Neil Gaiman

The Sandman, collected as a pack of 3 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the first half of Neil Gaiman's landmark series, the story of Dream of the Endless, ruler of the realm of sleep, from his captivity and escape through the rebuilding of his kingdom. It is horror, myth, history and literary fantasy in one voice, and it made comics respectable as literature: issue #19, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," became the first comic ever to win a World Fantasy Award. Painted covers by Dave McKean, art by Sam Kieth, Kelley Jones, P. Craig Russell and more. The foundational Vertigo masterpiece in a single oversized volume. The Sandman ran for seventy-five issues between 1989 and 1996 and is the book that proved comics could be sold to people who did not read comics. This half contains Brief Lives, Worlds' End and The Kindly Ones, which is where the whole series turns out to have been a tragedy with a fixed ending all along. The Wake closes it. Gaiman planned the finish from early on and refused to continue past it, which is why the series holds together as a novel rather than a run. The third Sandman omnibus gathers everything Neil Gaiman wrote around the main series: the prequel, the spin-offs and the two stories about Death. Overture is the prequel Gaiman wrote twenty years later with J.H. Williams III, explaining the exhaustion that led to Morpheus' capture in issue #1, and it is some of the most beautiful art ever printed in a superhero-adjacent comic. The Death stories are also the most accessible entry point to the whole mythology.

The Books of Magic, collected as a pack of 3 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. The Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 1 collects Neil Gaiman's original miniseries and the long-running series that followed it, in which a bespectacled London boy called Tim Hunter is told he could become the greatest magician of his age. John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross turned that premise into one of Vertigo's most sustained coming-of-age stories. The Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 2 continues Tim Hunter's story as the consequences of his choice catch up with him. John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross push the series further from fantasy adventure and closer to a study of a teenager carrying more power than judgement. Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 3 closes out Tim Hunter's Vertigo run, including the later Hunter: The Age of Magic material. It is the end of one of the imprint's longest continuous stories about growing up with power you did not ask for.

The third Sandman omnibus gathers everything Neil Gaiman wrote around the main series: the prequel, the spin-offs and the two stories about Death. Overture is the prequel Gaiman wrote twenty years later with J.H. Williams III, explaining the exhaustion that led to Morpheus' capture in issue #1, and it is some of the most beautiful art ever printed in a superhero-adjacent comic. The Death stories are also the most accessible entry point to the whole mythology.

The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the first half of Neil Gaiman's landmark series, the story of Dream of the Endless, ruler of the realm of sleep, from his captivity and escape through the rebuilding of his kingdom. It is horror, myth, history and literary fantasy in one voice, and it made comics respectable as literature: issue #19, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," became the first comic ever to win a World Fantasy Award. Painted covers by Dave McKean, art by Sam Kieth, Kelley Jones, P. Craig Russell and more. The foundational Vertigo masterpiece in a single oversized volume.

Everyone who ever knew Batman comes to his funeral and each of them tells a different, contradictory story about how he died. Gaiman and Kubert wrote the eulogy DC asked for after Batman R.I.P., and turned it into a story about why this particular character never stays dead.

The Sandman ran for seventy-five issues between 1989 and 1996 and is the book that proved comics could be sold to people who did not read comics. This half contains Brief Lives, Worlds' End and The Kindly Ones, which is where the whole series turns out to have been a tragedy with a fixed ending all along. The Wake closes it. Gaiman planned the finish from early on and refused to continue past it, which is why the series holds together as a novel rather than a run.

The Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 1 collects Neil Gaiman's original miniseries and the long-running series that followed it, in which a bespectacled London boy called Tim Hunter is told he could become the greatest magician of his age. John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross turned that premise into one of Vertigo's most sustained coming-of-age stories.

The Dead Boy Detectives Omnibus collects the adventures of Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland, two dead schoolboys who refused to move on and set up as detectives instead. Created by Neil Gaiman in Sandman, they became one of the most durable spin-offs of that universe, and later a Netflix series.

The Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition collects the prequel Neil Gaiman wrote twenty-five years after the original series, explaining what left Morpheus weakened enough to be captured in Sandman #1. J.H. Williams III draws it, and the pages are among the most elaborate ever printed in a mainstream comic.

The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition Book Three collects the middle stretch of Neil Gaiman's series, including Brief Lives, in which Dream and his sister Delirium go looking for their missing brother and the consequences reshape the rest of the story.

The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition Book Four collects the run into The Kindly Ones, the longest and darkest arc of the series, in which everything Dream has done across seventy issues comes back for payment. Marc Hempel's stylised artwork divided readers and is now regarded as the right choice.

The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition Book Five closes the series with The Wake and the final stories, in which the Dreaming buries its king and the people whose lives he touched get their last word. It is one of the few long-form comics that ends exactly as well as it began.

The story that made Vertigo. An occult order tries to capture Death and catches her brother instead, and when Dream of the Endless finally escapes after seventy years he has to rebuild a kingdom that fell apart without him. Book One is where Gaiman goes from writing a horror comic to writing the thing everyone else has been copying since.

Dream goes to Hell to free a woman he condemned there, and comes back to find that Lucifer has handed him the key to the whole place. Book Two contains Season of Mists and A Game of You, the point at which the series stops being about horror and starts being about responsibility and the cost of never changing your mind.

Death of the Endless spends one day every century living as a mortal, so that she understands what she takes. Gaiman gives her two miniseries of her own, and Chris Bachalo draws her as the least frightening thing in any room she walks into.