Wow. I thought I was beyond the stage when I would suddenly discover a startling new author, with a full back catalog of unread books. Neil Gaiman is definitely such a writer. And the reason I missed him? He works almost exclusively in graphic novels.
After running into no fewer than three references to the Sandman series of graphic novels in a few days (“…the novel we’re reviewing here is not as good as Gaiman’s Sandman series from 20 years ago, but …”), I found it at the local library. Great stuff – Norman Mailer described the series as “a comic book for intellectuals” – and it’s true. References to Herodotus, Shakespeare, Dante, the great myths (in their original, unsanitized forms), Arthur C. Clarke and so many others, it would be hard to list them all.
But this is more than a collection of references – this is a living, breathing series that stands on its own (albeit, on the shoulders of giants). I spent a month reading through the full collection, and loved them all. Highly recommended.
Amazon link for Volume 1 of 11 here.
Also has at least 2 very good movies from his work – Stardust and Coraline