Graphic novel The Sandman made its author into an icon. He talks about his big break in comics, the genre’s long struggle for respectability and the lavish Netflix adaptation that’s bringing his gothic hero to life
Neil Gaiman is relieved to be home. Dressed all in black, unruly black hair shot through with silver, he sits comfortably on a couch at his house in Woodstock, New York. “I left here in August 2019, figuring I’d be back by the end of March,” he says. “I didn’t actually get back till April 2022. 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.
The British-born Gaiman is one of the most recognised living authors. 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). He has won the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards, and the Newbery and Carnegie medals. And those are just the books. 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.
