A Page a Day! #7
Submitted by Peter Gross on June 30, 2009 – 6:30 pm6 Comments
A Death Sketch!
I’ve had the good fortune of getting to draw Neil Gaiman’s great Death character a few times–twice in Books of Magic and once in Lucifer. I’ve also done about a million sketches of her at conventions. She’s really fun to do because she takes over the page and I’m never really sure what the sketch will look like.
This one has an umbrella.
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You’re the go-to guy for Death outside of Sandman, aren’t you, Peter? I think you’ve drawn her more times than anyone.
The Lucifer appearance is very dear to my heart, of course. The meeting between the two of them is very prickly and strained, at least on his side, and you got that so beautifully in the body language…
I loved her line of something like ‘I wouldn’t have anywhere to keep you’ (sorry if that’s not quite right – my book is elsewhere). Summed it all up pretty much.
Big fan of the Destiny cameo in particular too and the role it played in moving everything on. Again, the body language led to a really tense scene which was great as they were all sitting down to some supper at the time
Dang. I now can’t get the phrase ‘Death carries an umbrella’ out of my head. Thanks for that
You know she never says that in the published story? It’s in the script, but we changed it to remove the suggestion that Death – like Lucifer pre-Season of Mists – has a realm of her own. As it reads in the finished version, the exchange is just:-
LUCIFER: You don’t have any claim on me.
DEATH: Never said I did. But the big wheels are turning, obviously. Everyone wants to know what happens next.
Ha – d’oh. I’m thinking you must have told us that in an interview or something and I’ve mixed it into my memory of what actually happened.
…either that or I’m going to have to confess to hacking your computer again :/
I’m going to go for the former explanation. I don’t want to have to upgrade my McAfee for the seven hundredth time…
I just pulled the trade off the shelf, and as usual, Mike, your analogies say more in the space of a few words than most writers in a tangle of sentences. In particular:
DEATH: It’s like the end of that movie–The Italian Job–where the bus is halfway off the cliff?
I love the way Peter’s drawn her with her back to Lucifer, not quite glancing over her shoulder as he wakes. And then the perfectly spot-on encapsulation a few pages later:
DEATH: It’s no surprise you turned out the way you did.