Neil Gaiman, 1960 - Neil Gaiman was born in 1960 in Portchester, England. He worked as a journalist and freelance writer for a time, before deciding to try his hand at comic books. Some of his work has appeared in publications such as "Time Out," "The Sunday Times," "Punch" and "The Observer." Gaiman's first comic endeavor was the graphic novel series "The Sandman." It is what Gaiman is most famous for and the series has won every major industry award, including the 1991 World Fantasy Award for best short story, making it the first comic ever to win a literary award. "The Sandman" series has outsold both "Batman" and "Superman" comics, selling over a million copies a year. The collections… have sold over 750,000 copies in both paperback and hardcover and Warner Bothers has optioned the rights to Sandman. Gaiman is the co-originator and co-editor of The Utterly Comic Relief, an organization which raises money to maintain First Amendment Rights for comic book creators. In 1991, the organization raised over 45,000 pounds for the Comic Relief Charity. Gaiman has also co-authored a book with Terry Pratchet called "Good Omens" and wrote "Ghastly Beyond Belief" in 1985 and "Don't Panic" in 1987. He has edited a book of poetry entitled "Now We Are Sick" and his essays have appeared in such publications as "Horror: 100 Best Books and 100 Great Detectives." Gaiman's latest project has been the development of "Neverwhere," originally a television series for the BBC, it has now been expanded into a novel and is being made into a movie created by Jim Henson Productions. He has also delved into children's books, writing "The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish" which was selected by "Newsweek" as one of the Best Children's Book of 1997. His last publications have been "Smoke and Mirrors" in 1998 and "Stardust," an anthology of short stories in, 1999. When not writing, Gaiman is constantly involved in fighting for the rights of literary writers of all kinds so that the First Amendment shall always be allowed for those who choose to write.
DAVE MCKEAN has illustrated many award winning comics and books, including The Big Fat Duck Cookbook (Heston Blumenthal), What's Welsh For Zen (John Cale), Varjak Paw (SF Said), The Savage and Slogrsquo;s Dad (David Almond), Arkham Asylum (Grant Morrison), The Homecoming (Ray Bradbury), Wizard and Glass (Stephen King), The Graveyard Book, Wolves in the Walls, Coraline, Mr. Punch, Signal to Noise and Crazy Hair (all by Neil Gaiman).He has written and illustrated the graphic novel Cages and short story collection Pictures That Tick, and is working on a new novel (Caligaro) and second volume of short stories.He has designed and illustrated well over a hundred cd covers for artists as diverse… as Michael Nyman, Rolling Stones, John Cale, Alice Cooper, Bill Laswell, Bill Buford, Counting Crows, Iain Ballamy, Tori Amos and Frontine Assembly.He has designed a Broadway Musical (Lestat), creatures for the Harry Potter films, advertising campaigns for Kodak, Nike, Smirnoff, BMWMini and the British Government, and exhibited in Europe, America and Japan.