![]() ![]() Taking on the lacklustre superhero team Doom Patrol, Morrison twisted it into their own surreal, psychedelic image. The Scottish writer Grant Morrison followed. Moore’s run raised the bar for what was possible in a monthly comic. First, Berger commissioned writer Alan Moore to work on the horror title Swamp Thing. This was largely due to Karen Berger, visionary editor of DC Comics, home to Batman and Superman. The late 80s saw a kind of “British invasion”, a migration of talent to the US that was to change the face of comics. Watchmen by Alan Moore was named one of Time magazine’s top 100 novels since the magazine’s inception. The Dark Knight Returns was a bestseller that reached readers far beyond comics audiences. Maus by Art Spiegelman went on to win the Pulitzer prize. These comics – you seem to think they’re a good thing …’ What I was saying was that there was this whole flowering of the medium, and what he wanted was for me to interview people who felt that comics were the end of literacy.” Gaiman was, of course, proved right. There’s just one problem – we feel it lacks balance. “After a few days, I phoned the editor to ask if he got the article and he said: ‘Yes, I’ve read it. “They didn’t call back,” continues Gaiman. I did all the interviews and gathered together art, including unpublished material.” But it was not to be. Gaiman was eventually commissioned by a Sunday newspaper supplement to do a feature on comics. But I also wanted to make movies, television, novels One newspaper replied: ‘We’ve written about Desperate Dan’s 50th anniversary this year – we can’t do another comics piece.’” Comics were a place you could do things no one had done before. “At that point Maus, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were all coming out. “In 1986, I pitched a story about what was happening in comics,” he says. The mid-80s was an exciting time to be involved with the medium, and Gaiman – working as a freelance journalist – was well aware of it. Gaiman may be enjoying phenomenal success now, but he started in comics, then considered the literary gutter. He is unselfconsciously familiar with his almost 3 million Twitter followers and the readers of his online journal fans were regularly invited to listen to Gaiman and his wife, the musician Amanda Palmer, singing lullabies to their son, Ash. ![]() This essential optimism is also apparent in his social media interactions. This generosity may be one of the reasons he enjoys such devotion from his fans. There is also a kindness that pervades his stories Gaiman is a writer who likes his characters. It is characterised by a magic realist view of the universe, where mythic creatures exist within the everyday. Gaiman’s output may be prolific and diverse, but it’s also instantly recognisable. Gaiman’s Midas touch extends beyond literature: his play The Ocean at the End of the Lane was recently staged in London to enthusiastic reviews film adaptations of his work include Coraline and Stardust Lucifer, Good Omens and American Gods have all been successfully adapted to television Gaiman even wrote the English translation of classic Studio Ghibli anime Princess Mononoke. He has won the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards, and the Newbery and Carnegie medals. His restless imagination refuses to be constrained by genre or demographic he has written adult horror fantasy (American Gods ), children’s literature (Coraline ) and retellings of ancient myth (Norse Mythology ). The British-born Gaiman is one of the most recognised living authors. Just in time to go off on a tour of America.” Nobody was completely unaffected by the pandemic, but not even Covid could derail the big-budget Netflix adaptation of Gaiman’s seminal 90s comic series The Sandman, due next month. “I didn’t actually get back till April 2022. ![]() “I left here in August 2019, figuring I’d be back by the end of March,” he says. Dressed all in black, unruly black hair shot through with silver, he sits comfortably on a couch at his house in Woodstock, New York. ![]()
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