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FAQs from the FOOL TOUR

April 4th, 2009 · 26 Comments

FOOL TOUR FAQS
Hey kids, I finally finished all the scheduled events for the Fool tour. Thanks to everyone who came so I thought I’d address all the questions you asked and didn’t get to ask while I was out there.

1. You’re taller than I thought you’d be.

1. That’s not a question.

2: Okay. How come you don’t go on Jon Stewart.

2. They haven’t asked me because Jon Stewart doesn’t care about white people.

3. How come you didn’t come to my town?

3. Because I don’t care about white people.

4. Do I need to read King Lear before I read Fool in order to get the jokes.

4. Absolutely not. If anything, if you haven’t read it already, I’d read the play or watch a DVD of it after you read Fool. I think the best DVD of Lear is the BBC production with Lawrence Olivier as Lear. If you get a chance, though, go see it live. It really works (not surprisingly) better as a play than as a movie.

5. Where can I get one of those hats you wear when you sign books.

5. I don’t know. The hat gnome left this one on my couch.

6. Did you get a lot of hassle over Lamb from Christians and right wingers.

6. Nope. People like that book.

7. Can you read my story and tell me if it’s any good?

7. No. I don’t need to read it. It is good. Very good. You’re amazing.

8. Don’t be a dick. I know you can’t read people’s stories for legal and time concerns, but I need help.

8. No you don’t. You’re awesome. You should get a copy of the Writer’s Market, find out how to write a query letter, and start sending that mama-jama out.

9. Okay then, I’m taking screenwriting in college and I’d like to adapt your book Lamb (or others) and make a film. Is that okay?

9. No. You can’t adapt a script from a property you don’t own the rights to, and I can’t give you permission, even if I wanted to, because I don’t own the rights either because I sold them to people who are busy not making movies of them.

10: Are you going to write a sequel to Lamb?

10. No. I think that story is finished and anything I would come up with you would say fell short. (Admit it, you would.)

11. What are you working on now?

11. I’m finishing up Bite Me: A Love Story, the third in the San Francisco vampire series.

12. What do you like to read?

12: I like funny novels, of course, but increasingly my reading time is taken up with research material. You can find a lot of books I’ve enjoyed at Chris’s Picks on my web page. Right now I’m reading The Masterpiece by Emile Zola, The World Gone Away, by Nick Harkaway, and a bunch of Marvel Comics that the publisher sent me. (Yeah, I’m friends with the guys at Marvel. Wolverine was at my house for Thanksgiving last year. He’s like, “Let me carve the turkey! Let me carve the turkey!” And I’m all, “Whatever, Ginsu, just try to keep your sideburns out of the friggin’ giblets. “)

13: Are any movies being made of your books?

13.No. Most of the books have sold or have been optioned. Currently I have the rights back to A Dirty Job, Lust Lizard, Fluke, Coyote Blue and Fool. All but Fool have been in development at film companies, which is movie talk for not making a movie. Stage rights are the same thing.

14. What about A Dirty Job sequel? Any chance?

14. That one I would consider. I really like writing the characters. I’ll have to think about it and see how it fits into my schedule.

15. Why don’t you write a young adult book or a kids’ book so I can give them to my kids?

15. Because if they were kids’ books they wouldn’t be my books, would they? You need to give kids an incentive to grow up other than they can have cake for breakfast. You’ll thank me later.

16. When is your next book coming out?

16. I can’t say for sure, but I’d guess summer or fall 2010. Hopefully by then I’ll be able to visit some of the towns that have been missed because I’ve been touring in February the last couple of books.

17. How come you don’t ever come to Canada on tour.

17. Because Canada is a myth people made up to entertain children, like the Tooth Fairy. There’s no such place.

You can submit your own questions for “Ask the AuthorGuy in the comments and I’ll do a blog on them later. They can be about anything, not just Author Guy related stuff.

Tags: Uncategorized

26 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Cam // Apr 4, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    A friend just gave me his advance reading copy of Fool, and I’m loving it. I know you were worried that I might not.

    My question: Since I now have a free copy of Fool and don’t technically need to purchase another one, can you pontificate a wee bit on how I can best support your work: buy the hardcover, buy the paperback, buy another book that gets you more $, send food stamps, …?

    Also: Canada is so totally watching you, Moore. You wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.

  • 2 Robin // Apr 4, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?

  • 3 Lestatbp // Apr 4, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    I have a question.

    How did you get to be so awesome? Were you born that way or is there a correspondence course I can take to be just like you when I grow up?

    🙂

    Kelli

  • 4 jeannie aka girlEgirl' // Apr 4, 2009 at 11:23 pm

    holy crap, you’re funny! have you ever considered becoming a stand up comedian? or starting your own cult? give it some thought!

  • 5 Red Thunder // Apr 5, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    Ok, so no Jon Stewart, but I bet you could sooooo outwit Steven Colbert. The only person I’ve ever seen give him a run for his money is Neil Gaimon. If all else fails, you could just call him a fuckstick.

  • 6 Mary // Apr 5, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    Of course your books make great children’s books! Okay, maybe not children’s books, but definitely juvenile fiction. My 14 year old son snarfled down A Dirty Job and Coyote Blue. Lust Lizard is next on his list. His aunty bought him 3 of your books as Christmas presents.

    I’d love to see you play gotcha with Steven Colbert.

  • 7 Chelsea // Apr 5, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    I’m really glad to hear you’re doing a third book in the San Fran Vamp series! Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck are two of my favorite books!

  • 8 Kelly Mason // Apr 5, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    Thank you for acknowledging the one thing about growing up that didn’t make me want to run crying back to Toys ‘R Us [cake for breakfast]

    I hope someone gets off their ass and starts making a movie out of your books – Dirty Job would be my favorite on the big screen. Squirrel People, I think I’ve made my point.

  • 9 chris // Apr 6, 2009 at 6:07 am

    All I can think of after reading the answer to 15 is: Chocolate cake for breakfast? But “Eggs! Eggs are in chocolate cake! And milk! Oh goody! And wheat! That’s nutrition!”

  • 10 JasonB // Apr 6, 2009 at 6:24 am

    If someone finally made your books into movies; and, assuming that you could act, what character would you want to play? Would it be a specific main character, or would you do a Stephen Kingesque cameo?

  • 11 Picard // Apr 6, 2009 at 7:22 am

    Would it be wrong to punch out the people not making your books into movies? And if the threat of that worked, and since just acting out the scenes doesn’t really get into the heads of the characters, do you think there should be a narrator telling the stories?

  • 12 mattw // Apr 6, 2009 at 11:39 am

    Could zombies and robots peacefully coexist in a world without humans?

  • 13 seunfalope // Apr 6, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    Yo books iz cool. Make movies outta them 4real. Especially Dirty Job and Lamb. My teachers says Robin William is better and I say FUCK HIM!!

  • 14 JasonB // Apr 7, 2009 at 6:24 am

    A follow-up to Picard’s question: If movies of your books were being made; and, if they did indeed require a narrator, would the obvious choice be the creepy old lady from “Poltergiest” who narrates the “World’s Scariest Places” show? I think she’d nail it.

  • 15 Uptown_Toodeloo // Apr 7, 2009 at 8:21 am

    If a tree falls in the forrest, and nobody is there to hear it, would the woodchuck chuck it?

  • 16 Uptown_Toodeloo // Apr 7, 2009 at 8:23 am

    If you roll a horse covered in moss to a glass house, would he drink it or throw stones?

  • 17 Albert Riehle // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    I knew it! I knew Canada was a myth!!!!

    *runs off to tell all my Canadian friends that they are imaginary*

    wait. nevermind. huh?

  • 18 Rex Jester // Apr 7, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Chris and I both like Bill Cosby…

    I’ve just finished up with Fool, and found it (Lear) very enjoyable from Pocket’s perspective. Although I have read all the books, Fool and Lamb are to be my favorites (with Stupidest Angel coming in third). So, if the Brits can produce a version of MacBeth in pidgin (MakBed – http://www.playbackarts.co.uk/meryfela/pidgmak.htm ), then, by gum, why can’t we colonials do up Fool onstage! I think it’s a moral imperative!

    -RJ

  • 19 Laura // Apr 7, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    Ah, I think I’ll be the “I have two questions” person, because there has to be one and I do have two;

    1. Have you ever considered going all Mitch Albom or, less sappily, Ray Bradbury with Dandelion Wine and writing a semi-autobiographical piece? I figure if you can make Jesus funny, you could definitely add some punch to the rather soggy world of memoir.

    2. This is a sort of Sophie’s Choice question–if you published only one work, which (of your current stuff) would you have it be?

  • 20 Jason Black // Apr 7, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    RE: #11. Another vampire book? I loved the first one, thought the second one suffered from too much re-cap of stuff we read in the first one. Don’t do that again, please? Don’t make the mistake of thinking you need to explain everything for the jackasses who think it’s a good idea to read part 3 of a trilogy first. It irritates the crap out of your loyal fans who read them in order, as they came out.

    And, appropos of nothing, my wife and I just finished reading “A Dirty Job” the other day (what can I say; we got behind because having kids instead of sleep really cuts down on how much reading we can get done). For my money, I really enjoyed it. We read your books out loud to each other, in bed. There were a couple of spots in Dirty Job where I was laughing so hard I couldn’t keep reading, and one spot where I was laughing so hard I couldn’t have kept reading even theoretically, because my eyes were closed. I hadn’t known it was possible to laugh so hard you couldn’t keep your eyes open, but there you go.

    So thanks for the chuckles, and for a book with much better character development than probably anything you’ve written except maybe for Lamb which is so awesome I’m surprised you didn’t hang up your pen right there.

  • 21 Michelle // Apr 8, 2009 at 4:04 am

    Dear Author Guy,

    I wanted to ask you a silly question in good fun, but I actually do have a serious one. What is the best way for an author’s fans to support their work? I mean, I want you to make a good living from your craft so you continue to entertain and enlighten me, so is it in YOUR best interest for me to purchase audio books, hard cover first editions, ebooks, or paperbacks? If I buy the audio books is it more profitable for you if I buy cds or download online? Or would you rather I download a bootleg copy on the dark net somewhere and just send a check directly to you so we can cut out the middle management and you get all the profits? Yes, that last bit was silly, but really – can we make that kind of deal?

    OK, that’s actually a lot of questions, but I really am interested in making sure YOU get the most bang for my bucks.

  • 22 Heather // Apr 8, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    Visually, I would love to see ‘The Stupidest Angel’ on the big screen with George Romero-esque zombies. C’mon, Christmast zombies for cryin’ out loud!

    I would love to read a sequal to ‘A Dirty Job’ and now I can’t wait for ‘Bite Me’.

    So…how tall ARE you anyway? You know, since you weren’t allowed back in Chicago so I could see for myself!

  • 23 Christopher Moore // Apr 9, 2009 at 8:46 pm

    To Jason Black:

    RE: #11. Another vampire book? I loved the first one, thought the second one suffered from too much re-cap of stuff we read in the first one. Don’t do that again, please? Don’t make the mistake of thinking you need to explain everything for the jackasses who think it’s a good idea to read part 3 of a trilogy first. It irritates the crap out of your loyal fans who read them in order, as they came out.

    Bloodsucking Fiends sold fewer than 9000 copies in hardcover. You Suck sold over 130,0000, many of those to people who had never heard of me or the first book. So, should I have alienated the new readers, or forced those few people to go over some material that they may have read, oh, 14 years before?

  • 24 Ronni // Apr 11, 2009 at 8:10 am

    In reltion to #15 (because when I cut and pasted it, it took up to much space set aside for ME to talk…)

    Oddly enough, several months (or years, time is a nebulous thing in my world) after I read Lamb, I decided to try to locate a copy in my local public library. (I don’t know why, I had four or five of my own copies by this point.) When I finally found it, it was in the Young Adults’/Children’s section. I was SO BUMMED (bummed? bumed? hmmm….). I had been so excited that I finally liked a “big girl book”, only to learn that it was a kiddie book, after all!!!!!

    In retrospect, and especially after reading more of your work, I think that someone in our local right-wing county’s library administration either a) never read the book and figued that if it was about Jesus, it should be foisted (is that a word) upon the youth, or, b) screwed up and hired some subversive liberal who thinks kids should be encouraged to think.

  • 25 Ronni // Apr 11, 2009 at 8:13 am

    I appologize, the “to” in my first line should have said “too”. I can’t figure out how to edit it…. my mother was a grammar teacher, I will now go flog myself.

  • 26 CHARLIE ASHER IS AWESOME! // Feb 24, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    Are you going to make A Dirty Job sequel? Yes or no question…sorry…i need to know…i loved that book so much…by the time i finished it…i was crying because it was over…:’C please dont be mad at my language…i know how to type correctly i just choose not to

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