Bestselling novelist and comics writer Neil Gaiman took over the Guardian Books site today -- "Even as I write this the power is starting to go to my head," he cautions in his introduction -- and delivered precisely the kind of content you would expect: There's a gallery of artwork by his longtime collaborator Dave McKean; Damian Walter's Q&A with Harlan Ellison; an excerpt from Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane; an invitation for readers to write a story with the author (he provided the opening, "It wasn't just the murder, he decided. Everything else seemed to have conspired to ruin his day as well. Even the cat."); and a webchat.

My favorite piece, however, is Gaiman's list of his favorite mythological creatures, which features several characters he's borrowed for his comics and novels (he'd originally intended it "to be my top 10 books of myths," he notes). Spoiler alert: Loki tops the list.

Gaiman writes, "[I]t was only while compiling that list that I realised most of my favourite males in myths are tricksters, while most of my favourite women are either stoic non-complainers or glorious villainesses, and I decided that there should be more lady tricksters in myths."