Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, all of that)

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Did anyone watch the American Gods Amazon series all the way through? I did, and I wouldn't recommend it. I seem to remember it starting off fairly strong, then quickly becoming terrible.

[13 schoolyards]

Yeah, I was thinking more of his recent push into showrunning - IIRC a big reason why American Gods went off the rails was that Gaiman kept pushing for more control when he wasn't the boss. He's got two seasons of showrunning Good Omens under his belt now too (and keeps going on about how the "real" sequel would be in season three if there is one).

That said, he had a few "shared world" things on the go in the past as well - there was a comic one (I only remember Tekonophage from it, but I think there were a few other titles), and a series of co-authored novels called something like InterWorld. And that version of the Marvel universe he came up with set in the past looked ripe for spin-offs for a while. But I guess all comic work is collaborative, I guess it depends how hands on (or not) he chooses to be.

[Mister Six]

Oh, good point about American Gods, I'd forgotten about that.

Did anyone watch the American Gods Amazon series all the way through? I did, and I wouldn't recommend it. I seem to remember it starting off fairly strong, then quickly becoming terrible.

The reason the first season was good was that it was run by Hannibal/Pushing Daisies/Dead Like Me showrunner Bryan Fuller, who is brilliant at telly - then he was reportedly pushed out, as 13 Schoolyards says, by Gaiman, who is not.

[Mister Six]

Just to go back to the Sandman thing, here are my thoughts on the first few Sandman trades...

1: Preludes & Nocturnes
A pretty poor showing, I think, as the comic tries to figure out what it is. An epic fantasy? A horror story? An offbeat superhero thing? The first issue is just wall-to-wall exposition and the rest wobbles all over the place, with some brilliant setpieces (Morpheus's confrontation with Dee) and some bits that feel a bit stretched out (Dee's escape in particular). The Sound of Her Wings isn't that great, in retrospect, but you can see how it must have seemed like a real breath of fresh air in comics at the time.

Sam Kieth's art is mostly dreadful, all melty and caricatured, and whoever signed off on Lucien looking almost exactly like Cain needs to be given a stern talking to. The art's much better when it's just Dringenberg and Jones, but The Sound of Her wings suffers from minimalist backgrounds when it's largely set in one of New York City's most vibrant areas, Washington Square Park.

Unfortunate black people count: 2 (Burgess's assistant gets his head exploded, Nada trapped in Hell)

2: The Doll's House
The uptick in quality here is incredible, and if you told me Gaiman had gone off to mull things over for a couple of years before coming back with this, I'd believe you. The opening taps into his obsession with stories, of course, but cleverly hints at Desire's schemes, tying in nicely with the main story while setting up A Season of Mists. The Corinthian is a memorable villain, the serial killer convention is a great idea and very funny (and also has a neat crossover with Hellblazer that I'll explain if anyone cares), and the stuff with the Silver Age Sandman works a lot better than the earlier attempts to work in superheroes and villains. Nice Little Nemo riff, too.

Quibbles: Sadly, this book starts the trend for Dream acting like a total cunt to Lyta Hall for basically no reason, even when he's all right to other people who stumble into the Dreaming. Also, "Men of Good Fortune" really fucks up the flow of the story, and should have been put at the end or start of the book - the only reason it pops up in the middle of The Doll's House is because Gaiman wanted part of the story to occur in 1589, and this was the last chance to get the issue published in 1989 and keep the "every 100 years" thing tied in with the year of publication. As if anyone really cared. Also the wider storyline kicks off the recurring structure of everyone faffing about for several issues, then someone (in this case Morpheus) turning up at the end to resolve everything.

Unfortunate black people count: 1 (Nada kills herself in flashback)

3: Dream Country
An odds and sods collection of short stories, but they're mostly pretty strong: Calliope is a solid little dark fantasy tale with a nasty fellow getting his comeuppance; A Dream of A Thousand Cats is a perfect bit of Gaiman playfulness; A Midsummer Night's Dream is weaker, I think, because it feels more like Gaiman just fucking around and amusing himself rather than really telling a story (he's said that his editor read the first draft and said "I don't get it, what's the point?" and his response was to add that one page of Hamnet talking about his dad ignores him, to add a little gravity), and I never cared much for the Shakespeare bits in The Sandman. But quite a bit of the dialogue is amusing. Façade is the only one that I really don't like; it has the worst tendencies of early Sandman - leaning on DC ephemera that doesn't really fit, a sort of teenage angst tone that's a bit beneath Gaiman (he's better when he's aloof rather than histrionic, I think) and ugly art.

Unfortunate black people count: 0. Well done, Neil!

[Mister Six]

Oh no, I killed the thread!

Ah sod it, I'll carry on anyway.

4: Seasons of Mists
Plot-wise, I guess you could say this is a little thin on the ground, but sometimes it's the journey, not the destination, right? And this is a fun journey, especially when Gaiman gets to play to his strengths and have loads of gods (as well as some fun original characters, like the representative of Chaos, who feels like a warm-up for Delerium) bantering and arguing with one another. The Dead Boy Detectives one-shot is nicely chilling, and turning Lucifer from an apparent antagonist to a charismatic side character is a great idea. Gaiman's smart enough to zag where others would zig, and again this must have felt like such a bold decision at the time. It still does, really, even if decades of people being inspired by these stories have diluted things a little. In retrospect, it's also neat to see some of the endgame pieces being set up here as well.

My only complaint is that I think Gaiman really lets Nada down badly here. She's quite rightly narked at him for, you know, trapping her in Hell for 10,000 years - something that would have remained the same if Lucifer hadn't quit the game. And yet she quickly reverts to submissiveness and trying to kiss him, which... I dunno, I get angry if I'm left in a restaurant for 10 minutes. If I was consigned to millennia of torture I'd find my ardour a wee bit damped down. It really does her a disservice and puts a bitter taste in my mouth. Especially odd since the series is mostly pretty good at acknowledging that Morpheus is a knob.

Oh, sorry, two more complaints: once again, there's a deus ex machina conclusion - literally, this time, because it's the Christian God rather than Morpheus turning up at the end to put things right. And I dislike the implication that the Christian God is somehow more "real" than Odin et al. Horses for courses though.

Unfortunate black people count: 1 (Nada in Hell again, but only for a bit)

5: A Game of You
This was a delight! I didn't really "get" it when I read it in my 20s, but I think this might be my favourite storyline in the series - visually interesting, conceptually fascinating, full of memorable imagery and thematically rich. It's got a bit of stick in its day for its treatment of Wanda, a trans woman, and there's merit to some of that, but I think it's quite clear that Gaiman is pro-trans:

Spoiler alert

ultimately, Wanda's true self as a woman is acknowledged as a supreme truth over the petty concerns of both man and god, although yeah I can see why people would be pissed off that Gaiman has to kill her to make that point.

[close]

The death of the only prominent black character (not spoilering, since I've mentioned it in the paragraph below) is troubling too, but I think you could make a case of the story as a critique of white feminism:

Spoiler alert

Thessaly's a white girlboss sort who bangs gods and kills male predators and is thousands of years old, but her ritual magic is trans-exclusive (and she calls Wanda a man, IIRC) and she not only fails to protect Wanda and Maisie (the black homeless woman) but actually causes their deaths while pursuing her own agenda.

[close]

Although Gaiman's depiction of black people as a whole in the series is questionable, so maybe that doesn't hold much water.

Unfortunate black people count: 1 (Maisie is crushed under a building)

6: Fables and Reflections
I think I liked this collection a lot more than @Small Man Big Horse did, but it's still a mixed bag. I fundamentally don't give a toss about Orpheus even though he's so important to the overall arc, so I found "Thermidor" and "The Song of Orpheus" to be a snooze. "The Hunt" and "Three Septembers and a January" are both great - the former a folk tale, the latter a clever way of exploring the Desire/Dream dynamic through a real historical character. "The Parliament of Rooks" is a bit of a frippery, but has some interesting backstory and is a cute reference to an old DC anthology comic. "Ramadan" thrives entirely on its gorgeous art, courtesy of P. Craig Russell. "Soft Places" is just sort of there. "August" I liked a lot more than SMBH (and I don't think the rape is supposed to be a big reveal, just a motivation for what transpires) but he's right, it is a drag, especially coming so soon after "Thermidor".

Unfortunate black people count: 0. Hooray!

7: Brief Lives
A slightly messy story that just exists to string together a bunch of memorable sequences, but read in one big go it's not that distracting. I have more time for Delirium than SMBH (although sometimes it feels a bit like Gaiman's more amused than the audience) so I was happy for her and Dream to go off on an adventure together, especially given their mismatched personalities (and thinking about it, it does pretty much have the exact shape of a road movie, right down to the second act temporary abandonment of the mission). The individual stories among the wider stuff are all pretty compelling, and I like that it doesn't shy away from the fact that with the ironic exception of Death (and I guess Destiny, who doesn't do anything ever), the Endless are a bunch of selfish cocks who keep getting people killed all over the shop. Even funny little Delirium is shown to actually be fucking terrifying and to be avoided at all costs. Poor rozzer! Even a bastard cop doesn't deserve that. Destruction is a great character, though. And of course, Barnabas is brilliant - although I'm concerned by all the chocolate Gaiman keeps letting him eat. That shit kills dogs!

Unfortunate black people count: 1. (Ruby burns to death)

[bgmnts]

Are there any fortunate black people?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Will Smith's son?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Just to go back to the Sandman thing, here are my thoughts on the first few Sandman trades...

1: Preludes & Nocturnes
A pretty poor showing, I think, as the comic tries to figure out what it is. An epic fantasy? A horror story? An offbeat superhero thing? The first issue is just wall-to-wall exposition and the rest wobbles all over the place, with some brilliant setpieces (Morpheus's confrontation with Dee) and some bits that feel a bit stretched out (Dee's escape in particular). The Sound of Her Wings isn't that great, in retrospect, but you can see how it must have seemed like a real breath of fresh air in comics at the time.

Sam Kieth's art is mostly dreadful, all melty and caricatured, and whoever signed off on Lucien looking almost exactly like Cain needs to be given a stern talking to. The art's much better when it's just Dringenberg and Jones, but The Sound of Her wings suffers from minimalist backgrounds when it's largely set in one of New York City's most vibrant areas, Washington Square Park.

Unfortunate black people count: 2 (Burgess's assistant gets his head exploded, Nada trapped in Hell)

I'm with you on the first issue, but I think I liked the first volume slightly more than you. I'm glad Gaiman only did it once but I liked the way he handled the DC superheroes, it was nicely daft, and while the Dee plot does take too long to properly kick off I'm fond of the diner issue, and I wish the tv series had done a straight adaptation rather than what we got. Oh, and I 100% with you about Sam Keith's artwork, and am so glad he left the series when he did.

2: The Doll's House
The uptick in quality here is incredible, and if you told me Gaiman had gone off to mull things over for a couple of years before coming back with this, I'd believe you. The opening taps into his obsession with stories, of course, but cleverly hints at Desire's schemes, tying in nicely with the main story while setting up A Season of Mists. The Corinthian is a memorable villain, the serial killer convention is a great idea and very funny (and also has a neat crossover with Hellblazer that I'll explain if anyone cares), and the stuff with the Silver Age Sandman works a lot better than the earlier attempts to work in superheroes and villains. Nice Little Nemo riff, too.

Quibbles: Sadly, this book starts the trend for Dream acting like a total cunt to Lyta Hall for basically no reason, even when he's all right to other people who stumble into the Dreaming. Also, "Men of Good Fortune" really fucks up the flow of the story, and should have been put at the end or start of the book - the only reason it pops up in the middle of The Doll's House is because Gaiman wanted part of the story to occur in 1589, and this was the last chance to get the issue published in 1989 and keep the "every 100 years" thing tied in with the year of publication. As if anyone really cared. Also the wider storyline kicks off the recurring structure of everyone faffing about for several issues, then someone (in this case Morpheus) turning up at the end to resolve everything.

Unfortunate black people count: 1 (Nada kills herself in flashback)

Heh, Dream's treatment of Hall really is ridiculously harsh, isn't it? And it really clashes with Hob's story where he begins to value the idea of having a friend who is human, and why he treats Lyta so badly at the same time is plain weird. But otherwise this is fantastic, and I was very enamoured with the series at this point. Weirdly I never clicked with Rose Walker though, and I wondered if this was intentional as she was due to become the vortex and so lacked any real depth, but others seem to rate her so I could be very wrong.

3: Dream Country
An odds and sods collection of short stories, but they're mostly pretty strong: Calliope is a solid little dark fantasy tale with a nasty fellow getting his comeuppance; A Dream of A Thousand Cats is a perfect bit of Gaiman playfulness; A Midsummer Night's Dream is weaker, I think, because it feels more like Gaiman just fucking around and amusing himself rather than really telling a story (he's said that his editor read the first draft and said "I don't get it, what's the point?" and his response was to add that one page of Hamnet talking about his dad ignores him, to add a little gravity), and I never cared much for the Shakespeare bits in The Sandman. But quite a bit of the dialogue is amusing. Façade is the only one that I really don't like; it has the worst tendencies of early Sandman - leaning on DC ephemera that doesn't really fit, a sort of teenage angst tone that's a bit beneath Gaiman (he's better when he's aloof rather than histrionic, I think) and ugly art.

Unfortunate black people count: 0. Well done, Neil!

That was my favourite of the Shakespeare bits if only because it feels relatively light hearted and I enjoyed the real faeries appearances, especially their reaction to the play. And when I first read Facade as a teenager I loved it, but reading it recently, eh, it didn't do that much for me.

[Mister Six]

Are there any fortunate black people?

There's a nomadic tribe that act as a framing device for the one in which Nada dies, but as they lost their magical kingdom 10,000 years ago they're maybe not that fortunate.

Probably the only one really is Hob's girlfriend from the Ren Faire in the third-from-last issue, and she's just there to show his regret at having taken part in the slave trade (he's immortal; she has no idea).

Anyway, the final books in the original Sandman series. And I know I started this thread with a negative tone that seems to have been echoed in the replies, but I do think this series is brilliant, and I liked/loved all three volumes here:

8: Worlds' End
Another anthology collection, although this time there's a neat framing device involving a pub in which people from across time and space end up stranded and swap stories (and stories within stories within stories etc) to pass the time.

I liked this one a lot - it makes good use of the guest artists, and there's a decent bit of variety in the tales, although I understand why some others might be underwhelmed. The opening "Tale of Two Cities" in particular reads like a bit of Gaiman whimsy that he dashed off in an afternoon, but I really like the central conceit. "Cluracan's Tale" is a fun bit of derring-do, and I rather like him as a character even though he's a knob. I really liked "The Golden Boy", but I've read Prez, DC's weird attempt at a counter-cultural comic in the 1970s, so the references weren't lost on me. "Hob's Leviathan" is just sort of there, but introduces Ravi, who became a fun recurring character in Lucifer (and turned up in Hellblazer once, IIRC). And "Cerements" is middling, but sets up some intriguing stuff for the finale, as does the conclusion to the framing device.

Unfortunate black people count: I think 0? I don't recall any.

9: The Kindly Ones
I absolutely loved this - including Marc Hempel's art, which is cartoony and exaggerated, but emotive and engaging. Lots of extant threads are woven back together for the penultimate volume (and what is really the final storyline, with the next book being an extended coda), then snipped off in a largely satisfying way. There's a nice balance of comedy (god bless Merv) among all the darkness, and the cartoony nature of Hempel's art both downplays some of the more horrific moments while making others seem more grotesque.

Some of it's a bit loose, I guess - Rose Walker returns, but basically just to tie a bow on various supporting characters that never really needed to be brought up again - but it's no less enjoyable for it. Sadly, the Lyta Hall Misery Train continues. :(

Unfortunate black people count: 2 (Eric gets his arm broken by Lyta, Carla gets burned to death)

10: The Wake
The Wake is basically just a long coda, or a series of them, but I still mostly enjoyed it. The opening three-parter has a lot of really nice character work, a handful of really fun cameos and in-jokes, and a perfect way to end the series (the last caption on the last panel of the last page). So it seems a bit odd that it's followed by another three issues. The Epilogue, following Hob, is quite entertaining but the conversation about slavery feels quite stilted and contrived (how many black American women, really, would both-sides it?) and it seems fairly inessential. "Exiles" is a beautifully illustrated story that works really well as a contrast between two characters, although that was kind of established at the end of The Wake. And "The Tempest" is a beautifully illustrated but ultimately inconsequential-seeming story (yes, I get the echoes with Gaiman ending the Sandman series, but...) that could probably have come earlier in the run.

Still, a tremendous achievement, all in all, and a decent closer to the series proper.

Unfortunate black people count: 0 (But cracker-ass albino collective The Endless create a docile servant to assist them, and he's a massive black man...)

Heh, Dream's treatment of Hall really is ridiculously harsh, isn't it? And it really clashes with Hob's story where he begins to value the idea of having a friend who is human, and why he treats Lyta so badly at the same time is plain weird. 

I guess it's something to do with her intruding on the Dreaming unwittingly with her husband, then being quite reasonably angry at Dream after he "kills" him. Even Daniel isn't particularly comforting towards Lyta in The Kindly Ones or The Wake. I wonder if Gaiman dated a lass with white hair and it ended badly or something?

Lyta gets a bit of a reprieve in Mike Carey's The Furies, IIRC, although I can't really remember any of the details. I'll check that out once I'm done with the supplementary Gaiman Sandman stuff and the Death comics.

Weirdly I never clicked with Rose Walker though, and I wondered if this was intentional as she was due to become the vortex and so lacked any real depth, but others seem to rate her so I could be very wrong.

I dunno, she seems just like an everyman (or woman) for the story. A baseline normal person that all the weird shit can be measured by.

[13 schoolyards]

Thinking about it today, I'm pretty sure I first realised Gaiman was not someone to overly commit myself to was when, after a year or more of talking up his Sweeney Todd series with Michael Zulli, it just never happened.

I mean, even at the time it was clearly going to try to be a From Hell rip off, but Grant Morrison's attempt at the same kind of thing (Bible John) is great, so I'm on board for a bunch of blather about the true nature of stories and whatever only with bonus cannibalism. I've still got everything there was that was published - the preview comic that came with Taboo, the issue of Taboo with the prologue (which honestly was a bit crap, it's just a comic where Gaiman and Zulli wander around a London park looking for Temple Bar) and most annoyingly, a massive interview the pair gave with the Comics Buyers Guide where they made it sound like the bestest thing ever.

I understand it was tied into Taboo and when that anthology started looking shaky Gaiman walked away, but considering just how thoroughly he talked it up as this massive epic that would cover different versions and takes on Todd - the kind of thing you'd assume involved a massive amount of research and study - and then just went "eh, fuck it" made me see him as someone committed to the PR side of things a bit more than then execution.

Anyway, yeah, that was probably the last Gaiman project I was really excited about. If he can bring Miracleman back, why not get back to work on that? Oh wait, nobody but me gives a shit.

[Mister Six]

I understand it was tied into Taboo and when that anthology started looking shaky Gaiman walked away, but considering just how thoroughly he talked it up as this massive epic that would cover different versions and takes on Todd - the kind of thing you'd assume involved a massive amount of research and study - and then just went "eh, fuck it" made me see him as someone committed to the PR side of things a bit more than then execution.

Gaiman's always been a savvy operator. Both Warren Ellis and (IIRC) Grant Morrison clocked the way he sculpted a particular public persona - soulful, whimsical-yet-deep, vaguely gothy sensitive boy - and copied it in their own fashions. I'm not surprised that this happened. Although I am surprised that apparently the prologue and a bunch of backmatter was actually printed and sold, despite the comic not actually existing.

In other news, I've almost concluded my Gaiman-penned Sandman reading...

Endless Nights
This collection of seven stories, one for each of the Endless, feels pretty throwaway, really, although there's some decent stuff in there. If I'd been eagerly awaiting new Sandman and bought this in hardcover when it came out, I'd have felt a bit ripped off.

Pictures in the spoiler tags, if you're intrigued.

The first story, "Death and Venice", is a rejig of "Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death", with a bit of a time travel twist. It's very nicely constructed, very compact and densely written, but also just a bit middling, not helped by P. Craig Russell's cartoony art or a framing narrative that feels rather flimsy. And death seems like a bit of a bitch, TBH.

Spoiler alert

[close]

Next is "What I've Tasted of Desire", which is much, much stronger and reads like a proper lost folk tale. It's good enough that it could be a Gaiman short story and work on its own merits, shorn of the Endless connection. Art is by Milo Minara, which means it's horny as fuck, but also all the women have the exact same face and body type. You know the one.

Spoiler alert

[close]

"The Heart of a Star" is the Dream story, and serves as a cute look at a very early Endless, as Dream takes his new girlfriend to meet the family at a meeting of literal stars. This one's for the nerds, since the story itself is pretty thin, and mostly just serves to give us a look at a very different Endless (Dream and Desire are BFFs, Death is mardy, Destruction loves his job etc). There are lots of DCU references that I loved, but if you're not up on your Superman and Green Lantern lore, those bits will pass you by and the story as a whole might feel a bit flat.

Spoiler alert

[close]

"Fifteen Portraits of Despair" is a bunch of nanofiction stories about people having a very bad time, interspersed with moody descriptions of Despair. I actually liked this, mostly because Gaiman is a very good prose stylist, although the art by Barron Storey isn't done justice by being squeezed into such little space, and it occasionally looks like a Radiohead inlay.

Spoiler alert

[close]

"Going Inside" is the Delerium story, illustrated by BIll Sienkiewicz, and it's absolutely the highlight of the book, as a bunch of troubled souls walk into Delerium's realm to save her from herself. It looks stunning (of course), has a black humour matched by human warmth, and features Barnabas the dog and Matthew the crow (who is apparently not dead any more, post-Dreaming comic. Yay!).

Spoiler alert

[close]

Things take a turn for the eh with "On the Peninsula", in which an archaeologist finds ruins from the future and Destruction turns up for a bit. It's a concept in search of a story, and Gaiman leans heavily on his narrator-protagonist to make it feel a bit deeper than it is. Functional but underwhelming art by Glenn Fabry.

Spoiler alert

[close]

Finally, "Endless Nights" is the Destiny story. Or "story". Since Destiny doesn't really have a personality, and by his nature isn't able to affect a story (because he is the story, and all stories), it's just a description of him wandering about, with stunning artwork by Frank Quitely, who almost manages to make it worthwhile.

Spoiler alert

[close]

So on the whole, a nice thing to have for completists, but by far the most minor of the Gaiman-penned Sandman follow-ups I've read.

But hark! What's this?

Sandman Overture
Blimey! This is great. It's really, really great. In fact, I think it's my favourite Sandman "thing". It's basically Neil Gaiman's Final Crisis - a universe-spanning, reality-twisting, save-all-creation superhero adventure that still functions as a really solid story about Dream, and a prequel to Preludes & Nocturnes. And after book after book of melancholic dark fantasy, this sudden turn to vibrant, colourful, perilous adventure is really, really refreshing.

And its drawn by JH Williams III, so it looks stunning, to the point that I kind of wish they'd get him to redraw the whole Sandman series. Jaw-dropping layouts, wonderful interplay of words and text, and a script that really plays to his strengths, offering lots of opportunities for different styles, palettes, media... it's incredible.

The story is great, too, although to say too much about it would be to spoil the experience of letting it unfold. I will say that it does a very good job of being both its own thing and of expanding the mythos of the Sandman universe in a way that Endless Nights didn't really manage. The only downer is that to get the most out of it, you'll need to have read the full run of Sandman comics and the Dream story from Endless Nights at a bare minimum.

And Mogo has a cameo!

The Dream Hunters
This is a prose novella released after the end of the original Sandman comics, with sumptuous illustrations by Final Fantasy's own Yoshitaka Amano:



Unfortunately, it seems that the New York Public Library only has the comic book adaptation by my nemesis, P. Craig Russell, whose art is clearly dogshit for basic bitches:



...so I'm sacking it off until I can get them to order in the proper one from another library. Booo!

[13 schoolyards]

There seems to have been a bit of backlash to Good Omens s2, with a few reviews describing it as just a bunch of backstory padding out the episodes until

Spoiler alert

a shock downer ending that sets up the next series

[close]

Which probably would have been fine if there was a confirmed next series, because if there isn't the fans - well, the fans who are massively over-invested in a fictional relationship, which is all of them - have been sent on their way with a kick in the teeth.

It's almost as if the "master of stories" is more a master of keeping his main gig going as long as possible while he tries to line up his next batch of work (isn't there an Anasazi Boys series in the works?)

[Mister Six]

It's Anansi Boys, you X-Files nerd!

He's also got The Sandman to worry about, but maybe once he's exhausted all his adaptation options he'll be forced to get back to what he's good at - writing prose and comics. He can't have much left, surely; what's he going to do, turn all 180 pages of The Ocean at the End of the Lane into a five-season mega-show?

[13 schoolyards]

All signs point to yes.

I mean, if he was going to have a varied career at this stage he'd be making sure Gaiman the Writer was still creating original work that Gaiman the Showrunner could peddle. But the pipeline has run dry, and you'd have to think his next big project will be him adapting someone else's work for television (while making sure that the original creator couldn't muscle their way into the showrunner slot, possibly by attaching himself to an author who's dead).

Honestly, Sandman: Overture was one of the more frustrating comics this century, as it proved Gaiman still has it in him to do better-than-pretty-good creative work. He just would rather create fairly forgettable adaptations of his old work.

[Mister Six]

Right, going to see this out to the bitter end.

DEATH, THE DELUXE EDITION is a hardback collection of Death stories, including a bunch that were already collected in previous Sandman books and are just here to pad the thing out: "The Sound of Her Wings" (Death's introduction in Sandman issue 8), Facade (Element Girl has a bad day, from Sandman issue 20) and Death and Venice (short story from Endless Nights).

More interesting are the other bits and pieces:

A Winter's Tale is one of the shorts from one of the old Vertigo: Winter's Edge annuals. It's just Death musing about her existence and Gaiman probably knocked it out in half an hour, but there's some nice ink-blotty art from Jeff Jones.

Death: The High Cost of Living is the first of two three-issue miniseries with art by Chris Bachalo. This is peak Bachalo, BTW - expressive and larger-than-life without being too cartoony, scratchy and gritty without being indecipherable; detailed while being easy to read. The story is pretty light, but quite a lot of fun, with perky Death being paired up with a sullen teenager on a quest to find the heart of Mad Hettie the immortal bag lady. They're pursued by the Eremite, who's probably niche DC Comics anti-hero/villain Mr E. It's all very charming and entertaining, even if it never goes anywhere really.

Death: The Time of Your Life is the second of the miniseries, and really they ended up with one-another's titles, since this one is about a deal with Death to save the life of a little kid. It stars Foxglove and Hazel, the lesbian couple from A Game of You, and is more sparingly plotted than THCOL, but more engaging and heartwarming. Fans of Neil Gaiman's weird latent racism will be thrilled to discover that

Spoiler alert

the kid is saved when a very underwritten black guy elects to die in the kid's place, and his reason is simply that it's his job to serve his white female employer. Erm? But the kid is black too, so I dunno - maybe it balances out?

[close]

Hazel is thankfully not written as borderline mentally disabled this time around, which makes A Game of You seem odd by comparison, but is preferable to her relationship with Foxglove being any more fucked up than it was already. Chris Bachalo on art again, and I'd put him at slightly past peak here for my personal tastes, on the slide into the weird anime-inflected style that I really dislike. It's not too bad here, and is mostly notable only in the simplified facial expressions and cleaner lines. He does some great, weird landscape drawing the edges of Death's domain.

The Wheel is a short from DC's 9/11 charity book, and is pretty solid for what it is - a young lad whose mother died in the towers decides to off himself, only for Destruction and Death to intervene. Bachalo's back(alo), but now he's so far past the peak he's right at the bottom of the mountain and careening into a tree. Full early-2000s super deformed faux-anime US comics dregs. Urgh.

A Death Gallery was apparently released in 2004 as 32 pages of pin-ups of Death, which is taking the piss a bit, but you gotta milk that Sandman cash cow, eh? Lots of great art here, although a few of them are a bit odd - Death kind of smiling at the camera while people are killed or lie dead around her. Colleen Doran's (very well painted) one of Death decked out in 1940s fashions, gazing over a pile of emaciated corpses in a Nazi concentration camp in particular is a bit... hm, no.

And finally there's Death Talks About Life, a cute little AIDS awareness pamphlet written by Neil Gaiman, drawn by Dave McKean and guest-starring John Constantine! It's been collected a few times here and there, but John's embarrassed participation in a guide to putting on a condom (he's holding the banana it's sheathing) always makes me laugh.

So - a decent little collection of mostly good-to-great stuff, if you find it going cheap.

[13 schoolyards]

Doesn't Bachalo leave the art chores partway through The Time of Your Life? I remember the art really drops off towards the end, which is a shame as I was enjoying the story.

The Wheel is probably much better read outside of the 9/11 benefit book it appeared in, as Alan Moore also wrote something for the companion volume and Gaiman (or anyone else writing in those books) came off a very distant second best by comparison.

(not that a direct comparison is fair, as Gaiman was writing one of his short stories and Moore was writing one of his essays, but it was notable that they were the only two UK / Vertigo-ish writers involved - no Garth Ennis or Warren Ellis hot takes that day)

[Mister Six]

Doesn't Bachalo leave the art chores partway through The Time of Your Life? I remember the art really drops off towards the end, which is a shame as I was enjoying the story.

Ah, you're right! Mark Buckingham moves from inker to penciller in the last issue. He's doing quite a good Bachalo impression for most of it though. It's only in the last few pages, with a really odd shot of the characters in a supermarket with disproportionately long arms and torsos that any time pressure/artist change becomes really noticeable.

(not that a direct comparison is fair, as Gaiman was writing one of his short stories and Moore was writing one of his essays, but it was notable that they were the only two UK / Vertigo-ish writers involved - no Garth Ennis or Warren Ellis hot takes that day)

I picked up the DC one at the time but only named the Dark Horse/other indie companies version the other year and never got around to reading it. From what I recall, though, the DC one has a John Constantine story by Mike Carey (which Carey admitted was a bit of a misfire because John's too passive in it) and something by Jamie Delano. I don't recall who else is in there other than a quite racist/jingoistic strip by Stan Lee.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Ah, you're right! Mark Buckingham moves from inker to penciller in the last issue. He's doing quite a good Bachalo impression for most of it though. It's only in the last few pages, with a really odd shot of the characters in a supermarket with disproportionately long arms and torsos that any time pressure/artist change becomes really noticeable.

I picked up the DC one at the time but only named the Dark Horse/other indie companies version the other year and never got around to reading it. From what I recall, though, the DC one has a John Constantine story by Mike Carey (which Carey admitted was a bit of a misfire because John's too passive in it) and something by Jamie Delano. I don't recall who else is in there other than a quite racist/jingoistic strip by Stan Lee.

Sorry the arms are so long, I didn't have time to make them shorter

[13 schoolyards]

I picked up the DC one at the time but only named the Dark Horse/other indie companies version the other year and never got around to reading it. From what I recall, though, the DC one has a John Constantine story by Mike Carey (which Carey admitted was a bit of a misfire because John's too passive in it) and something by Jamie Delano. I don't recall who else is in there other than a quite racist/jingoistic strip by Stan Lee.

You're right about Delano and Carey (and it also features Vertigo's not-at-all Brit Rick Veitch, who I think went off to be a bit of a 9/11 truther?) - in fact, Carey had stories in both volumes, so I guess he had more to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comics_about_the_September_11_attacks#Benefit_books

It seems like the two main books (I remember the Marvel one Heroes was more of an art book, though it also had a Moore piece in there) were divided into editorial / response pieces and stories about and around 9/11, which I didn't really pick up on at the time but I guess makes sense.

As a benefit book it's the obvious move to have popular characters involved to bring in the punters, but honestly a 9/11 story featuring Neil Gaiman's Death didn't sound like a great idea even at the time. I know Gaiman himself has said as far as he's concerned she's the (I guess) supreme Death in the DC universe which means she contains all others, but as characters go she's not really the one you'd call up for something involving harsh and sudden meaningless death on a large scale

[Mister Six]

I dunno, it worked for me. It's not like people weren't keenly aware of the reality of the situation, and the message - yes, death happens but life goes on - is both timely and eternal, I think. IIRC there was a story with a very similar take in the DC book, except there it was Raven from Teen Titans showing a bereaved kid the future.

[bgmnts]

Don't care about 9/11 but the panels of John Constantine holding a banana for sex educational purposes were quite funny.

[13 schoolyards]

It's a shame Gaiman doesn't try his hand at comedy more often, he can write some pretty funny stuff when he tries. He's often very good with character work, which you'd think would naturally lead into comedy (see: Terry Pratchett), but for whatever reason Gaiman seems to like to keep things serious-ish.

It's been interesting to see the way Gaiman's stewardship of Good Omens has changed the story there. I'd always remembered the novel as being a comedy, but the TV series - especially the second season - seems to have gone down the romantic drama path, which I guess makes sense for 2023 and for Gaiman's fans but kind of defeats the purpose of the story for mine.

[Dayraven]

The greater emphasis on Aziraphale and Crowley even in the first series was probably a result of their being one of the plotlines that didn't depend on children or narrative sprawl, both things that are harder to put on screen, and the duo are also the most natural choice for a 'the adventures continue' approach in series 2.

Most recent Gaiman thing I've read was the Metamorpho story he did for Wednesday Comics, which is a comedy — bit lightweight and didn't seem to quite get past sorting out the odd format (one large page a week). Best bit was also the showiest — Metamorpho and Element Woman have a conversation where each sentence incorporates the abbreviated name of one of the elements.

[Mister Six]

The greater emphasis on Aziraphale and Crowley even in the first series was probably a result of their being one of the plotlines that didn't depend on children or narrative sprawl, both things that are harder to put on screen, and the duo are also the most natural choice for a 'the adventures continue' approach in series 2.

Agreed. One of the things the first series made me realise is how rambling the book is, which is fine in a novel - especially one with Pratchett behind the keyboard - but a TV show needs a tighter focus, and the angel/devil pairing is the most obvious by far.

They're also the ones whose stories aren't neatly resolved at the end, and the book even closes with them talking about how the real battle would be humanity vs Heaven and Hell.

If anything, I think that first series would have benefitted from taking even more liberties with the novel.

Making their relationship openly romantic definitely feels like Gaiman playing up to his fanbase, though.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I don't think he's very good at writing for tv

[Mister Six]

No, he's not. He's - oddly for a guy who was big in comics - quite poor at thinking visually, especially in terms of movement, and at pacing scenes. He also tends to rely heavily on narration, even in his comics work (seriously, look through The Sandman and see how many issues have some kind of narration, whether third person, first person or through diary entries and other written materials). I think he's kind of lost when he doesn't have that to rely on. His dialogue can also be very funny on paper, but isn't always terribly easy to say, and you can see the lesser actors struggling in Good Omens 2.

[13 schoolyards]

Wasn't it the case that Gaiman said his first (good) episode of Doctor Who went to air as written while his second (bad) one with the Cybermen was messed around with, when by all other reports it was the other way around?

[Mister Six]

I don't know what went on with the second one (Nightmare in Silver) but yeah, The Doctor's Wife was supposed to be in S5 but had to be held over to S6 due to rewrites and budget concerns, so even if Gaiman had a full hand on the tiller (and I think before NiS came out he admitted that Moffat contributed some of the most Gaimany lines) he probably had more time to rewrite TDW than NIS.

NIS strikes me as a story that was just too big for the space it was allotted. Fitting Warwick Davis, Jason Watkins and the neo-Mechanical Turk, the amusement park on the moon, the two kids and Clara-as-au pair, the misfit soldiers fighting off the Cybermen and The Doctor battling his own Cyber-self was too, too much. Should have either been two episodes or pared right down for a single one - pick any two of the moon park, the soldiers or the Cyber-Doctor.

[Dayraven]

Gaiman's talked about more ambitious stuff having been in earlier drafts of The Doctor's Wife, I think the real difference might be that one was edited down well and the other was edited down poorly.

[Mister Six]

Presumably because of the difference in preparation time. If you need an extra year to get your script fit for television, TV isn't your best medium.