Comix Strip

Neil Gaiman

by Miriam English

Judging by the number of times he writes about them and how often they just pop up in his stories, two of award-winning writer Neil Gaiman's favorite characters must be the young lesbian couple, Hazel and Foxglove. They first turn up in Death - the High Cost of Living as a couple of side characters. They proved sufficiently interesting to Gaiman that they appeared in quite a few more of his later stories. The collection Death - the Time of Your Life is entirely about them and the accident involving their baby.

His stories are beautifully written and unlike any other comix. They have complex characters and plots, don't titillate with sex, and have little or no violence. They are fantasy, but that name doesn't begin to describe what these stories are like. Neil Gaiman's stories are a treat.

The image above is from his compilation Death - the Time of Your Life. About his charismatic character, Death. She is the pretty, dark-haired girl standing in the middle of the picture above. In the other picture, below, you can see that Death ironically wears an ankh -- the Egyptian symbol for life. Death originally appeared in one of Gaiman's Sandman comix, The Sound of Her Wings as Sandman's sister. She was such a hit with her optimistic and witty nature, her caring attitude to those she ferries away at the end of their lives, and her girlish charm, that he wrote many more stories featuring her. And Hazel and Foxglove turn up in many of those. His portrayal of the lesbian couple is mature and well thought out. They are neither tragic nor idyllic; they just are. And he revels in being able to tell a story that is all the more refreshing for being seen through their eyes.

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The Sound of Her Wings is in the Sandman - Preludes and Nocturnes collection.
Death - the Time of Your Life is one of two compilations of stories about the Death character. The other is Death - the High Cost of Living. Neither contains Gaiman's original story about Death.