Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
I got into the sandman comics about a year ago, and then subsequently the show (which is just fantabulous), and after telling my uncle about it he sent me the Death volume (she’s been his favorite character for decades). at the end of the volume there was a comic where Death teaches the reader about AIDs and safe sex.
I was wondering what it was like to originally publish that comic, when (i’m assuming, i wasn’t born yet) they were such touchy subjects?
A friend of mine, Don Melia, had just died of AIDS. Before he died we talked and he urged me to do something to help. Martha Thomases at DC Comics and Alisa Kwitney then assistant editor on Sandman put us in touch with the right people, and got what I wrote fact-checked carefully by an AIDS organisation, and found the helpline and information that we put on the back of the original 8 page supplement (to comics) and handout (sent free to comic shops). A lot of comic shops got them to libraries, high schools, or gave them out to customers. It didn’t seem like governments were telling people how to keep safe. We could and we did. I’m still grateful to DC Comics for making it happen, and to all the comics retailers who gave them out or distributed them to people who needed them.
Just wanted to say thanks again, because reading that comic, and having my dad hand me that issue, in a way that framed sex education as normal and in parts funny, made it much easier to talk about sex and sexual health together.
Having that as a third-party we could talk (what Death says or what Neil Gaiman says) made the conversation less embarrassing, especially since you’re the exact same age as my dad. So yeah, thanks Neil.
I’m so glad. That was what it was for.
I grew up during the worst of the AIDS epidemic and before an elder could explain what I needed to know, they were dying of this disease.
There are plenty of other reasons that this lesson is still important.
My thanks, Neil. I am here in small part because of this sound advice.
its so funny to imagine that Morpheus probably read pride and prejudice at some point, like can you imagine him ranting to Lucienne about how insufferable and arrogant Mr. Darcy is and Lucienne just stands there like 🧍♀️
Morpheus: “How can it be so hard for them to realise their own shortcomings and just admit that they were wrong?”
I never put my art here, but I’m putting my art here today because I feel like it. Ok thank you 💛
[Caption: a realistic digital painting of Dream of the Endless from The Sandman series. Dream is portrayed by Tom Sturridge, a white actor. Portrait is from the waist up with strong, pale light shining down, and Dream is wearing a slender black overcoat with a high, flipped collar. His chaotic black hair is swept to one side. The background is a skyscape of distant, violet-gray clouds looming above and below a band of soft orange dusk.]
someone please make a hobdream fanvid to Queen’s “who wants to live forever”
Yea, but how far did Dream keep walking in that rain though? He could have just poofed off in a little sand cloud but it’s like he wanted Hob to see him stomping off. He wanted to hear him shout after him and for Hob to see that he wasn’t turning back. Just, Drama of the Endless going full tilt to prove a petty point.
So right you are. This is Dream after a break up.
He’s been making it rain in the Dreaming.
For almost a month. The entire realm is flooded.
Dream has been standing like this The. Entire. Time.
