Death: The High Cost of Living

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Death and Me
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Death: The High Cost of Living
ISBN 1563891336

Death: The High Cost of Living is a comic written by

Death of the Endless. Its premise is that Death takes human form once a century, to remain grounded and in touch with humanity,[1] 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 movie based on this series has been in the works for several years in various stages of development and was in the works at

Death and Me
, but as of 2010 development was put on hold.

Publication history

Death: The High Cost of Living was originally published as a three-issue comic book miniseries, published monthly by Vertigo,

The Sandman.[3]

Collected editions

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.[4] 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.[1]

The hardcover collection was reprinted as a trade paperback in June 1994 under a new McKean cover, with identical content.

Awards

The mini-series shared the

Eisner Award in 1994 as Best Writer and Best Editor.[6]

Plot

The main character is a teenage girl named Didi, who appears to be an eccentric, orphaned

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

Mad Hettie who is looking for her heart.[1]

A character similar to Didi appears in Gaiman's American Gods, in which she is seen at Rock City where the "Old Gods" are about to go to battle with the "New Gods". Here, she is portrayed as a host of the Voodoo spirit Baron Samedi.[citation needed]

Film adaptation

For several years, a film based on Death: The High Cost of Living, to be called Death and Me, was under production at New Line Cinema. Gaiman wrote the screenplay, and would also direct, with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer. Gaiman spent several days on the set of del Toro's film Hellboy II: The Golden Army to get pointers on how to direct.[7]

Other than two additional scenes at the beginning (set in a Tibetan monastery and Alaska), and a move from New York City to London for the main setting, the screenplay was relatively unchanged from the comic script.

After being in

WGA strikes.[8] According to Gaiman, the studio "may still be New Line, but Warner Independent is keen on it too." Shia LaBeouf may have had a role in the film, possibly as the lead character Sexton, due to his help in trying to get the movie developed.[9]

On October 14, 2010, it was reported in an interview with Gaiman that as of June or July, DC and Warner Bros. had closed down work on the film and it was unclear if they would start it up again.[10]

Other Sandman spin-offs

See also

References

  1. ^
    OCLC 213309015
    .
  2. ^ The reatialer's premium Platinum cover, described on itself as a "Collector's Edition" ComicBookDb: Death: The High Cost of Living #1 Platinum Edition. Accessed May 7, 2008
  3. ^ Vertigo Comics Bibliography: Vertigo's First Month. Accessed May 7, 2008
  4. ^ Henry Mietkiewicz, "Death teaches sex-ed for the age of AIDS" in The Toronto Star, January 2, 1993 Archived 2008-05-10 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed May 7, 2008
  5. ^ "1993 Comic Buyer's Guide Fan Awards". hahnlibrary.net. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  6. ^ " Eisner Awards Logo Complete List of Eisner Award Winners". comic-con.org. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  7. ^ "Del Toro Wants Gaiman On Death". Archived from the original on 2007-12-31. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
  8. ^ Death: The High Cost of Striking
  9. ^ Neil Gaiman Looks Beyond 'Stardust' And Into 'Death'
  10. ^ The Vulture Transcript: Neil Gaiman on Comics, Twilight, Twitter Etiquette, Killing Batman, and Sharing Porn With His Son

External links

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