#the colour of pratchett

[captainfantasticalright]

In 1985, one of the only persons interested in an interview with a “new” writer called Terry Pratchett, after his publication of the Colour of Magic, was one Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman was writing for Space Voyager at the time. "The Colour of Pratchett" was the name given here:

It ran exactly one page inside the June/July issue of that year. The interview took place in a Chinese restaurant in London.

Here is Neil many years later holding that issue. You can see it here if you want. Warning: extremely emotional video.

Neil arrived wearing a grey homburg hat. “Sort of like the ones Humphrey Bogart wears in movies” he later wrote. (Before saying that in fact he did not look like him, but like someone wearing a grown-up’s hat). Terry Pratchett, photo courtesy of one @neil-gaiman, was in a Lenin-style leather cap and a harlequin-patterned pullover. At this point, Terry was already a hat person, although not that hat.

Terry offered Neil this : "An interview needn't last more than 15 minutes. A good quote for the beginning, a good quote for the end, and the rest you make up back at the office"*. (Terry Pratchett had worked many years in journalism by this point ).

But the meeting went terribly well. The two of them realized they had "the same sort of brains". So well indeed, that in 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5282 words, exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton's William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Was a collaboration in the cards as of that moment? Not really. But Terry found in Neil someone to whom he could send disks of work in progress and to whom he could pick up the phone sometimes when he hit a brick in the road of his writing.

Terry loved it and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil had been busy with The Sandman, he had not really given it another thought. Terry said, "Well I know what happens next, so either you sell me the idea or we can write it together". **

And as you know, unless you’ve been living in Alpha Centauri, the rest is history. That was the beginning of what would become William the Antichrist and later would get the name Good Omens:The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. (Title provided by Neil Gaiman and subtitle by Terry Pratchett).

From the introduction to William the Antichrist: “In the summer of 1987 several odd ideas came together: (..)I found myself imagining a book called William the Antichrist, in which a hapless demon was going to be responsible for swapping the wrong baby over, and the son of the US Ambassador would be completely undemonic, while William Brown would grow up to be the Antichrist, and the demon would need to stop him ending the world. The unfortunate demon, whom I called Crawleigh, because Crawley was a nearby town with an unfortunate name, would have to sort it all out as best he could.

It felt like a story with legs.

Terry took the 5,000 words, and rewrote them, calling me to tell me what he was doing and what he was planning to do. The biggest thing he was going to do, he told me, was split the hapless demon into two characters – a would-be-cool demon in dark glasses (which was, I think, Terry’s way of making fun of me, a never-actually- cool journalist in dark glasses) who had renamed himself Crowley, and a rare-book dealer and angel called Aziraphale, who would embody all the English awkwardness that either of us could conceive.”

William the Antichrist being a direct inspiration of the 1976 film The Omen. If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else he would have grown up as somebody else. “And then there was a beat and I thought, I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist” says Neil. ***

“The first draft of Good Omens was a William-book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown”.

Over time they realized that they would have more creative freedom if they in their own words filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them.

But the spirit of Just William was never far away.

The joy for Neil was to construct “perfectly William sentences”. The one when Anathema tells Adam that she has lost the Book, and he tells her that he has written a book about a pirate who became a famous detective and it is 8 pages long… that’s “a William sentence”.

Good Omens was also inspired by a particularly antisemitic moment in The Jew of Malta and John le Carre's spy novels. (Neil’s ask)

“When we finished the book we estimated that the words were 60% Terry’s and 40% mine, and the plot, such as it was, was entirely ours.”

(Here are some slides of mine where I go into some other details concerning the origins of Good Omens).

*Quote: from Terry Pratchett A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins, but said by Terry of course.

** All the quotes, facts listed here : see above.

***all other quotes by Neil Gaiman from various interviews and asks I’ll link.

[illustoryart]

GNU Sir Terry Pratchett ❤️‍🩹

[leona-florianova]

doesnt mean its not friendly

[imaginariumgeographica]

Happy 40th, Discworld 🎉🎉

[dimity-lawn]

[kamydrawstuffs]

Discworld-"What I Did On My Holidays"

Really wished this book was real, and it's all just a picture book on the events of "The Color of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic"

And hey!, it's my first time drawing Rincewind and Two-Flower! Let's go!!!!

[rogue-rook]

I have SOME THOUGHTS about equal rites ushering in early era discworld by giving us eskarina, a girl who becomes a wizard with granny weatherwax's help, and now shepherd's crown is ushering out late era discworld by giving us geoffrey swivel, a boy who wants to become a witch with tiffany aching's help, neatly closing the narrative loop

[klinefelterrible]

I am alright at sketching simple figures and I hope no one is going to throw up because of my colouring skill

Part two here

[tenaciousgeckos]

[aeshnacyanea2000]

It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.

-- Terry Pratchett - The Colour Of Magic

[softboiledwonderland]

Finished Night Watch. Congratulations, you were all right about it. Going off to stare at a wall now, and/or cry

[emys-123]

Rincewind is living in a horror thriller book while Twoflower is living in an adventure/found family book.

[illustoryart]

Great A’tuin for Terry Pratchett day ✨🐢✨

So happy I found the way into Discworld, but how I wish there were more stories ❤️‍🩹

What is your favourite book from this series? 📖

Mine is definitely “Night Watch”! ❤️‍🔥

[innefableidiot]

A detail I absolutely love about good omens is all the Terry Pratchett books scattered here and there. Like in Aziraphales bookshop in episode 2 season 2 Jim actually holds up The colour of magic and calls it a "neato fan" and I think that all these references are such a wonderful homage to Terry Pratchett

[ceaselessbasher]

Finally started the Discworld series and I love my cringefail son Rincewind

[datsderbunnyblog]

(1994 edition of The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett)