Lucifer (and the men that created him)

Jeff over at the consistently excellent Gravity Lens posted this link yesterday to an article about Mike Carey, the author of the Vertigo comic Lucifer, which has been a favorite of Desiree and I since it began its run. No, we're not devil-worshippers... we just love the excellent, literate storytelling and the sheer imagination of the metamythology that serves as the setting for this faithful (yet wholly unique) rendering of the Lucifer character introduced in Neil Gaiman's original Sandman series. While Lucifer is probably the furthest thing you can imagine from a superhero comic book (as are most of Vertigo's titles), one of the things that's so interesting about Lucifer is that there is still an examination of the the same issues that get raised in books about the spandex set (albeit more subtlely). Good versus evil - why and how do they come into conflict? More interestingly, where do they overlap? What is the impact of choice (i.e. free will) both with and without responsibility, even when that choice is to submit to a predetermined destiny? These stories are made of great stuff, and they're pretty darn entertaining to boot.

Speaking of Neil, he will be revisiting the Sandman universe fresh on the heels of his award-winning, best-selling novel American Gods. As Jason and Clader have noticed, DC Comics (who have a snazzy new site, by the way) will be publishing 7 new Sandman stories by Gaiman, one of which will be illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, my personal favorite comic artist. Woo hoo!

But what's really puzzling is Gaiman's new project with Marvel Comics and Andy Kubert, 1602. I have no idea what the heck is going on based on this teaser, other than it has to do with superheroes (which I'm not sure we've seen Neil do since The Martian Manhunter appeared in an early Sandman issue). Seems completely bizzare, which probably means Desiree and I will love it.

Posted by Dan on May 21, 2003 at 07:40 AM | TrackBack