Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard Gaiman was born on November 10, 1960 in the United Kingdom. He is the author of numerous science fiction and fantasy works, including many comic books. As of 2002, he lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

Biography

After being rejected many times by publishers, Gaiman pursued journalism as a means to learn about the world and make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published. During this time he wrote his first book, a now sought-after throwaway biography of the band Duran Duran, and a large number of articles for Knave magazine. In the late 1980s he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humorist" style; in his opinion the book is what lead to his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novel Good Omens, about an impending apocalypse. [1]

He also wrote two British graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long time friend Dave McKean: Violent Cases and Signal to Noise. His hard work finally paid off, and he landed a job with DC Comics, which resulted in the series Black Orchid. He has written a multitude of comics for several publishers, but his best-known work is the comics series The Sandman, which chronicles the adventures of Morpheus, the personification of Dream. (See Endless) All 75 issues of the regular series have been collected into 10 volumes that are still in print and selling well.

In 1991, Gaiman published The Books of Magic, a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he has a destiny as the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and spun off an ongoing series, also called The Books of Magic, written by John Ney Reiber. Many people have noted similarities between series protagonist Tim Hunter and the later and more famous Harry Potter.

Gaiman also writes songs, poems and novels, and wrote the BBC dark fantasy television series Neverwhere, which he later adapted into a book. In addition, he wrote the English language script to the anime movie Princess Mononoke.

Gaiman is a Board Member as well as an active supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and he regularly participates in fundraisers for the group including creating materials such as the original Snow, Glass, Apples (the CBLDF owns the copyright).

Shortly before the publication of American Gods, Gaiman began to write a weblog, which now resides on his official site and is one of the most-read weblogs on the Internet. Parts of it were extracted for publication in the NESFA Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, Adventures in the Dream Trade.

Gaiman received a World Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1991 for the Sandman issue, A Midsummer Night's Dream (see Dream Country). He received the 2002 Hugo Award for outstanding novel for American Gods.

Gaiman forged an intense friendship with singer Tori Amos in the early ninties, far before she met stardom. As such he is constantly mentioned (often rather cryptically) in at least one of her songs on each of her albums. He also wrote the forewords to several of her tour programs as well as short stories to accompany her album "Strange Little Girls." (They appeared in the album booklet.) Some of her lyrical mentions: "If you need me, me and Neil will be hangin' with the dream king/Neil said hi, by the way" ("Tear In Your Hand," 1992); "Where's Neil when you need him?" ("Space Dog," 1994); "Will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?" ("Horses," 1996)...Gaiman based a character of a talking Tree on Amos; "Where are the Velvets?" ("Hotel," 1998...The Velvets are vampire-like characters from Gaiman's novel "Neverwhere";) "Get me Neil on the line, have him read Snow, Glass, Apples" ("Carbon," 2002).

Gaiman is also a friend of J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the television series Babylon 5. As such there is a species of aliens on that series called the Gaim; their heads closely resemble the mask worn by Gaiman's Sandman character. Gaiman wrote the season 5 episode "Day of the Dead".

Bibliography

Comics & Graphic Novels

• Black Orchid (1988) (with Dave McKean)
• The Sandman series (1989-1996) (with various artists)
• The Comic Relief Comic One-off Comic Relief special, featuring almost everyone in the Comics industry
• Miracleman (1990-1993) (with various artists)
• Violent Cases (1987, 1991 US) (with Dave McKean)
• The Books of Magic (1991) (with various artists)
• Signal to Noise (1992) (with Dave McKean)
• (1993) (with Chris Bachalo)
• Mr. Punch (1994) (with Dave McKean)
• The Last Temptation (1994) (with Michael Zulli)
  • storyline based on Alice Cooper's album The Last Temptation, co-plotted and written by Mr Gaiman and Alice Cooper
• Angela Vol. 1 mini series (1995) (with Todd McFarlane)
• (1996) (with Chris Bachalo)
• The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999) (with Yoshitaka Amano)
• Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days (1999) (a collection of early work with various artists)
• Murder Mysteries (Dark Horse) (2002)) (adapted by P. Craig Russell)
• Harlequin Valentine (2002) (with John Bolton)
• 1602 (2003) (Marvel) (with various artists)
• Endless Nights (2003) (with various artists)

Prose

• Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1987) (A guide to Douglas Adams' 'trilogy')
• Good Omens (1990) (with Terry Pratchett)
• Now we are Sick (1991) (co-editor, with Stephen Jones)
  • Anthology of Nasty Verse with poems by Alan Moore, Ramsey Campbell, Gene Wolfe, R.A. Lafferty, Terry Pratchett, Brian Aldiss, Kim Newman, Diana Wynne Jones, etc.
• Angels and Visitations (1993) (a collection of short stories)
• Snow, Glass, Apples (1994) (short story illustrated by Charles Vess)
• About Cats and Dogs (1997) (two short stories)
• Neverwhere (1996, 1997 US)
• Smoke And Mirrors (1998) (a collection of short stories)
• The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1998) (a children's book illustrated by Dave McKean)
• Stardust (1998, 2000) (illustrated by Charles Vess)
• The Sandman Companion (1999) (by Hy Bender, about Mr Gaiman's The Sandman series)
• American Gods (2001)
• Murder Mysteries (Biting Dog Press) (2001) (illustrated by George Walker)
• Adventures in the Dream Trade (2002) (a miscellany)
• Snow, Glass, Apples (Biting Dog Press) (2002) (with George Walker)
• A Walking Tour of the Shambles (2002) (with Gene Wolfe)
• Coraline (2002) (a children's book, US ed illustrated by Dave McKean)
• The Wolves in the Walls (2003) (illustrated by Dave McKean)

Audio

• Warning Contains Language (1995) (stories read by Gaiman, music by McKean)
• Signal to Noise (2000) (audio drama with full cast and music)
• American Gods (2002) (read by George Guidall)
• Coraline (2002) (US ed. read by Gaiman, UK ed. by Dawn French)
• Two Plays for Voices (2002) (Snow, Glass, Apples and Murder Mysteries with full cast & music)
• Telling Tales (2003) (Neil tells us stories: A Writer's Prayer; Harlequin Valentine; Boys and Girls Together; The Wedding Present, and In The End. Percussion by Robin Adnan Anders)

• Mr Gaiman's song-writing and collaboration is also featured on:
  • Alice Cooper's The Last Temptation
  • The Flash Girls' The Return of Pansy Smith & Violet Jones, Maurice & I and Play Each Morning Wild Queen

External links

• Neil Gaiman's personal web site
• Neil Gaiman's weblog
• The Flash Girlss website