[ Posted by mlpeters on Sep 7th, 2007 11:12 PM ]...

Yeah -- the inspiration for the original title was "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (Beatles song), Alan Moore's "Ballad of Halo Jones" and maybe Charles Vess' "Ballads and Sagas".

"The Flying Man" part was causing some problems -- it's not "superhero" type flying, but that's what is sounds like. The people who might like an urban fantasy might stay away and the superhero fans who might buy it, might feel cheated.

I like Whistler's titles and Victorian ideas about art, but long, vague titles and more than a little bit of pretentiousness were the norm in that age. It's hard to get away with that now -- and when you do, it inevitably gets unofficially shortened by publishers, readers, retailers, etc.

I had mentioned the project, by name, to several publishers and editors and always heard some variation on, "that's really long...". At least once, a preference for snappy movie-esque titles was mentioned, probably with an eye toward movie rights, but also just because snappy, short titles are memorable.

Personally, I like long titles, but then, I've always thought "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" was a great song title.

I like the subtitle idea, as REALLY pretentious as it may be -- maybe I'll use the original name as an arc title... Yeah, if it gets that far, I'll unleash my full pretentiousness on the collections.

Thanks for your post and interest.