To be absolutely honest, I had a copy of the Totally Ghastly Beyond Belief Sci-Fi quotes (I cannot remember the exact name just some of the quotes oddly enough) he cowrote with some woman in about 89-90, my mother brought it for me and I did treasure it but not because I was a true fan then...But I lost it. Damn sharehouses!!!
When I truely discovered the absolute genius of Gaiman was about 1993-4, when a good friend introduced me to my first comic (I always hated supersuperheroes and I naively believed that is how comics were). I read the single copies she lent me, eagerly awaiting the next issues...and I was hooked but living the lifestyle of the less than wise or maybe the wise, hooked on stuff that wasn't free shall we say... I never actually started collecting the one day to be definitive collection of his works...
HOW ABOUT U???

My english teacher let me borrow the first to books of the sand man series and after that i was hooked. I went out and bought the rest of them. then when i was finished with that i went and bought his books.... and so on.

Picked up "The Kindly Ones" from the SciFi bok club on a semi-lark. Had heard lots of good things about the series, but had never seen any of it. Grabbed the hardback as part of the initial signup deal (like 7 for a buck each or something like that) and was hooked from there.

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jello.
aka aron.

Back in my comicbook collecting days I was browsing the racks and I saw this new #1 comic called Sandman. I had never heard of Neil but I was convinced that I did not own enough 1st issues of anything so I picked it up.
The rest they say is history.

"He never made love to a loaf of bread. Unless of course he found one in his bed."

My roommate bought Neil's Live at the Aladdin video and said I "had" to watch it. As soon as I heard him read Chivalry, it was all over for me.

In 1991 when "Good Omens", "Dream Country" and "Preludes and Nocturnes" were released as paperbacks. I bought them because I'd read that his writing was slightly similar to Alan Moore's and because I was into Terry Pratchett.

- Michael

I picked up Neverwhere at a train station and read it mostly while travelling through Toronto's underground rail system.

Back home, I discovered my dad had bought me one of those massive 1000-comics-for-a-dollar things. After sorting through about 80 duplicates of Superman comic books, I found Sandman: A Doll's House. Chapter 4, if memory serves. I've since read everything of his I could get my hands on.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams

I moved to a new town and mutual friends (unsuccessfully) tried to pair me up with a guy who had a huge DC comics collection. Most of his Sandmans were always on loan to some friend or the other, so since I was obliged to read at least one and no others were available I started from the first half of the Finnish album version of Season of Mists. I remember the guy showing me the last ever Sandman that had just come out but refusing to let me read it of course, so Morpheus was basically dead and buried by the time I got to know him. Still didn't figure out who the Sandman of the title was from the split Season of Mists, though, due to it being in Finnish, names left it unclear. Hence my reluctance to have anything to do with translations after that. By the time I'd read the previous ones and it was time for A Game of You I was buying them myself.

How weak and little is the light, All the universe of sight, Love and delight, Before the might, If you love it not, of night. (Edward Thomas, Out in the Dark)

[This message was edited by Nyks on September 09, 2002 at 04:46 PM.]

I'd heard about Sandman through various sources for a while, and I was always forbidden to look at it because of the "mature readers" logo. Eventually I got older, and Barnes and Noble started carrying the TPBs, so I kinda liked it. One day, I discovered that I had a gift certificate to FYE, and figured i'd get a Sandman TPB. Brief Lives, actually, 'cause it was the only one without a number (odd story, nevermind...). I read it, reread it, kept rereading it.... you get the picture.

Discovered Neil Gaiman through a roomie who borrowed Season of Mists from her friend. This must have been in 1996. Since then, I've been trying to get or read almost all of his books.

I'm a new fan, but stay with me...

My parents live in a very boring town. During the summer months, I live with my parents. In early June of this year, I was too poor to buy books, so I took a trip to the local library. I picked up "Sandman: Book of Dreams" because its cover was more interesting than the romance and/or war novels which occupy 95% of the library. I had no idea it was associated with comics (besides, my mom always told me that girls didn't read comics anyway).

As I read this book, something was nagging in the back of my mind. "The Dream King." I couldn't place it, but it was so familiar. Then I realized--

"If you need me, me and Neil'll be hanging out with the Dream King."

A line from a Tori Amos song. It was a sit-up-in-bed-flip-to-the-front-cover-lightbulb-goes-off kinda moment.

(No, I hadn't noticed that she had written something for the book.)

It simply captured my imagination. I had always loved that line, even when I didn't know what it meant. I checked out as many books as I could find in my libraries (two: "American Gods" and "Stardust," if you're wondering), and finally had to invest money to buy personal copies of his works.

I'm currently reading "Neverwhere," and everyone wants to borrow my other books. I don't want to lend them out...

I've been a lifelong fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and read pretty much any book I could get my hands on. So on one of my birthdays, (my 12th or 13th, I think), an aunt of mine picked up Preludes and Nocturnes and gave that to me as one of my gifts. At the time I thought it was a cool series, but didn't follow it up for a while. (In my defense, this is mostly because I didn't know there were any more stories after Preludes and Nocturnes).

Then a few years ago I saw some of the later Sandman collections in a bookstore while browsing, and a friend of mine recomended Good Omens at about the same time. From then on, I was hooked on Gaiman for good, and have made every effort to hook anyone else I know that is a reader.

"His madness keeps him sane, doesn't it?"
"Do you think he is the only one?"

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I'm currently reading "Neverwhere," and everyone wants to borrow my other books. I don't want to lend them out...

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It could be worse... I go to a college where most people have heard of Sandman, but not everyone has read it. So I'm always lending out my copies... i need to be careful, though.

About 6 years ago a friend dropped Good Omens in my lap and said "You have to read this!". That same friend gave me the Sandman comics to read and since then I've read as much of Neil's work that I could get my hands on.

It seems so appropriate that I picked up Coraline for that friend's birthday tomorrow.

The love of learning, the sequestered nook and all the sweet serenity of books - Longfellow

You're not the only one who's been paying back a debt of gratitude later on. I've had Neil sign Neverwhere and Coraline as presents for the guy who introduced me to Sandman, as the least I could do.

How weak and little is the light, All the universe of sight, Love and delight, Before the might, If you love it not, of night. (Edward Thomas, Out in the Dark)

having exhausted my libarys' tank girl collection i decided to check out sandman because there seemed to be a lot of em and i cant stand normal superheroes, apart from "angsty" batman of course

between the cracks and the hollows, the earth is good

I had a copy of Good Omens when it first came out on paperback because I'd always been a Pratchett Fan.

Years later my local library finally started getting in one or two graphic novels and World's end was one of them.

I finally got the corage to crack the 'cliche' of my local comics shop (now no more) just in time for the sandman reprints - which anoyanly stopped at 30 somthing!

I've bought or read everything else I can find and have just come back from the library after bugging them to get in a couple of copies of Coraline.

It was back in...´91 I think. When this new monthly comic book anthology came out in Sweden with Sandman, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Jamie Delano's Hellblazer and Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. Every comic book fan's wet dream in other words and it should say a lot about the status of comics in Sweden when this anthology was cancelled a year later. But I started buying the Sandman collections and that's how I got hooked on Gaiman.

About two years ago they finally started to collect Moore's Swamp Thing but so far only one collection (in severeal years) has come out of both Delano's Hellblazer and Morrison's Doom Patrol.

SANDMAN #1.

Since then, insatiable appetite.

Not Always So

I permanently borrowed Season of Mists in high school from my brother, who had it from a friend, and I really liked the story, but I was very naive about comics at the time, and I thought that it was a stand-alone novel! I didn't realize that there were other books in the series (or in fact that it was even a monthly comic) until the mid nineties, when I was in college and happened to wander into a comics store.... the rest is history... I've bought every single Gaiman created thing since then that I could get my hands on, and a bunch of stories that were inspired by him.....