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Death: The High Cost of Living
Death: The High Cost of Living is a 1993 three-issue comic book limited series written by Neil Gaiman with art by Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham. It is a spin-off from Gaiman's best-selling Vertigo Comics series The Sandman, featuring the Sandman (Dream)'s elder sister, Death of the Endless. Its premise is that Death takes human form once a century, to remain grounded and in touch with humanity, an idea touched upon in several other media, for example in the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday and in the Terry Pratchett novel Reaper Man.
A film based on Death: The High Cost of Living was in the works for several years in various stages of development at New Line Cinema. Gaiman had previously confirmed that the film was in progress and that he was planning on writing the screenplay as well as directing it, with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer. The film was developed under the title Death and Me, but as of 2010 development was put on hold. In 2025, a television adaptation of Death: The High Cost of Living was released on July 31 as a special episode of The Sandman, featuring Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Colin Morgan as Sexton Furnival, Jonno Davies as Theo, and Clare Higgins as Mad Hettie.
Death: The High Cost of Living was originally published as a three-issue comic book miniseries, published monthly by Vertigo, DC Comics' mature readers imprint and cover-dated March to May 1993. It was the first stand-alone mini-series derived from the then-on-going Sandman series by Gaiman, and was written by him with artwork by Bachalo and Buckingham and covers by regular Sandman cover artist Dave McKean. The High Cost of Living was one of the first new titles published under the newly created Vertigo imprint, alongside Peter Milligan's Enigma, and is also notable for being one of the very few Vertigo comics to feature an alternative cover, as #1 did. Vertigo's other output in its debut month consisted of a half-dozen continuing DC series, newly moved to the mature imprint. These continuing series' included Hellblazer and Gaiman's own The Sandman.
The High Cost of Living became one of Vertigo's earliest hardcover collected editions when it was published as such in November, 1993. The collection was prefaced with a foreword written by Gaiman-fan and collaborator, singer Tori Amos, as well as the hard-to-find public service announcement AIDS-awareness 8-page comic Death Talks about Life. This short comic was written by Gaiman and drawn by Dave McKean, and featured basic safe sex information about the transmission of HIV and AIDS. Included in issues of Sandman, Shade, the Changing Man and Hellblazer, it featured Death discussing life and demonstrating how to wear a condom through the use of a prop banana, and an embarrassed cameo from Hellblazer protagonist John Constantine.
The hardcover collection was reprinted as a trade paperback in June 1994 under a new McKean cover, with identical content.
The mini-series shared the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Limited Comic-Book Series for 1993 with Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear. For their work in the mini-series, Neil Gaiman and Karen Berger received Eisner Award in 1994 as Best Writer and Best Editor.
The main character is a teenage girl named Didi, who appears to be an eccentric, orphaned goth, but who also insists that she is Death personified, taking her one-day every hundred-year sabbatical as a living person. She guides a suicidal young male protagonist called Sexton on a journey of self-discovery. As the story goes on, Sexton gains a reason for not wishing to die, his love for the girl claiming to be Death.
Gaiman's take, as he started in issue 8 of The Sandman, is a young, attractive, perky Death in this fresh interpretation of the concept. For it was said in Sandman #21: "One day in every century, Death takes on mortal flesh, better to comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality." Didi manages to eat from street vendors, run into a number of people including a megalomaniac known only as "The Eremite" (not overtly stated, but implied to be an alternative future version of Mister E, after his return from the end of time at Death's hands in the original Books of Magic miniseries), and a British woman named Mad Hettie who is looking for her heart.
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Death: The High Cost of Living
Death: The High Cost of Living is a 1993 three-issue comic book limited series written by Neil Gaiman with art by Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham. It is a spin-off from Gaiman's best-selling Vertigo Comics series The Sandman, featuring the Sandman (Dream)'s elder sister, Death of the Endless. Its premise is that Death takes human form once a century, to remain grounded and in touch with humanity, an idea touched upon in several other media, for example in the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday and in the Terry Pratchett novel Reaper Man.
A film based on Death: The High Cost of Living was in the works for several years in various stages of development at New Line Cinema. Gaiman had previously confirmed that the film was in progress and that he was planning on writing the screenplay as well as directing it, with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer. The film was developed under the title Death and Me, but as of 2010 development was put on hold. In 2025, a television adaptation of Death: The High Cost of Living was released on July 31 as a special episode of The Sandman, featuring Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Colin Morgan as Sexton Furnival, Jonno Davies as Theo, and Clare Higgins as Mad Hettie.
Death: The High Cost of Living was originally published as a three-issue comic book miniseries, published monthly by Vertigo, DC Comics' mature readers imprint and cover-dated March to May 1993. It was the first stand-alone mini-series derived from the then-on-going Sandman series by Gaiman, and was written by him with artwork by Bachalo and Buckingham and covers by regular Sandman cover artist Dave McKean. The High Cost of Living was one of the first new titles published under the newly created Vertigo imprint, alongside Peter Milligan's Enigma, and is also notable for being one of the very few Vertigo comics to feature an alternative cover, as #1 did. Vertigo's other output in its debut month consisted of a half-dozen continuing DC series, newly moved to the mature imprint. These continuing series' included Hellblazer and Gaiman's own The Sandman.
The High Cost of Living became one of Vertigo's earliest hardcover collected editions when it was published as such in November, 1993. The collection was prefaced with a foreword written by Gaiman-fan and collaborator, singer Tori Amos, as well as the hard-to-find public service announcement AIDS-awareness 8-page comic Death Talks about Life. This short comic was written by Gaiman and drawn by Dave McKean, and featured basic safe sex information about the transmission of HIV and AIDS. Included in issues of Sandman, Shade, the Changing Man and Hellblazer, it featured Death discussing life and demonstrating how to wear a condom through the use of a prop banana, and an embarrassed cameo from Hellblazer protagonist John Constantine.
The hardcover collection was reprinted as a trade paperback in June 1994 under a new McKean cover, with identical content.
The mini-series shared the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Limited Comic-Book Series for 1993 with Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear. For their work in the mini-series, Neil Gaiman and Karen Berger received Eisner Award in 1994 as Best Writer and Best Editor.
The main character is a teenage girl named Didi, who appears to be an eccentric, orphaned goth, but who also insists that she is Death personified, taking her one-day every hundred-year sabbatical as a living person. She guides a suicidal young male protagonist called Sexton on a journey of self-discovery. As the story goes on, Sexton gains a reason for not wishing to die, his love for the girl claiming to be Death.
Gaiman's take, as he started in issue 8 of The Sandman, is a young, attractive, perky Death in this fresh interpretation of the concept. For it was said in Sandman #21: "One day in every century, Death takes on mortal flesh, better to comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality." Didi manages to eat from street vendors, run into a number of people including a megalomaniac known only as "The Eremite" (not overtly stated, but implied to be an alternative future version of Mister E, after his return from the end of time at Death's hands in the original Books of Magic miniseries), and a British woman named Mad Hettie who is looking for her heart.