tempus fugit
time flies

tempus frangit
time fractures


One of the basic things that runs all the way through Sandman is the male/female dichotomy, male/female friction and the difference in men's and womens's outlooks on the world. I like writing women. I feel that women are far more sensible than men and I like the sensible characters. Death is a million times more sensible than Dream himself.
Neil Gaiman


She arrived in my head about a week after her brother.
He had arrived brooding, quiet, pale and gaunt and while there was indeed a definite family resemblance, she was in many ways his opposite: sensible, delightful, nice.
Mike Dringenberg was at that time the inker of SANDMAN (Sam Keith was pencilling). He read my description of Death in the original SANDMAN outline and decided that she should look less like a young Nico or Louise Brooks (as I had suggested) and more like his friend Cinnamon. Mike did a drawing of her - the same drawing that appeared as a pinup in SANDMAN, and later as a T-shirt and a watch face.
The day the drawing arrived in England, I had to meet Dave McKean at a London pancake house: he was to show me transparencies of the first few SANDMAN covers. Our waitress was Death: skinny and pale and elfin and sweet, with long dark hair and black clothes, and a silver ankh. I nearly showed her Mike's drawing, but then decided not to.
There's a tale in the Caballa that suggests that the Angel of Death is so beautiful that on finally seeing it (or him, or her) you fall in love so hard, so fast, that your soul is pulled out through your eyes.
I like that story.
There's an Islamic story that declares that the Angel of Death has huge wings covered in eyes, and that as each mortal dies one of its eyes closes, just for a moment.
I like that story too, and take pleasure in imagining huge wings, and a ripple of ever-opening, ever-closing beautiful eyes.
And there's a touch of wish fulfillment in there too. I didn't want a Death who agonized over her role, or who took a grim delight in her job, or who didn't care. I wanted a Death that I'd like to meet, in the end. Someone who would care.
Like her.
Neil Gaiman - the introduction to A Death Gallery


It's funny but on good days I don't think of her so much. In fact never. I never just say hi when the sun is on my tongue and my belly's all warm. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing.
So we talk.
She says things that no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.
She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is". She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is".
Like yesterday, all the recording machings were breaking down again.
We almost lost a master take and the band leaves tomorrow and we can't do anymore music till we resolve this. We're in the middle of nowhere in the desert and my being wants to go crawl under a cactus and wish it away. Instead, I dyed my hair and she visited me and I started to accept the mess I'm in. I know that mess spelled backwards is ssem and I felt much better armed with that information. Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore.
When you're on your knees you're closer to the ground. Things seem nearer somehow.
If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me anymore and after all she has a brother who believes in hope.
Tori Amos - the introduction to Death: The High Cost of Living


Death has a body like a model, the clothes of a poet and the smile of your best friend. She wears a top hat for fun, her ankh necklace for power, and carries a big black umbrella for traveling to the "sunless lands." I wonder what she smells like? I'm sure it's fresh and clean and her laugh must be tinkly or maybe it's warm and chuckly, but whatever it is, Death laughs a lot.
We talk about the "miracle of birth" but what about the "miracle of death"? We have the science of death pretty much figured out, but death's magic and inevitability have been feared and ignored for a long time now.
What if Death is a person?
This friendly, people-loving Death I'm meeting here is not scary and far away; she's around every day and enjoying stuff. She's not here to punish us or kill us, she's here to help us figure out how to live before we need to go.
We think Death is a bad thing, but here she's the best kind of pal; she makes our choice clearer for us and tells us by her example that obsessing about things like violence and greed and prejudice and loneliness keeps us from being close to people and having fun and getting our good work done: it's wasteful of our time here.
What I appreciate is, is that Death never tells the people she is with what to do. She accepts everyone and understands why they are the way they are. She likes people (even if they are sad or old or young or nasty) so that they really begin to trust and like themselves too, and, liking themselves, instead of ending they can start beginning.
Claire Daines - the introduction to Death: The Time Of Your Life



PICTURES FROM THE SANDMAN



Quotes:

Preludes & Nocturnes
The Doll's House
Dream Country
Season of Mists
A Game of You
Fables & Reflections
Brief Lives
Worlds' End
The Kindly Ones
The Wake
Death: The High Cost of Living
Death: The Time Of Your Life
Other Sandman books