--and you are and it does--I was playing it to a BBC producer, for whom myself and Dave McKean are going to be doing an adaptation of "A Signal to Noise" as a radio play, probably starring John Hurt, which you may get a chance to get over here, because they'll probably market it as a CD, if not a CD/Rom. I was playing that to her and suddenly I got to hear "Babycakes," which I'd written completely blithely, and I'm suddenly listening to a story about cutting up babies and going "What kind of sick mind..."

Q: Do you need to research the mythological information in your work or do just have a vast storehouse of info in your brain.

NEIL: I just have vast storehouse of info in my brain.

Q: How come you're such a mutant?

NEIL: Because I have a vast storehouse of information in my brain.