A small story.

[kiya]

My senior year of high school, just about everyone was doing the AP and IB exams. My school had a policy that if you had an exam that day, you did not have to attend any of your classes. (I had several two-day IB exams and none of my various tests fell on the same day as each other. I didn't do much class that month. I remember tooling around Monkey County with dirtydianadd, larksdream, and Wendolyn in a little car that wouldn't go above forty except downhill desperately seeking Pez one of those afternoons.)

Anyway. Nobody else was in class much either.

I think it was the day of one of the French exams; there were maybe three of us in English class. There was no point in teaching under those circumstances; we all had reading material and stuff to do. (It was around here that my tarot card story goes.) Anyway, Natalie (one of the folks remaining) was sitting and reading some comics.

"What are you reading?"
"Neil Gaiman."
"Who's he?"
". . . you don't know Neil Gaiman?"

So she lent me one of her books and I read.

Because of this I've been looking for a copy of The Books of Magic for rather quite some time. Going into Pandemonium and looking through the graphic novels and never finding it, peering in bookstores here and there to look for it, nothing.

All of this is context for: I have a new leather jacket (from the place keshwyn recommended, thanks!), some fried chicken, and a copy of The Books of Magic.

Comments

[erispope.livejournal.com]

The later Books of Magic are not written by Gaiman himself, it's worth noting. Not to say that they aren't good. Vertigo has a number of series more or less spun off Sandman and some of Gaiman's other work in that universe - Lucifer, The Books of Magic, the Dreaming, Hellblazer, and a couple of others are all sort of part of that interlocking continuity.

Happily, Vertigo updates and collects in trade paper format relatively quickly, so one can generally just buy the books, as opposed to having to snag issue by issue.