"It don't matter if you're black or white"

Although I would imagine that the cover which lists Neil Gaiman's name first would be black, in line with his all-black wardrobe.


The 1991 edition, which is the one I have, has a technicolour, action-packed movie-style-poster sort of cover. Were things always like this back then?

If there is one thing I would like to thank Terry Pratchett for, other than the pleasures of Discworld, it is for introducing me to Neil Gaiman through this book.

My mother banned me from reading comics when I was a kid, she felt that I should read "proper books", ie publications that had proper sentences running into paragraphs instead of coming out of balloons from mouths.

That's why I never got into Marvel and DC superheroes, and also couldn't care less when years later, they emerged on film.

By missing out on comics entirely when I was a kid, I also missed out on graphic novels when I was much older. I made good on this much later in life. But I'm still left with an impairment when it comes to comics. I still like Gaiman more for his books than his graphic novels. And you can blame my mother for this.