{"id":129,"date":"2005-09-19T19:11:21","date_gmt":"2005-09-20T02:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=129"},"modified":"2021-09-22T16:58:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T20:58:21","slug":"death-the-high-cost-of-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/129","title":{"rendered":"Death: The High Cost of Living"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death<\/a>: The High Cost of Living<\/a><\/em> (1994) Neil Gaiman<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It’s hardly a surprise that Neil Gaiman would write a comic about Death. In Sandman she was usually far more likable than her brother, Dream, the hero of the series.<\/p>\n

In one of the early Sandman episodes we learn that once a century, Death takes corporeal form to spend a day living. Death: The High Cost of Living<\/em> tells of that day.<\/p>\n

The story starts with Mad Hettie, who appeared randomly throughout Sandman. Mad Hettie is 250 years old, and lives on the streets. And I can’t decide if she is actually mad. Then the story moves to Sexton Furnival, a 16 year old boy who is doing his level best to be an unlikable teenager. <\/p>\n

In addition to Mad Hettie, we also get to see Foxglove and Hazel, which I quite liked. (And Death: The Time of Your Life<\/em> is very much about them.)<\/p>\n

Sexton eventually meets Death, who is spending her day in a century alive. She is a girl named Didi, whose family was recently killed, and I’m not entirely how sure that worked–though it seems that the universe created her and her dead family whole cloth and inserted them into people’s memories. (In retrospect, they also did that on Buffy<\/em>, with Dawn)<\/p>\n

It’s rather strange how naive Didi\/Death is. Perhaps because she isn’t truly Death when she is alive, she can hold only a portion of Death’s knowledge, and so it is as if she is born new.<\/p>\n

I like the story, although it’s quite short. Mostly because I liked Death, and Neil Gaiman manages to suck us into the story and make us care about Sexton, despite the fact that he doesn’t want to be liked.
\nRating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death: The High Cost of Living (1994) Neil Gaiman It’s hardly a surprise that Neil Gaiman would write a comic about Death. In Sandman she was usually far more likable than her brother, Dream, the hero of the series. In one of the early Sandman episodes we learn that once a century, Death takes corporeal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,291],"tags":[76,77,522],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-novels","category-paper","tag-neil-gaiman","tag-sandman","tag-vertigo-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-25","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":138,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/138","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":0},"title":"The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives","author":"Michelle","date":"October 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives (1994) Neil Gaiman In Brief Lives Delirium decides that she wants to search for her brother Destruction, who abandoned his job 300 years earlier. She goes first to Desire and Despair, both of whom tell her to abandon her idea of finding Destruction. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Graphic Novels"","block_context":{"text":"Graphic Novels","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/graphic-novels"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/10\/Sandman-Brief-Lives.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3108,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3108","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":1},"title":"Sandman Vol 1: Preludes and Nocturnes","author":"Michelle","date":"August 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Sandman Vol 1: Preludes and Nocturnes Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III \"I'm not going to reread Sandman right now. Sandman makes me cry.\" Yeah. So, just finished rereading volume 1. Death is before me today: like the recovery of a sick man, like going forth into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/Sandman-Preludes-Nocturnes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":126,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/126","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":2},"title":"The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country","author":"Michelle","date":"September 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country (1990) Neil Gaiman Dream Country is the third book in the Sandman series. In this collection of short stories, Dream is peripheral character for the most part, though in \"Facade\" Death appears instead. I'm particularly fond of \"A Dream of a Thousand Cats.\" We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Graphic Novels"","block_context":{"text":"Graphic Novels","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/graphic-novels"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/Sandman-Dream-Country.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3113,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3113","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":3},"title":"Sandman Vol 2: The Doll House","author":"Michelle","date":"August 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Sandman Vol 2: The Doll's House (1990) Neil Gaiman, Malcolm Jones III, Mike Dringenberg, Michael Zulli Here we see glimpses of where the story is going--as well as the relationship between the Endless. (I sometimes forgot what a bastard Desire is.)","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Sandman-Dolls-House.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3119,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3119","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":4},"title":"Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country","author":"Michelle","date":"August 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country (1990) Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Colleen Doran, Charles Vess, Malcolm Jones III I'm particularly fond of this volume--I quite like the Shakespeare story, as well as the dream of a thousand cats. Rating: 8\/10 Published by Vertigo","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/Sandman-Dream-Country.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":128,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/128","url_meta":{"origin":129,"position":5},"title":"The Sandman Vol 5: A Game of You","author":"Michelle","date":"September 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sandman Vol 5: A Game of You (1992) Neil Gaiman Barbie, who we first met in The Doll's House, has moved to New York City after her break-up with Ken. She hasn't dreamed for two years, when she was pulled into the dream vortex created by Rose Walker, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/Sandman-Game-You.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}