Neil Gaiman: Badly Overated?

[Olive]

Not quite, considering that Cerebus evolved beyond a Conan pisstake almost a decade before Sandman began. Dave Sim has said since fairly early in the comic that it'll be limited to 300 issues, but I doubt that he had entire story arcs planned out that far in advance.

You know, even as I posted I was thinking 'maybe you should check your facts...'.

 

[barsoomcore]

Name one in the comics world?

Comics are a long-form episodic narrative that the writer plans out more or less in advance. What's your evidence to say that NOBODY in the roughly ONE HUNDRED YEARS of comics previous to Sandman didn't have 75-issue story arcs planned out? If you've got evidence, offer it up, but I find it unlikely.

I'm not about to wade through a bazillion online interviews to find A) your source for "He had it all planned out from the beginning" or B) other writers defining how many issues they have planned out ahead of time, but honestly.

 

[Daniel Knight]

P.S. I've also read Good Omens, which I enjoyed, but I'm unsure how much of it was Gaiman, and how much was Pratchett. The stuff I liked seemed very Pratchettesque.

From interviews I've read, Terry wrote around 70% of the book.

 

[Viking Bastard]

From Gaiman's own mouth, the story is more by him while the actual writing is mostly Prachett.

 

[ddvmor]

I think they make a great team. Pratchett's narrative is much more polished than Gaiman's (although hopefully Gaiman's will improve with time), whilst Gaiman has some fantastic story and plotting ideas and puts out some really great dialogue. In the case of Good Omens, it quite clear to anyone who had read works by either author which elements came from who. I'd love to see them collaborate again on another book.