Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman, and Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham.
Title: Death: The High Cost of Living.
Author: Neil Gaiman.
Artist: Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham.
Genre: Fiction, graphic novel, fantasy, adventure.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1993.
Summary: One day in every century, Death walks the Earth to better understand those to whom she will be the final visitor. Today is that day. As a young mortal girl named Didi, Death befriends a teenager who has given up on life, Sexton, is pursued by a mysterious stranger who is out to conquer her, and helps a 250-year old homeless woman find her missing heart. A sincere musing on love, life, and (of course) death.
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review: Death is a character it is very difficult not to love. She completely bewitched me in the Sandman series, and I was delighted to find out that she would be getting some books of her own. She is such an antithesis to most artistic portrayals of Death, but she is very logically so. It is so easy for me to imagine Death the way Gaiman described her - much easier, in fact, than a skeleton with a scythe or some kind of evil horned dark creature. It seems so natural for her to be as uplifting, and bright, and loving of life and all its manifestations as she is, because she does guide souls through one of the most traumatic experiences, and she inevitably brings wonderful news of a continuing journey after the fact of death along with the sad news that one has passed on to that next journey. The character of Sexton was a perfect companion for her, in that context. The irony of this emo young man thinking life not as worthwhile as Death knows it is, relishing in every detail of it, gets the point across very well. I really enjoy the concept of Death having to live as a human one day every century - there is something very poetic and poignant about it. All that said, this definitely could have been a better effort on Gaiman's part. Death in the Sandman series comes off quite a lot more intricate and intriguing as a character than she does here. So while this book is solid as a stand-alone, if you have read the Sandman series and know how good it can potentially get, whilst this book still stands up to the test of quality, you get a feeling it could have been just a touch better.
♥ "I'm meant to feel sorry for a crazy old lady who nearly cut my nose off?"
"When you know someone really well it's hard to be mad at them for very long."
"And you know her really well."
"I know everybody really well."
♥ "Dead men tell no tales, huh?"
"Everybody tells tales, Sexton. It's just the dead talk more quietly than other people."
♥ "But I am Death. It's... Listen: '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: and this is the price she must pay for being the divider of the living from all that has gone before, all that must come after.'"
♥ "Maybe she really was Death. I mean, it would be really neat if Death was somebody, and not just nothing, or pain, or blackness. And it would be really good if Death could be somebody like Didi. Somebody funny, and friendly, and nice. And maybe just a tiny bit crazy."