I first met Neil Gaiman back in 1989. I had received a grant from the Delphi Institute to study American pop culture with cartoonists from around the world. The group traveled across the USA visiting various companies and museums.
One of our stops was DC Comics. Since I already worked there, it didn’t strike me as a particularly unique experience. So, while the others got a lecture from Archie Goodwin, I wandered off to scare up some gigs and meet people. One of the people I met was the not-yet-famous Neil Gaiman who was hanging out in Karen Berger’s office.
I didn’t know who he was. After leaving the office and getting halfway down the hall, I suddenly realized he was that Neil Gaiman, author of the comic I thought was keen, but the rest of the world had yet to discover. After my double take, I ran back to the office and shouted “You’re that Neil Gaiman! Sandman!”
We did the mutual admiration thing. He told me he enjoyed A Distant Soil, a revelation which made me all tingly. He said would like to work with me sometime, which made me tingle even more.
It was rather comical to watch I am sure, because as I recall, we both burbled a lot.
Sandman was on the ropes, alas. To stave off cancellation, DC decided to try publishing a special edition of issue #8 as a freebie and introduction to retailers.
He gave me one of those promo Sandman #8′s which wasn’t in stores yet. In it he left his name, address and phone. Don’t you wish you had one of those?
Later I began receiving a series of charming postcards – all the way from England – written in Neil’s own dainty hand.
I considered donating these to a charity auction. By golly, they are just too cool. I’ve decided to keep them.
And with Neil’s kind permission, I am posting the first of them here, the one where he asks if I would work on Sandman sometime. A little bit of comics history.
Ah, the days of the 29p postage stamp are way behind us.
I was reading Sandman back then, so you weren’t the only one. Mind you, that was before I decided that I really didn’t like it much. But that’s me, always out of step with popular opinion. Joe Simon, Mike Fleisher and Jack Kirby’s 1974 version was far superior in every way. IMHO, natch…
I have to admit I’m not a Sandman fan either (although I enjot Neil Gaiman’s prose stuff). Having said that, I’m dying to see Colleen’s remastered Absolute Sandman pages but will probably never get the chance due to the expense involved for so few pages….: (
Well, for my sins, I did fork out for the first two Absolutes — just to get Colleen’s art… Sad, eh?
My understanding is that, eventually, the remastered Absolute Sandman pages will filter into newer versions of the trades. So keep hope alive. I could be completely wrong about this, however.
I bought all of the Absolutes. No brainer.
I love those books, but I kinda wish they weren’t so darned big! They are hard to cuddle up with! Then again, I guess they are meant for hard core collecting and admiring, and not for cuddling.
I’m a book cuddler.
BTW, what I wouldn’t give to be able to collect all my photos in a nice book. They are nothing to cheer about – being just snaps – but I do wish my little snippets of comic history could be preserved for people to peruse in some comfortable way.
Colleen, you could host them up at somewhere like Flickr or even publish them as a book via Lulu. You’d have to look at expense but the advantage is you can print on demand so you could take orders before printing or possibly place it on their marketplace for people to order directly, thus saving you the hassle of dealing with processing orders yourself.
It’s been a while since I went to Lulu last (I had a book I was gonna self publishing but got stuck on pdf formatting) but I think those are options, or maybe even Ka-Blam?
Allan, I don’t think you’re sad as I spent years buying anything with Adam Hughes art (so mostly just covers) and realised while I loved what I was after, I couldn’t continue to justify the expense of buying dreadful comics just for a page or two of art. If I could, I’d still be grabbing anything by Hughes, Bolland, etc but I still buy mainly based on artist involvement so if there’s a significant presence by folks such as Colleen, Maguire, Nowlan, PCRussell, JHWilliams, Sprouse or whoever, I’m there like a shot! Currently reading the lush Dave Stevens artbook, which is a much better buy but such a bittersweet read knowing he’s no longer around…: (
I tend to latch on to some of my favourite comicsthough and will occasionally buy the same stuff in different formats: e.g. I bought the Rocketeeer graphic novel despite having all the original issues, and have the Warp, Donning, Aria and Image collected versions of ADS!
Sorry, this went a little off topic!
cyclopsfan:”Currently reading the lush Dave Stevens artbook, which is a much better buy but such a bittersweet read knowing he’s no longer around…: ( ”
Wait ’til you get to the last few pages. I cried…