At this weekend’s 2012 World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago (a.k.a. Chicon 7), Neil Gaiman was awarded the coveted Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). It seems he wrote an episode of Doctor Who last season you might have heard about – “The Doctor’s Wife.”
In his acceptance speech, the Britisher-turned-Minnesotan let slip the fact that if just so happens he’s writing another episode of Doctor Who for the latter half of this season, to be broadcast sometime in 2013; presumably well before the 50th anniversary celebrations.
Well, one good turn deserves another. And congratulations, Neil, on the Hugo!
(Thanks and a tip of the Golddome to RedEye Chicago, to our pals at Bleeding Cool for the pic, and to our own Glenn Hauman for being at the festivities.)
One of the hardest questions for me to answer begins with the phrase “What is your favorite…?”
My Top 10 movie list has over 100 movies on it. My Top 10 television shows list must first be categorized: is it fair to compare Rocky and Bullwinkle to The Prisoner? Well, maybe that’s a bad example, but I think you get my point. If you were to ask me to name my favorite musician, I’d go into a fugue state and you’d get scared and leave.
There is one exception. If you were to ask me who my favorite comics creator is – and you were to ask me this question at any time in the past half-century – I would immediately and firmly respond “Joe Kubert.”
As we reported, Joe died Sunday evening. It was one of those moments when time… simply… stopped. For the past decade I’ve been in amazement that Joe was still giving us a graphic novel and a mini-series or special or something every year. Jeez, if I make it to 85 (and I’m nowhere in as good a shape as Joe was) I’m planning on lying there bitching until somebody changes my Depends. Joe was still at it, producing great stuff.
I was fortunate to know both Joe and his wife Muriel (predeceased by four years); Muriel knew the depths of my affection for her husband’s work, Joe knew it as well and was quite gracious but, as to be expected from an artist of his caliber, I could tell he wasn’t connecting with my praise for something he had finished months ago. He already was on to the next thing. Or maybe the one after that.
When I first started working at DC Comics back in 1976, my office was two doors down from Julius Schwartz. Denny O’Neil had the office next to me. Joe Orlando – Joe Orlando! – was a few doors down from that. And, three days a week, there was Joe Kubert. The best of the best.
I was a 26 year-old fanboy and if I wasn’t breathing I would have thought I had gone to heaven.
Kubert had been my favorite comics creator since the day my mother bought me Brave and the Bold #34, cover-dated February-March 1961. It featured the debut of the silver age Hawkman. We were getting on Chicago’s L, headed towards the Loop for my first visit to the eye doctor. I was anxious to read the comic; it looked really cool. Exciting. Different. And new superheroes were few and far between in those days of buggy whips and gas lamps.
Of course, my eye doctor did what eye doctors do: she put those serious drops in my eyes and everything got all blurry and then she exiled me to the outer office while my pupils dilated to the size of manhole covers. I was told to sit there quietly for an hour. I was ten years old; the concept of “sitting quietly” was well beyond my understanding. Certainly, not with that awesome-looking comic book on my lap.
I tried to read it. My mother started to scream about how I’d permanently ruin my eyes. She was supportive of my reading comics, she just had odd theories about how I’d go blind. Being me, I continued to try to read the Hawkman debut but now more defiantly, with purpose and determination – despite the fact that each panel was more blurry than the previous. I went through that book several times, trying my damnedest to understand it. To see it.
The book was astonishingly great – a tribute to writer Gardner Fox and editor Julie Schwartz as well as to Joe. After I finally read the comic in focus, it was clear to me that it was worth all the effort. That’s probably what made me a Joe Kubert fan.
By 1976 I had learned first-hand that a lot of the public figures I admired weren’t really worthy of such tribute on a personal level; if you were going to meet a lot of celebrities, you had to learn how to divorce yourself from the person and remain married to that person’s work. This is a lot less the case in the comics field, I’m happy to report.
And it most certainly was not the case with Joe Kubert. We could be diametrically opposed on certain political and social issues, and we were, but it didn’t matter one bit. Part of that came from Joe’s upbringing in the Talmudic arts where discussion and debate is encouraged and honored. But most of that came from Joe’s simply being a great, great guy.
That’s what I have to say about Joe Kubert. He was a great, great guy.
The late great newspaper columnist, Mike Royko, once observed of the Chicago city council (I’m paraphrasing), “I never said it was the most politically corrupt council in the world; I said it was the most theatrically politically corrupt council in the world.” There is an inherent theatricality and drama in politics; more so in an election year and a lot more so this election year.
It can also make for good television. Or not, depending on the show. Let’s look at three that are running this summer.
The first is the six episode Political Animals on USA on Sundays at 10 PM. It stars Sigourney Weaver and has a pretty stellar cast, including Ellen Burstyn, Carla Gugino, Vanessa Redgrave and Ciaran Hinds. Weaver plays a (very) Hillary Clinton-esque character, once married to a philandering Southern president (Hinds), then a failed candidate for her party’s presidential candidate, and then Secretary of State to the guy who beat her. She also has two sons: one a hard working straight arrow who is also her chief aide and the other a gay man with lots of problems including substance abuse.
I was really looking forward to this one and now I don’t know if I’ll finish watching the series. It’s more soap opera than anything else and relies too much on the Clinton comparisons to the point of making it predictable. Ciaran Hinds is a wonderful actor (as seen in the wonderful Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and many other films) but he’s a caricature in this as Weaver’s Bill Clinton-esque husband. He’s more buffoon than anything else and makes Weaver’s character look stupid by her constant return to him.
There’s also stupid plot twists. Weaver’s character, Elaine Barrish Hammond, has decided to run again for president against her boss, the sitting president. That’s never worked for any candidate and she would know that (in fact, it’s pointed out to her in the show); she would become persona-non-grata within her own party and this character is supposed to be politically astute. And I can’t fathom the reason she would do it.
Also, it’s her gay son who has all the emotional problems and drug abuse and that’s so stereotyped. It would have been a lot more interesting if the gay son was the top aide and the straight son who had the emotional problems but that’s not the choice they made.
If I was Hillary Clinton, I’d sue.
Over on HBO, The Newsroom is on the same day and time and it’s Aaron Sorkin’s latest foray into television and it has all of Sorkin’s strengths and weaknesses. Whether you like it or not may be determined by whether or not you like Sorkin; I do so I’m enjoying myself.
The series is set in the newsroom (fancy that) of a nightly news hour show set on a mythical cable news network. Jeff Daniels (who I have long enjoyed as an actor) plays the starring role of Will McAvoy, the anchor who had been coasting too long until he answers a question honestly on a panel. His boss, Charlie Skinner (played by Sam Waterston who is plainly having a good time with this part) brings in McAvoy’s former girlfriend (and lost love), MacKenzie MacHale (played by Emily Mortimer) as McAvoy’s new producer and she shakes him up to the point where he becomes Keith Olbermann (sorta). I should also mention that the head of the network is played by Jane Fonda, the former Mrs. Ted Turner, who is also having too much fun.
Cannily, the show is set in the recent past (within the past two years approximately) that allows Sorkin to comment with a perspective of time passed. He has described it as a “political fantasy” enabling him to show how he wished things had been reported. Yes, that allows him to preach but, in general, his politics and mine coincide so I enjoy it.
I do have my problems with the show. Too many of the female characters get addled in ways that their male counterparts don’t. The exception appears to be Jane Fonda’s character thus far, but we’ll see. From what I’ve read, Sorkin had a traumatic break-up with a girlfriend and it appears to be factoring into a lot of his work. For me, the plusses far outweigh the minuses on this show. It’s been renewed for a second season and I’ll be there.
In passing, I’ll mention Boss on Starz, featuring Kelsey Grammar as the mayor of Chicago. You would think this would be a natural for me, Chicago boy that I am and raised during the era of the first Mayor Daley. I bailed after a few episodes. Too sudsy.
My last selection is Suits which is in its second season on USA Thursday nights at 10 PM. It stars Gabriel Macht, Patrick J. Adams, Rick Hoffman and the spectacular Gina Torres, who you’ll remember from Firefly. This is less about the world of politics and much more about office politics as practiced in a high-level law firm. I think someone once said ”All politics are personal” and this is very much the case here.
Patrick J. Adams plays Mike Ross, a brilliant college dropout who winds up working for Harvey Specter (Macht) even though he doesn’t have a law degree, a fact that both of them conceal – which is illegal and, if it got out, would do serious damage to the firm. The office, sexual, and romantic politics are all high level and so is the writing and the performances. Of the three series I mentioned here, this is far and away my favorite. The characters, all of them, are a mixture of faults and virtues. This is not a bunch of people I would have thought I would ever identify with but I wouldn’t miss a single episode.
Oh, and there’s also Donna, Harvey’s redheaded secretary, played with élan and brio by Sarah Rafferty. She’s hot, she’s brainy, she’s sharp with a line and it’s worth tuning in just to see her. All the female characters are really strong, especially Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson, the managing partner of the firm who is beautiful, smart, and sometimes utterly ruthless and scary.
So you can vote with your remote and, as we say in Chicago, remember to vote early and often.
I am a fan of Max Collins’ historical detective series, the Nathan Heller mysteries. From the 1940s through the 60s, each book has taken Heller on an incredible journey connecting him with many of the most celebrated criminal cases of the twentieth century. Now comes this collection of three Heller novellas, each a delicious reading gem and worthy addition to the Heller canon.
What is even more entertaining is Collins’ introductory essay on the matter of the short literary form itself. What is the difference between a novella and novelette? Or are they the same thing and is that best described as a long short story or a short novel? The fun of the essay is his insightful comprehension that the form is the product of the classic pulp tales of the 1930s and 40s. It is evident that short novels were born in the pulp magazines and have sadly morphed in an awkward, literary white elephant in this age of bloated, fat thriller novels. Collins details the history of each of the three pieces in this volume, collected here for the very first time, and how length did factor into the writing of each.
First up is “Dying in the Post-War World,” my personal favorite of the three and by far the most convoluted and gruesome. The story centers on the infamous Lipstick Killer case of 1946 where a young girl was kidnapped from her home, murdered and dismembered. A veteran of the World War Two, Heller is trying to fit into this supposedly brighter new tomorrow with a new business and a pregnant wife. Along comes this brutal case and he’s left wondering what kind of a world it truly is he and his fellow soldiers fought to persevere.
“Kisses of Death,” is an interesting entry in that it gives us Heller’s first meeting with Marilyn Monroe and their burgeoning relationship which is later explored in his recent novel, “Bye Bye Baby.” It also has Heller working in New York City, Mickey Spillane’s old stomping grounds. The tale also peeks in to the life of Chicago journalist turned screenwriter Ben Hecht is another winner.
Finally comes “Strike Zone,” about one of the most bizarre moments in professional baseball which this reviewer, a fan of the game, had never heard before. It caused me to spend a few hours on-line checking out the histories of several of these characters who participated in a madcap publicity stunt concerning the most unusual pinch hitter to ever step up to home plate in a Major League contest.
If like me, you’re a Nathan Heller fan, then you have to pick this up. If you are one of those yet to have encountered Collins’ pragmatic, world-weary hero then we can’t think of a better way to make that introduction. “Triple Play,” is very much a grand slam, no matter what your favorite sport is.
It was an interesting party. Held in a Mason lodge, I got to hang out with The Point’s Mike Raub, former ComicMix columnist and book writer and moviemaker Ric Meyers, and Adriane Nash, the one woman condemned to be both a ComicMixer and an employee of arrogantMGMS. And a whole bunch of old friends, about 72 of which used to be in the comic book retail business.
It’s not that I would be friendless if not for the comics racket. Since I spend a healthy amount of time in politics, social services, broadcasting and more dubious endeavors, I know a few folks who couldn’t tell the several dozen current Spider-Men apart – and politely couldn’t care less. They humor me nonetheless.
But it is safe to say most of my enduring friendships are comics-related. I’ve known Mr. Raub for, damn, three-dozen years. Glenn Hauman and I met when he was a “small” child hiding in DC’s darkroom, back when the Earth was still cooling. John Ostrander and I have been buddies since before Watergate; we met through Chicago theater connections and were both herded into a corner at a party in those ancient days because, as comics fans, we “had something to talk about.” Ah, those days when geeks were treated like… geeks.
The list goes on and on. I’ve had the privilege and honor to work with my friends and that has worked out wonderfully more than 99% of the time. There are maybe only two or three people I regret working with – I’ve mended fences with others; creative egos are a mixed blessing and I’ve got one that’s louder than a Sousa march. There’s only one person in comics I actually wish to murder; I’ve spent less time and energy in broadcasting and that list is both longer and older.
So this comics donut shop, to paraphrase Chico Escuela, has been berra berra good… to me.
I’m all backward-looking because this Saturday is my birthday – I turn real, real old; I mean, Mel Brooks old – and seeing all these old friends in one room was a heady event.
Despite its massive expansion (says the man who refers to the San Diego convention as the “black hole of media shows”) and the generational differences and the public’s near-acceptance of geekdom, there remains a closeness in the comics community that, to my experience, is unparalleled elsewhere. Even people who truly hate each other are on a first name basis.
I highly recommend it. This is one hell of a donut shop.
There’s an old maxim that says “God is in the details.” So is a story and especially in comics.
I’ve said and I believe that a good writer can write any character. I don’t have to be African-American to write an African-American character; I don’t have to be female to write a good female character. Gail Simone, for example, writes terrific male characters. So did Kim Yale. Our own Mindy Newell does a terrific job as well with this. What you have to be able to do is have empathy and to understand what is universal – the common humanity. If you don’t connect with your characters, neither will the reader.
All that said, there is a need for what is called the telling detail. Something specific that helps the reader feel the story you’re telling is based in some kind of reality. You can do research and come up with a ton of details but not all of them are necessary for the story. It may be necessary for you as the creator to know them but they’re not necessary for the reader to understand the plot or the characters.
It’s what I call the “iceberg theory.” The bulk of an iceberg is underwater. That bulk is necessary for the part of the iceberg that shows. In the same way, you need to know a lot about the characters, the setting, the story but only a certain percentage of it needs to show. So you select which details help make the story real and convincing to the reader. Those are the telling details.
A writer needs to be able to describe the scene to the artist; likewise, the artist needs to pick the details that he or she will draw. An example is what the character is wearing. That is how the character chooses to present him or herself to the world and that says something. What Peter Parker chooses to wear as Peter Parker says something about him just as what Bruce Wayne wears as Bruce Wayne says something about him. They shop in different places. The look, the texture and the drape of an Armani suit is going to be different than something from Wal-Mart. The reader may not be consciously aware of those changes but, if those details are not there, if everyone dresses the same, the reader is going to pick up on that as well. It will feel false.
What we choose to wear says something about us. You may think that doesn’t include you; many guys – and sometimes I am one of them – will say they just pick what is clean, or cleanest. That, however, does say something about that person and how they wish to be perceived. Do you have a power tie? Do you wear something special when going to meet someone important? What are you projecting about yourself? How do you want to be perceived? It’s true in our lives and so it should be true in our stories as well.
In the past few decades, many people have opted to become walking billboards for a particular brand. It might be a cola company or a sports team or even a comic book character or comic book company (be sure to buy your GrimJack stuff at the ComicMix store, btw – end of shameless plug). By wearing that apparel, we claim a tribal affinity. Stuff like that used to be given out as free advertising; now you have to pay real bucks for them – and sometimes its not cheap – to say you belong. It becomes part of the wearer’s identity. Details like that matter.
When I taught classes at the Joe Kubert School, I tried to make the students think about character design, the costume. It’s not just a matter of what “looks cool” or is easy to draw. The character is telling something about themselves when they choose what they wear. It is a choice they make that says something about themselves and what they are trying to project. At least, they should.
When Jan Duursema, my partner of many Star Wars stories, draws the martial arts fights or sword or lightsaber fights, there is an authority there because Jan herself has studied martial arts, including swordplay. Jan thinks out her locales as well and includes all kinds of information in the background.
When I first met My Mary Mitchell and she showed me her portfolio, I was floored by the amount of telling detail in the panels. Her heroine’s bedroom looked like someone’s bedroom – there were details in the pictures and what the woman hung on the wall that made me think of her as a person. A few panels later, when the woman was walking down the street, there were all kinds of people in the panel, all different body shapes, all wearing different clothes. The clothes reflect what the weather is as well.
Mary also was conscious of the buildings in the background; like any real city, there will be different types of buildings one against another. It gives a visual texture. Too many artists draw a generic background and that makes the story a generic story. Cities are characters in the story; New York is different from Chicago which is different from Memphis or Detroit or Los Angeles or Portland. I’ve been in all those cities and you can tell.
It all matters. The storytelling needs to be universal and, at the same time, it all needs to be specific. It may sound like a contradiction but I’ve found throughout my life that truth lies in the seeming contradictions. God is a contradiction; he/she is in the details and so is the story.
The latest release from New Pulp powerhouse publisher Fight Card is the first sequel in the series!
A year after the pulse-pounding action of Split Decision, Jimmy Wyler is back in Chicago trying to put his life back together. Working a job washing dishes in a late night diner, Jimmy vows to never get into a boxing ring again.
But then, someone needs him. Leo, a teenaged boy who fights hard against the city every day, could use a man like Jimmy. To help save him from his alcoholic father, and to save his only sister from a pimp bent on turning her out.
Jimmy must fight again. Fight for the ones who can?t fight for themselves. It will take him from fistfights in back alleys to no rules bouts with crowds screaming for blood and all the way back to the orphanage where he grew up. Along the way, blood will be spilled and knuckles will be bruised.
More white-knuckle action and epic fights from the Fightcard series.
Praise for Split Decision: It was unpredictable; it put its main protagonist through the ringer; and didn’t take the soft option for the resolution. It’s that kind of story. I finished it in one sitting. It’s that entertaining. Highly recommended.- Permission To Kill
Split Decision is a prime example of the sort of variety and adventurous storytelling we can expect from the Fight Card series, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.- James Reasoner, author of Dust Devils and The Blood Mesa
Split Decision hooked me. Allow enough time to read the whole thing at one sitting, you’re not going to want to put it down.- Mike Faricy, author of Russian Roulette and Finders Keepers
Available now in Paperback on Amazon and as an Ebook for Your Kindle!
As you read this, I will be in Chicago for a reunion of those who were in my theater department at Loyola University back in the Sixties and early Seventies. The Pleistocene Era. I’ve been looking forward to the event; many of these people I literally have not seen in decades. My years at Loyola University’s Theater Department were extremely formative for me and I was gifted with many special teachers while I was there.
One won’t be there – Mary Gavin Crawford. She died a little bit more than a week ago. She, in fact, directed me the first time I ever set foot on stage. I was a sophomore in high school, having left the Catholic seminary in which I had spent my freshman year. I left because I had discovered girls. I mean, I always knew they were here – I had sisters – but there was always a sort “yuck, girls” factor before. The girls had shed the yuck factor and, having discovered girls were not yucky, I – as most teen-age boys my age – was now trying to figure ways of getting closer to them and spent more time with them.
One girl in particular went to Marywood School for Girls and I learned the school was looking for boys to be in their play that year, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. I cajoled my buddy, Rick Rynders, to go with me and that was a pretty good idea since I almost chickened out on the steps of Marywood. We went in because he threatened to thump me if we didn’t; I had made him come all that way and we were going to do this.
We auditioned and we both got cast and it was because of Mary Gavin Crawford – Mrs. Crawford. She was tall, blonde, I think in her forties by then, thin, intelligent, acerbic and she knew her stuff. Keep in mind, I don’t think I’d been in a live theater even to watch a play at that point. So I knew nothing.
On opening night, my family came to see the play and my twin brother, Joe, much to the chagrin of my mother, afterwards said eagerly, “Mom told us to say you were good even if you were bad but you really were good!” I was and it was a revelation to me.
Acting was the first thing, outside of reading books, that I discovered I could do pretty well. I discovered I had a passion for the theater. All the basics of acting I learned from Mrs. Crawford. All the basics of theater, I learned from her. From the theater, I learned so much more – the basics of plot and structure, how dialogue moves the action, how theme is intertwined with story. I’ve never had a writing class; the theater was my writing class.
Putting on a play is also a group effort and I learned the basics of that as well. It’s about collaboration between all the aspects of the production. From all this, I learned life lessons as well. Being in theater opened me up, helped me question things and accept many more answers that I would have otherwise done. It brought me experiences and friends that I still have and still treasure. I would not be the writer I am without the theater because I would not be the person I am without the theater. And I would not have been in the theater without Mary Gavin Crawford.
Kimberly Yale, as you know, was John Ostrander’s wife, and it was John’s beautiful tribute to her in his column WWKL? last week that has inspired me to write about her and our friendship.
Kim and I met over 20 years ago at a Chicago ComicCon when she chaired a Women In Comics panel to which I had been invited. I was a real newbie to the biz, wondering what the hell I was doing there, and completely awed to be meeting the real people behind the names on the splash pages of my favorite comics. So I was incredibly shy – yes, hard to believe, but completely true – when I went into the room where the panel was being held and walked up onto the dais. I didn’t know anyone…or at least, it felt like that. Although I do believe that it was Michael Davis who had promised to come to the panel to cheer me on. Was it you, Michael?
This woman about my age with beautiful red-blonde hair and who just radiated confidence and energy came up to me and said, “Hi, I’m Kim Yale. You must be Mindy Newell. I am so happy to meet you.” I was flabbergasted. “How did you know that?” I said. “Oh, a little birdie told me,” she laughed. (Never did find out who that birdie was.) She introduced me to two of other panelists, Trina Robbins and Joyce Brabner – and they knew who I was, too! We stood talking as conventioneers started filling the room, and I started realizing that I wasn’t such an oddity after all. These were all bright, intelligent women who loved comics just as much as I did!
So the panel started, and we all introduced ourselves, and Kim, as chair, started the discussion with a question that I honestly don’t remember, but my answer was about how Supergirl – the original Supergirl – was such a powerful message for little girls growing up in the 50s, being Superman’s secret weapon and all. After the panel, Kim came over to me and said, “I absolutely loved what you said about Supergirl. I am so glad you’re in this business.”
That was the start of our friendship.
I lived in New Jersey, with the Big Apple outside my windows. Back then Kim and John lived in Chicago. Back before there were cell phones and calling plans, my phone bill zoomed up into the stratosphere with long distance calls to the Second City. I was going through some hard times, and Kim was always there for me, even when it was pushing towards the wee hours. (I’m pretty sure Kim’s bill went up, too.) When Mike Gold recruited Kim for an editor position at DC, she and John moved to Connecticut. Still long distance, but waaaay cheaper than calling Chicago. And, of course, I saw her in the office.
Some things I remember and hold close to my heart:
I was dating a guy who was going to Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island. Kim suggested that we meet at their house for a weekend – which was pretty much at the halfway point – and she and John would vamoose.
Kim and I were doing the Sex And The City thing, just two women sharing lunch and gossip and deep-down secrets at a terrific Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from DC one afternoon when all of a sudden Kim mouthed something to me. I’m a terrible lip reader and I didn’t have a clue what she was saying. “Huh?” I said. She mouthed it again. I said, “What?” again. This time as she mouthed the words, she discretely pointed her finger over my shoulder. The restaurant was loud with lunchtime clients, and I could barely hear her. This time, I said, “Kim, I can’t hear you. What are you trying to say?” Kim was exasperated; she whispered, “Tony Bennett is right there.” I said, in a very looooouud voice, “Tony Bennett!!!! Where?” Mr. Bennett turned around and said, “Right here, ladies.” I was mortified. He was laughing, and Kim was hysterical.
Kim and John sharing the Passover Seder at my parents’ house. Kim’s clear voice reading from the Hagaddah with interest and passion.
Kim calling me to tell me about some physical things that were going on with her, and the fear in her voice, and asking if she should go to the doctor.
John calling me to tell me that the doctors had discovered a second lump in Kim’s other breast while she was on the table.
Going to see Kim at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital.
Kim telling me that she was going to beat this thing.
Kim looking so beautiful in her hats and scarves when she lost her hair from the chemo.
Kim at Morristown Memorial.
Sharing an intimate moment between John and Kim in the hospital a few days before….
Getting a call from John that I had better come right over.
Seeing Kim on the hospital bed set up in their living room, because she could no longer get upstairs to the bedroom.
Kim sick, wracked with pain, weak – dying – and yet still so beautiful and at peace.
John calling to tell me she was now truly at peace.
Kim’s memorial service, where I honored her by partaking in the bread and wine during the Mass. The minister understanding why I did it. The guests who knew I was Jewish completely shocked.
The spreading of her ashes in the garden under the flowers she had planted.
And in the present…
Sometimes, often, I know Kim is hanging around, keeping me company.
At this weekend’s 2012 World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago (a.k.a. Chicon 7), Neil Gaiman was awarded the coveted Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). It seems he wrote an episode of Doctor Who last season you might have heard about – “The Doctor’s Wife.”
