I first happened to come across Neil Gaiman when I began to read comics. I too, was initially painstakingly only aware of the superhero ones. Marvel and DC were, for all I knew, the only comic book companies in the entire world. This thought wasn't helped by the fact that I was living in what could arguably be called The Golden Age of Superhero Movies. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was, and still is, releasing some gems, while the likes of X-Men, the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, and Watchmen were all pervading movie screens, and consequently becoming huge successes. Some years later, after becoming a bit more solemn and a bit more mature, during which I had completely abandoned my reading of comics (those were the years of darkness; the final two years of schooling), I started doing some proper research into the comic book industry. And that's were I stumbled across Neil Gaiman.
Marvel 1602 was the first graphic novel that I ever read. I found out that it existed after Neil's appearance in the TV show "The Big Bang Theory", and I was intrigued by the plot. Marvel characters in Elizabethan England. What's not to like? And I am happy to write, it didn't disappoint. And I am happy that I began my comics Renaissance with Marvel 1602. It made me want to read more. And that's how it began. Via Gaiman, I found out about Alan Moore, and thus I read From Hell, Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper murders. By that point, I was hooked. I was lucky, in the sense that my early comic book teachers were two of the greatest writers of the comic book industry. It began with Gaiman. And I am glad it did.
American Gods is often seen as Gaiman's best novel, and it perhaps is, but, for me, The View From the Cheap Seats has become like gospel. I happened to watch a video on YouTube, of Neil in conversation with Audrey Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler's Wife) and I heard some wonderful things about the book from there ( https://youtu.be/ySngfRi6ndg ). I decided to give it a go. It is a book about authors, about ideas and about various other things Neil has talked or written, over the years. I learned about important authors like Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, G.K.Chesterton and Diana Wynne Jones, authors that I was woefully unaware of. I learned of comics and books such as Bone, Hothouse, Spirit, and The Einstein Intersection. This book made me want to take a shopping bag, go into a bookstore, or go online, and buy all the books mentioned in this book. (I admit that Audrey Niffenegger said something similar in the YouTube video).
And finally, Neil made me write short stories. I read Fragile Things and Trigger Warnings, and both of them had a Sherlock Holmes short story, one of my favourite fictional characters. And it was so well written. I realised that short stories are cool. Not everything you write has to be a novel.(An assumption I was living under for a long time) HP Lovecraft wrote short stories. So did Ray Bradbury. Satyajit Ray's Feluda series were, at the very best, novellas. And a well written collection of short stories, accumulated in a single book, is one of the best things in literature.
So that's comics, books and stories. In time I hope to read the plethora of other stuff that Neil Gaiman has, and will write, alongside the glut of books he has recommended. He changed reading for me. And that's why, he will remain, despite being a mere mortal, in my eyes, a true role model, and an immortal.
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