OK, originally, this is a blog posting, so apologies for the length of this, but I really wanted to thank all the Gaiman fans who turned up in Singapore, for the reasons below, and this is the best place to do it.

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I must admit, I am not a rabid Gaiman fan. I am a rabid Terry Pratchett fan, and I have a copy of Good Omens (among other things) which I had him sign while stalking him unremittingly through the city of Melbourne in 1998 during his Lost Continent tour. (He was a terribly jolly fellow in spite of the tremendous amount of signing he was doing - sort of like a medium-sized honey bear in a straw hat who watched too much Monty Python growing up...) I always had the vague impression that one day I might run into Neil Gaiman, and he could finish the job.

Eight years later, lo! Neil finally arrives. While I was still working for the comics section in Kino over two years ago, there was talk of trying to get him in; Neil actually still remembers the invitation, as he mentioned in his talks over the last coupla days. It was a collaborative effort between Ong Sor Fern, Kino's comics section (being, at the time, myself, Sean, and Kenny Chan our boss), Lim Cheng Tju the local comic guru, and Winnie of Pagesetters Books. It fell through miserably - because everybody who mattered, but had no clue, thought HIS FOLLOWING WASN'T BIG ENOUGH.

While I was starting in the comics section in Kino over five years ago (six now), I got myself and the store into all sorts of trouble battling with the Censorship Board over Sandman, Sin City, Transmetropolitan, Preacher, Hellblazer, Watchmen, V for Vendetta - oh, hell, you name it, MITA rejected it. All comics fans know that, even then, all of these comics were being sold by comics stores; MITA gently closed an eye to them. But a big store like Kino with a family target market...? I still remember arguing with them, and getting in response the 200-page 'Censorship Guidelines' in response.

You may be interested to know that, officially, Sandman and the rest ARE STILL NOT BEING SOLD LEGALLY. Strictly speaking, they STILL flout those damned censorship rules which have never been amended. The reason why comics cannot have naked boobies, naked dingdongs, and graphic blood-n-guts emerging from anything roughly humanoid (this is actually a regulation - if it's bleeding copiously, and it looks human, it's banned. A robot or alien, however, can bleed all over the page and passes muster) is this - COMICS FALL UNDER THE CATEGORY OF CHILDREN'S FICTION.

I argued that these comics are clearly targeted at adults. They said No. I said Seriously. They said No.

I had already been warned by management not to try doing silly things like fighting the government or starting a petition.

I pulled the comics from the shelf and issued the following sign:

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THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND THE ARTS HAS SEEN IT FIT TO WITHDRAW THE FOLLOWING COMICS FROM SALE DUE TO CENSORSHIP RULES:

(here followed a list of nearly 250 titles, including all the Sandmans and their spin-offs, all the Books of Magic, all of Sin City, all of Transmetropolitan, all of Preacher, all of Hellblazer, everything by Alan Moore except Top Ten, Authority because of the gay superheroes, all of Linser's Dawn series, all of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, all of Poison Elves, all of Crow, all of... well, you get the picture. This list did not come from MITA. I compiled it on my own, using their ridiculous Censorship Guidelines.)

KINOKUNIYA APOLOGISES FOR THE INCONVENIENCE CAUSED TO OUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND CLARIFICATION PLEASE CONTACT THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND THE ARTS.

followed by the names of ALL the MITA officials I had dealt with, their direct telephone numbers, and the MITA address. I left the sign up in a discreet place for nearly two weeks till management caught sight of it. I took it down.
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By then, MITA had received a bombardment of letters, calls, complaints, and very angry comics fans. A sympathetic insider told me the complaints numbered well into the hundreds. (You'll never hear MITA acknowledge it, my friend, so don't hold your breath.) The calls continued long after I took down the sign, because everytime a fan asked for Sandman or Preacher or whatever, I gave them a wry smile, and told them the same thing I'd written in the sign - abbreviated, naturally.

By the way, everybody in Singapore who put in your letters, calls, and general complaints four years ago: THANK YOU!!

MITA called Kino, angrily demanding what's up. The merchandiser at the time, Ken Ito (Kenny Chan had not yet joined us) said: "You were the ones who told us to withdraw the titles. You handle the consequences."

After a while, I sold the titles in small amounts, in hidden low shelves, for a year or two. When Kenny Chan took over as store director, as a comics fan and longtime book industry fellow, he persuaded MITA to let Kino handle its own censorship. Sandman et al were moved to Conditional Release status, which means they can be sold, but must be wrapped up and cannot be casually browsed. That's why they all have those stickers and all that security tape on them. From the moment those comics became a legal fixture in the store, the comics section exploded into one of the biggest moneyspinners in the place. It became sooo huge that smaller comics stores around the area started dying off, because Kino could afford to bring the damn things in such enormous bulk orders that the prices went way down. If you ask me to estimate, Neil Gaiman alone is responsible for a good quarter million dollars a year to Kinokuniya. Maybe more. (I hope you're getting your cut, Neil.)

After all that, when I finally saw Neil Gaiman walk into Kino on Tuesday, I felt an enormous surge of pride. I played my part for five years in proving people wrong about him - in proving that adult comics had a huge market here, that comic books did not deserve to be relegated to 'children's fiction', that Gaiman himself had a following greater than anybody who was not a comics fan could possibly imagine. Even now, he's underestimated - the British Council thought half an hour per signing session would be enough. If you read his journal on http://www.neilgaiman.com, you'll notice he patiently signed for an average of nine hours at each session. The only reason the lines even ended was because each venue closed them down after a certain time or he would never have made it to bed.

Though I was never his greatest fan, and my only reason for being there was for him to complete my half-autographed Good Omens, shaking his hand was still a moment to rejoice in. Watching the queues snake round Wheelock Place and spill out of Cineleisure were moments to rejoice in. Seeing the silly cosplayers and nervous trembling fans half-weeping when he grinned at them - all moments to rejoice in. My kid brother actually ended up as a part-timer for Brit Council throughout the whole event - his look of amazement when told their original schedule consisted of half-hour signings - even that was a moment of happiness!

So - thank you, Neil Gaiman, for coming here, for being so extremely nice, for noticing that a country the circumference of a minor marathon route managed to score the fifth highest postings on your website, and for giving me and the colleagues who got themselves burned along with me the sheer unmitigated joy of screaming to the world in general, and the Censorship Board of Singapore in particular:

"I TOLD YOU SO!!!"

I am horrifically glad you did all that - that's pretty bloody amazing and I feel profoundly indebted to you for contributing to the movement and bringing him here.

I don't understand why the events were so badly mismangaged what with Neil Gaiman being so big he's almost mainstream, but all the same I'm experiencing pretty major withdrawals.

How did your brother come to part-time for the events? I would have given my right arm to be in that kind of proximity.