Which just goes to show how differently we all relate to the whole fanfic thing - I do remember initially being baffled at anyone being interested in HP fanfic, but I've thoroughly boarded that particular boat now. (Although as a writer rather than a reader - for the most part I'm not interested in reading HP fic unles someone I trust points me to it.) For me, litfic is not a squick - and I do think of Sandman as a non-lit medium, because the art work is as important as the writing itself - and, moreover, there are other writers working on Lucifer and Books of Magic titles and so forth, as well as Jill Thompson's official manga fanficcing of Season of Mists ( At Death's Door) - the writing for which, incidentally, is not as good, imho, as some fanfic I've read. And there's the array of different artists who worked on the various story lines too, of course, so it's not purely Gaiman shaping the Sandman 'verse.

And there's also the fact that Gaiman so enjoys taking pulling other stories into his story - the way that Eve and Cain and Abel and Lucian and Hypollita Hall and so forth were taken from previous comic collections, and that other DC Superheroes are worked in, and myths and plays and whatever else Gaiman feels like - to me, it's entirely natural to extend this into fanfic.

So, yeah - I find it infinitely less troubling than RPS, which is a genre that I think Plei's totally comfortable with.

(This not being a red rag to bull RPS blah blah blah argumenty thing, obviously - just another big old 'Blimey, YMMV' wrt fandom and fanfic and genres thereof.)

eta

I'd also say that Sandman leaves thousands of threads, to me, that could be followed up. Not for the main story arc of Dream, certainly - but there are so many other wee characters and their stories that we glimpse. I grant that mostly I want to write crossovers with Sandman rather than straight fanfic, but I'm not ruling out the idea of straight fanfic. Reading interviews with Gaiman, in fact, has given a number of tantalising glimpses of possible avenues and unfinished tales - but even without that, you've got things like Death's one day of life, Ken and Barbie, Alianora (she of the many spellings), the 'cabinboy' Jim, Hob - loads and loads of interesting characters and situations...

But, again, YMCertainlyWillV.

So, yeah - I find it infinitely less troubling than RPS, which is a genre that I think Plei's totally comfortable with.

Well, I'm totally comfortable with some forms of RPS, not all of them. Though my issue with actor fic is less about morality, more about my personal tastes.

Is my issue with Sandman fic related to how often I read Neil's blog? Well, probably at least in part. It feels disrespectful to me. I don't know the man from Adam, but there you have it.

I would also feel uncomfortable writing fanfiction based on someone else's fanfiction, remixes aside. (With the remixes, there's the consent issue out of the way, for one. Why I have consent issues about literary works, I've no idea, but I do.) It is one thing if they've invited me to play in their 'verse, but a whole 'nother if I'm just reading and riffing.

I'd also say that Sandman leaves thousands of threads

Yes, this. There's so much mystery there.

The idea of playing wholly in most written ficworlds is scary ... I get that much of Sandman would be crossovers. Comparing one's written word to the original ... I'm certainly not that brave.

I'm with you on that feeling about book-based fanfiction

At my last writing class for the summer, one of the women read a poem she wrote that was midrash (I hope that's how it's spelled) -- which she defined as "a story from the Bible written from a different perspective." Her poem was from Sarah's POV.

And I thought "that's Bible fic!" But I still couldn't out myself as a ficwriter.

Heh. Yeah, midrash is a really interesting tradition, from a ficcy POV.

And I thought "that's Bible fic!"

Snerk. I had that same midrash=Bible fanfic revelation a few years ago, then got frustrated that I couldn't share it with anyone, because I couldn't think of anyone I knew who knew what both midrash and fanfic were, and having to explain either one of them seemed to ruin the "Hey cool! Look at this!" factor of it.

Hey, L.A. types...

How long does it take to get from "what used to be the heart of Hollywood." to Reseda?

Also, anyone have some Reseda details to share? What was the weather like in July last year?

Much appreciated.

What used to be the heart of Hollywood? I drive through Reseda, pretty much. It's in the west Valley, and it's hotter than hell, but less hot than Ventura county.

Also ... time to get there depends severely on time of day, what with the 101/405 up in there.

People? Is it a really bad idea of me to ask Gaiman in his journal FAQ thing about whether he'd be upset, hypothetically speaking, about people writing fanfic based on his works?

What used to be the heart of Hollywood?

Beats the fuck out of me. Whatever mythic place just west of Cordelia's Silverlake apartment they declared as the Hyperion's location.

We drove through Reseda on our way out of L.A., but I can't remember how long it took us to get from Burbank to Reseda because I was fiddling with the MP3 player so we could play Screenwriter's Blues. (There was a vague temptation to get off the 101 to look around, but as we were on our way to Camarillo for the night, it didn't happen.)