I first read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic series in 1996.

The year the series finished.

Over the years it has won a whole host of new fans.

Won a ton of awards including 26 Eisners.

But I hadn’t realised just how seminal this series was in terms of it’s impact on the comics industry.

Did you know?

Sandman was the first comic to be published in a collected edition.

Sandman was the first comic to be owned by a writer in the sense that when it ended it wasn’t passed to another writer to pick up the story a la Batman, Spiderman…

Sandman was one of the first comics that really attracted women to the genre en mass.

And how did Neil Gaiman achieve all of this?

By simply not knowing it was impossible to do these things.

Oh, and of course through years of hard work and incredible talent.

You can hear Neil Gaiman talk about all things Sandman related in this video.

It is from the 2013 Edinburgh Book Festival’s Stripped Comics series of events.

I’ll be attending this year so look out for more news and reviews from the event come August.

And just for fun here is one of my favourite pieces of comics memorabilia.

Actually this is my only piece of comics memorabilia.