A DEATH GALLERY

 She arrived in my head about a week after her brother.

He had arrived brooding, quiet, pale and gaunt; and while there was indeed a definite family resemblance, she was in many ways his opposite: sensible, delightful, nice.

Mike Dringenberg was at that time the inker of SANDMAN (Sam Kieth was pencilling).

He read my description of Death in the original SANDMAN outline and decided that she

should look less like a young Nico or Louise Brooks (as l'd suggested) and more like his

friend Cinnamon. Mike did a drawing of her — the same drawing that appeared as a pinup

in SANDMAN, and later as a T-shirt and a watch face.

The day the drawing arrived in England, I had to meet Dave McKean at a London pancake

house: he was to show me transparencies of the fir'st few SANDMAN covers. Our waitress

was Death: skinny and pale and elfin and sweet, with long dark hair and black clothes, and

a silver ankh. I nearly showed her Mike's drawing, but then decided not to.

There's a tale in the Caballa that suggests that the Angel of Death is so beautiful that on finally seeing it (or him, or her) you fall in love so hard, so fast, that your soul is pulled

out through your eyes.

I like that story.

There's an Islamic story that declares that the Angel of Death has huge wings covered in eyes, and that as each mortal dies one of its eyes closes, just for a moment.

I like that story too, and take pleasure in imagining huge wings, and a ripple of ever-opening,

ever-closing beautiful eyes.

And there's a touch of wish fulfillment ih there too. I didn't want a Death who agonised oVer

her role, or who took a grim delight in her job, or who didn't care. I wanted a Death that l'd

like to meet, in the end. Someone who would care.

Like her.

Neil Gaiman

A Death Gallery, DC Comics, 1994