Squeak Group Buys Ship Naming Rights in Gaiman Novel

nadyne writes "Recently, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund ran an auction for the naming rights for a cruise ship in Neil Gaiman's upcoming novel Anansi Boys. Today, Neil Gaiman reported in a post to his blog that Markus Gaelli won this auction. According to Neil, Markus will use his hard-won auction to promote Squeak. He didn't tell us what the name of the cruise ship will be, but promised to do so in the future. Neil linked to Squeakland, although it's not clear whether Markus is associated with that site or Neil was just using it as a convenient starting point for his readers who might not know anything about Squeak."

Comments

Here is what the site says

[Nexboy]

It doesn't help much, but this is what the site says it's about:

WHAT IS SQUEAK? Squeak is a "media authoring tool"-- software that you can download to your computer and then use to create your own media or share and play with others. It is free and downloadable here. If you'd like to get a feel for what Squeak looks like without downloading, view a typical early project for kids in HTML (no download needed). Once you download Squeak you can use the Squeak Tutorials and download the handy Etoys Quickstart Guide.Further information can be found in the Squeak FAQ.

Re:Is he legally obliged to do this whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read Neil's blog, you could have found this:

A question on the Anansi Boys cruise ship auction - are you going to be keeping veto power over the name? As in, if someone wins and goes for the "USS Fucko Bazoo" will it be that way forevermore? Not that I'll be doing so, it's already past my meager means. Just curious since the eBay description offered no such restrictions and I thought you might want to spell that out for the benefit of potential bidders before it's over. C. A. Bridges


(Hmm. The auction's only been up for 5 hours and it's already over $1,000. Good lord.)

I think we can burn that bridge when we come to it. I suppose it's remotely possible that there may be some millionaire with Tourette's Syndrome who reads my books and supports the first amendment and desperately wants to call the ship the er, Fucko Bazoo (a phrase that currently has 215 google listings, I was just surprised to learn) enough to outbid all comers, just as it's remotely possible that someone at Miramax or Lamy Pens or TeaDirect Tea may decide that this is a heaven-sent opportunity for cheap product placement, and it'll suddenly become the USS Latest Lindsay Lohan Movie or the SS TIVO RULES. But I sort of doubt it'll happen like that.

We have a week to go until we'll all know, anyway.