Hi neil!
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.
