By Steve Morris

HarperCollins have announced today that they’ve signed Neil Gaiman for a new five-book deal, which will result in three new novels and two ‘picture-books’ straight from the pen of the man who wrote Sandman, Stardust… well you know what he’s written he’s Neil Gaiman isn’t he. Joining him for these projects will be artists Adam Rex and Skottie Young.

Also, pandas are involved.

It appears as though Rex will be drawing both of the picture-books, the first of which sees publication in January next year. Aimed at children, these two books will feature a new character created by Gaiman, called Chu. Chu is a baby panda, who has a ferocious sneeze. Are you already imagining Rex drawing Chu sneezing? Of course you are. It’s adorable. It’ll haunt your dreams tonight.

Skottie Young’s involvement comes as part of the novel side of things, as he will be providing art for a Gaiman novel called Fortunately, The Milk. Now whether this is about a talking bottle of milk whose name is Fortunately? Anybody’s guess. There’s no release date for this story as of yet, although it looks likely to be published sometime later next year.

The second of the novels will be a sequel to his 2009 book Odd and the Frost Giants, whilst the third novel remains an elusive mystery to all. If we cross our fingers, perhaps it’ll be the story of a baby panda and a bottle of milk realising that they were meant for each other.

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1 COMMENT

  4. Torsten Adair, Neil Gaiman recently mentioned on his tumbler account that he was going to have between 5 to 6 books come out in 2013. Why so many at once? He said:
    “It’s the weirdness of the way things work in authoring and publishing. Books are like busses, sometimes. You wait for a few years, and then a clump of them come along together.”

    He’s mentioned that it includes a new novel for adults, but I wonder if that includes his non-fiction book about China. I imagine that it might, as not sure beyond his children books what that would include.