A friend of mine suggested me to read "American Gods", but to the beginning I didn't. The first book I've read it's "Coraline", because another friend of mine bought it and read a piece of it to me. After that, I read "American Gods", and then all the other ones. And I adored them.

Hi Eredhel,
I am new to the board as well! Welcome I suppose...
My first encouter, which is at this point still my only encounter, was with "Forbidden brides of the faceless slaves in the nameless house of the night of dread desire". It's a parody on the gothic genre- fabulous

I stumbled into Neil's work by a very interesting route, I think. I'm a playwright and theatrical Shakespearean. It was my love of Shakespeare that led me to discover Neil Gaiman. I was thinking of doing a series of comics of Shakespeare's plays. In researching it, I discovered that it had been done in the 60s - 70s in an addition called Classic Comics, I think (I have a few of them around the apartment somewhere and they are awful). Then I went to Midtown Comics here in New York City and they pointed me toward Neil Gaiman. I don’t normally read Fantasy/Horror, but I believe that Neil’s work transcends genre. It’s just good storytelling and that’s what I like.

I could see a person be lead to Shakespeare from Neil, but was wondering if Shakespeare turned anyone else on to Neil? Or how did you come to know his work?

Four years ago in Bali, my teenage niece was doodling on her notebook while I watched. Then she drew this beautiful goth girl with a strange mark under her eye. I asked who she was and my niece replied, "That's Death." Then she explained about the Endless and Dream in particular. I thought it was interesting but didn't give it much thought.

A few years later while browsing in a bookshop, I came across "The Sandman: Book of Dreams" and remembered our conversation. Since then, I've bought all the Neil Gaiman works I could find.

It happened quite recently. A friend of mine, a comic fan, costantly referred to Sandman, and another friend, who's currently begininng a career as a comic writer, told me that even Neil's books were great. So I started to feel curious about it, and I first bought two volumes of Sandman at Lucca Comics (Italy). I liked them very much, and then I ran into Stardust once in a train station library; I bought it, read it, and...nothing since that day was the same.
Now I'm trying to fill the gap and read every single book by Neil. Even Good omens, as Terry Pratchett is another of my favourites writers.
Thank you Neil!!

Hi, I'm new to this board and this seemed like a good topic to start on.

In my early teens I started reading my cousin's Sandman comics (he was the cool older cousin you always looked up to). At the time I thought it was great but kind of forgot about it as the years went on. now I'm a 22 yr old postgrad Uni student in edinburgh and I noticed that my girlfriend had the wolfs in the walls and I guess that really got me back into him. Now got all the sandman collections, American gods, Smoke and Mirrors etc...

I was maybe 12 or 13, living in a small town, drawing superheroes. I was into X-men. I went to the run down little bookstore in town. What parking lot there was, was not paved. The inside was barely a collection of cardboard boxes.
While perusing the discount section I came across a comic. The comic was Sandman #11 I believe. The one where Dream follows Death around while she goes about her business. It seemed neat and it only cost 50 cents. I took it home and I can truly say my life was changed forever. I stopped reading X-men for the most part and never really went back.

A few years ago I moved to a small town after college. Nobody I met had really read any Sandman. I passed around some of the books I had. I don't believe I am exagerating too much when I say it became something of an epidemic. People I knew had never seriously read comics at all suddenly had the whole damn collection. It makes me smile to think about it.

I've always been into comics since i was a kid. Here in Italy sandman appeared for the first time on a magazine called "DC Comic Presents". there were various comics in it but i've never been really hooked by in any of them. Just been flipping through pages a couple of times at my local comicshop. Since i saw this number wich had this amazing artwork on the cover. Obviously it was Dave Mc Kean, and obviously it was Sandman. Love at first sight.

Late 98 or early 99. I was at Target in their book section and this novel's neon colors caught my eye. I picked it up and read the description of Neverwhere. It sounded amazing, but I didn't have the seven or so dollars on me to get it. I walked down the strip mall I was at and entered a used book store. One of the first things I saw was the same book, slightly used, half price. I picked it up and read it in about a week. Haven't looked back once since then.

I was browsing through the Fantasy section of my local Barnes and Noble looking for a decent book to read. I usually buy completely at random from authors I've never read before, and I happened to notice "Neverwhere" sitting quite unobtrusively on the shelf. I had recalled hearing Neil's name thrown out quite a bit on the Something Awful Forums and decided to take a chance.

I was hooked and have been a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's works since that fateful day at B&N. As an actor, I'm sure my dream role would be the Marquis de Carabas should a film ever be in the works, but I can settle with enjoying the character time and again in the novel if needed.

I'd been putting off reading Neil's work for years, despite endless recommendations. This is mainly because I found the majority of Sandman fans to be too patheti-goth for my taste, and I had enough on my hands with Grant Morrison, anyway.

I then picked up Anansi Boys right after it came out, and have been hooked ever since. I'm obsessed with trickster figures, so I couldn't say no to an Anansi themed book.

A year later it is, and now I have spent an embarrassing amount of money on Neil's works, and also full-tilt love The Sandman stuff I resisted for so long.

I started picking up Sandman comics/graphic novels back in high school (early 90's). I was tickled when I found out he did other writing besides comics too. I love it when my favorite authors are prolific. I picked up Good Omens because of Neil - which ended up being my introduction to Terry Pratchett.

i read the only sandman book that my library had (!) the sandman book of dreams.

On a whim I just decided to buy the first volume of Sandman. I had only heard about it in passing from some of my comic book geek friends. ^_^
I really didn't know what to expect from it, and not at all sure why I bought something I knew nothing about but I enjoyed it. A lot.
I ravaged through the whole series during the summer.

I'm not sure if I posted to this thread bofore or not but I'll tell the story once again:

When I was 14 my brother got me perludes & nocturnes for my birthday, after giving him a weird look and reminding him that he's the one who's into comics not me, he just told me to read it, and that I'll thank him later. I got really into the series.

When I was 15 I went to the mall with my mom one day and when she looked around a book store a stubled to the sf/f section (which I was really not into at that time) when I saw stardust, neverwhere, and american gods lying on the shelf, not knowing Neil write novels as well I was very interested and I got the 3 of them.

And the rest, well - is history

At first it was in a swedish (since I am swedish) comic probably in the late 80´s where I read sandman, though forgetting who wrote it (and at the time being more interested in alcohol than comics. On my first trip to London (A.D. 1995) I thought I might buy some comics in a comic store, and found "Sandman: The Dolls House"... And since I´ve been on the hook...

Amazon <3 I will love that site forever more.I am currently reading my first Gaiman book: Stardust which I can't put down (apart from this moment) I want to go on to read all his other masterpieces!

quote:

Originally posted by Lalaithriel:
I picked up Good Omens because of Neil - which ended up being my introduction to Terry Pratchett.

In my case, it was the other way around. I've been a Discworld fan for about seven or eight years now, and somewhere, I picked up a copy of Good Omens. I really enjoyed that, and after a few years, I became more curious as to what else Niel had written (Pratchett's description - in The Art of Discworld of The Sandman's Death as "a babe" did no harm at all ). So I eventually picked up Preludes and Nocturnes in a local SF/Fantasy bookshop, and immediately becoame obsessed with the story, to the extent of buying The Doll's House, and American Gods in the space of a week. I've recently finished AG, and I have to say it is one of the best books I've ever read. The rest would be history, if there was any rest to be history, but that's just a matter of time.

it was Sandman...i remember picking up an issue in the Newbury Comics store in Harvard Square...i can't remember which one it was anymore...this was years ago...and being utterly transfixed by it.
it was so unique...and otherworldly...a work of absolute genius.
and i followed his career ever since then. i absolutely adored Neverwhere and Stardust. and i just kept on reading whatever he published after that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: thegirlthattimeforgot,

Neverwhere was my first piece of Neil Gaiman work.

Then American Gods (which will always be my favorite book)

Then the rest of his books.

THEN I got into his comics. Started with 1602. Then I suscribed to Eternals and just bought the first two Sandman TPB's yesterday.