Online desde: 05/01/2000       
Última atualização: 20/11/09       

The writer who brought the
Dream back into comics

Neil Gaiman, the british writer who gave the Sandman character a new life so he could soar from limbo to stardom, was in Brazil as a guest from Conrad Editora. Universo HQ caught him in an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, were the author spoke about his projects, artists, future colaborations and much more! And if that wasn't enough he also took a shot at Todd McFarlane

By Team UHQ

Neil Gaiman, who made Sandman into a huge success

May 22nd of 2001. It's a gray Tuesday in São Paulo. After weeks of anxiety, the editors of Universo HQ are ready to leave for the hotel where Neil Gaiman is staying to do an exclusive interview. However, a few minutes before we leave, we are told that it wont be possible to do the interview, due to an unforeseen change in his schedule and commitments to other members of press!

What now? What should we do? Give up and let down our reader's? No way! We arrived at the hotel some time before the scheduled lunch, and since we had no other options, we didn't hesitate: we interviewed him at his room, thanks to the support of the staff of Conrad Editora (Thanks, Cassius!). It was worth the effort, as you will see below.

Neil Richard Gaiman (that's his full name) told us about his work on Sandman, about his work method, the research involved and more. He also spoke about the movie Death and why he is keeping his distance from the silver screen version of Sandman.

Gaiman shed light on what's really happening between him and Marvel's Joe Quesada, about the problems surrounding Miracleman and Angela's ownership, and also, he wasn't shy to tell us what he thinks about Todd McFarlane.

He spoke about his favorite artists, his next book (American Gods) he even told us what he's expecting from Dark Knight Strikes Again, the sequel to Frank Miller's masterpiece The Dark Night Returns.

Universo HQ: What did you read as a child?

As a child, Gaiman was fascinated by the book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Neil Gaiman: The first book that I ever remember reading, which would not have been my first book, but the first one that I remember, was all about this little mermaids. Lonely little mermaids swimming around. I remember lot of strange comics, strange English comics filled with funny animals and for reasons that I forget were astonishing keen on jam. Fruit jam. There's jam everywhere by the end of the story. You know when I was 3 or 4.

The first book I remember really having a huge crush on as book, as an author, was one when I was six, I discovered the Narnia series of books by C. S. Lewis. His story The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was, in 1955 or 1956, adapted to television, and very badly, but I watched one episode of this and went home and got my father to buy me The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and then for my 7th birthday, so that would have been 1967, I got the whole set, all seven books. I read them over and over again. So thast the first thing I remember reading and being addicted to as a child.

UHQ: Your first published work is Violent Cases?

Gaiman: My first published comic book would be Violent Cases.

UHQ: You have stuff before Violent Cases as a writer?

Gaiman: Yeah, yeah, I have Ghastly Beyond Belief, which is a book I did with a writer named Kim Newman and was a book of quotations from the worst science fiction books and movies and horror books and movies. And then there's a Rock 'n' Roll biography that I do not talk about. Ok, Ok, it was Duran Duran Biography. I was paid 2000 pounds. I was very hungry. (Laughter)

They said do you want to write Barry Manilow, Def Lepard or Duran Duran? And I picked Duran Duran because they have done the least. So I figured it was the shortest book to write. (Laughter)

Sandman, Master of Dreams

UHQ: Sandman is a huge thing today. How do you feel as the creator?

Gaiman: It's very hard to say. George Harrison once was asked a Beatles question. He just said: "look you have to remember that I am one of the only 4 people in the world who have no idea what the Beatles did or what happened to the Beatles because Never turn on the radio and went looking for new record. We never asked what's the Beatles doing? What's the cover of the new album? We were the only four people in the sixties for whom the Beatles didn't happened".

In many ways I'm got to be the only person in the whole world the comics for whom Sandman didn't happened. Everybody else is like: What's he doing? What's he planning? Oh my god, What's gonna happen next? And I'm the one going Ok…oh dear, they put the word balloon on that panel wrong, or where's the cover?

Sandman #50

So there was never any point during the creative run of Sandman were I ever sat down and said: "Look: I'm creating a myth for the end of the Twentieth Century. Instead I would go: "Oh my god, I have 4 issues worth of story and only three issues to get to Sandman #49 because 50 is the one that Craig Russell is already drawing. How do I get to the end of Brief Lives, What do I leave out?"

It was much more on a daily basis concerned with the mechanics. With American Gods, the new novel, which I think it has a scope and mythology like the Sandman did. If sandman was a mythology for the end of the twentieth century, American Gods tries to create a mythology for the twentieth first century. But I can say that in hindsight, now the book is finished, while I was writing it, all I wanted to do was figure out were my character went next, and how do I get to the end of that sentence and what happens here?

UHQ: In 1988, when Karen Berger invited you to write a character for DC, Sandman was not your first option. What character did you had in mind? And what were your plans? A radical rebirth like the one you did with Sandman?

Gaiman: Initially I was just looking in ways to do DC characters well, she asked me who do you like to do and I said my number one choice would be the Phantom Stranger.

I loved the idea of the Phantom Stranger, I loved the idea of the character. Somebody that has no story of his own but walks into other people stories. In many ways, emotionally, some of the things I would have done to Phantom Stranger went into Sandman.

UHQ: Do you still want to do it? Or did you lost interest?

Gaiman: It's hard. It's not that I lost interest. There is a draft script that was never acted upon of Sandman #24. The first five pages of Sandman 24, I originally wrote a version in which the Sandman is coming back from Hell, he's flying back from Hell and he meets the Phantom Stranger. And they stand there and they have a conversation about what's going to happen. And it didn't work. They are both standing there saying meaningful mysterious things to each other. I had a page and a half of this and I went: this is just silly. And I threw it away. And the conversation didn't happen because the Sandman and the Phantom Stranger were so similar.

So I suspect that I probably got everything out of my system with Sandman, that I probably would have done to Phantom Stranger over the years.

I think it's funny looking back on it the reason DC gave me why I couldn't do Phantom Stranger. The reason I was given for not being able to do him was: "He's not heroic enough." (Everybody laughing in disbelief)

They said, we can't do a monthly comic with the Phantom Stranger and he's not enough of a hero. Come up with somebody else.

UHQ: Wasn't that strange?

Gaiman: Only in retrospect. From the point of view of 1987, 1988 it made a lot of sense. Then I suggest the Demon, they said no Matt Wagner is doing the Demon. Trying to recall if I suggested anybody else… maybe Green Arrow. I think I may have said how about Green Arrow? And they said "No,.no, Mike Grell is doing Green Arrow."

The Endless: Dream, Delirium, Death, Desire, Destruction, Desteny and Despair

UHQ: When you started writing Sandman, did you have the whole Endless family or you make them as you went along?

Gaiman: I think at least 3 of them are mentioned in Sandman number one. I think Desire, Destiny and Death.

UHQ: And the others are mention in # 9.

Gaiman: Yes, in issue # 9 everybody is mentioned and implied.

UHQ: Except Destruction.

Gaiman: Yeah, except Destruction. And I think Delirium is not named, she's doesn't get named until she appears in issue 21. But I didn't know who they all were.

UHQ: You developed the concept as you went along?

Gaiman: It was always interesting when I met them. I thought Delirium was gonna be really punky and angry, and instead she turned out be much more sort of whimsical when she came on stage.

UHQ: During the Sandman story you would seed things to the reader that you would explain only 30 issues later. Did you had that planed all along?

Gaiman: There are things in issue 71 that don't pay off until issue 75. That's the joy of doing a monthly series. And bringing something up that's gonna happen in time.

UHQ: But you don't see many creators doing that.

Gaiman: Yes, but I don't know why they don't. Because it's like what Joe Straczynski did in Babylon 5. You go:" here I am making a 5-year TV show, I'm gonna give it a story. And things will happen here and pay off here." These days we still watch TV shows and every season they put a different committee on, a different bunch of writers, they've thrown away everything that happened last season, and all of a sudden people are waking up in showers…

There's so many shows out there, were you wish somebody had known what there were doing all the way through.

Neil Gaiman, comfy, during the interview with Universo HQ

UHQ: You did a lot of research on Sandman. Was that a problem for a monthly title?

Gaiman: What tended to happen is I would alternate stories where there was a lot of research was needed with stories that wasn't.

Mostly the ones were I actually needed to do research was the historicals, because I got a bit obsessive about getting the details right. So, The Emperor Norton story (Sandman #29), the French Revolution story (Sandman #31), those are the kind of things that I made sure my details were right. Man of Good Fortune (Sandman #14), you know, the Shakespeare ones.

Shakespeare scholars and Shakespeare professors, those stories get taught in Universities now. And one of the reasons they are being taught in Universities is because the details are right.

UHQ: There were visual references in Sandman. Did you do that or the artists did them?

Gaiman: Most of them were in the script. Occasionally Mike Drindenberg would add something up, but most of the time it was in the script.

UHQ: Sandman creates a series of spin off, mini series and related works. What do you think about them? Do you read them?

Gaiman: These days I read them for pleasure. When they send me a Lucifer, I read it cuz its fun. I like what's been done with it. The rest of the stuff, I'm mostly happy not to be a consultant anymore. Especially because being a consultant is a very thankless task, because they will consult you and they'll ask: "what do you think of that?" I will say, "I wouldn't do it like that", and they'll say, "Well we are doing it".

Brazillian edition of Sandman - The Dream Hunters, published by Conrad Editora.

UHQ: Once you said that you really liked the Brazilian editions Sandman. What do you think of the version of Sandman - The Dream Hunters, from Conrad Editora?

Gaiman: It's amazing! Really amazing! Amano's art is beautiful! I recall that I wanted one of his drawings from this album for myself, to put it in my room. And then he gave me one, and i said that I liked a lot. That's exactly the one I got. (Laughter)

He gave us several illustration, and told us to choose which ones we wanted for Dream hunters. We had so many beautiful one's that it was hard to choose from. So I said I wanted them all! And he would be surprised, and he told us that his Publisher in Japan never had done that. I didn't tell him how to do the drawings; he just read the story and did what he wanted. Amano did everything very fast. One day we had nothing and the next we had a whole chapter.

He's brilliant and I definitely would like to work with him again!

UHQ: What can be said about The Endless?

Gaiman: I don't know. I don't get to start writing it, until after I finish the signing tour. I do know that we want to have a really really cool group of artists. It's a project I promised Karen (Berger). Karen, my editor, has been so patient. She's waited at least two years for it. It's possible that I will come off the signing tour for American Gods, and suddenly things go big and fast with the Death script, she may be waiting another six months. I hope her patience continues. In the mean time we are talking with lots of beautiful artists, people from all over the world.

continues