Death: The High Cost of Living

Death: The High Cost of Living
Cover of Death: The High Cost of Living TPB. Art by Dave McKean, featuring Tori Amos
Publication information
Publisher	Vertigo Comics
Format	Limited series
Publication date	March, 1993 - May, 1993
Number of issues	3
Main character(s)	Death of the Endless
Creative team
Writer(s)	Neil Gaiman
Penciller(s)	Chris Bachalo
Inker(s)	Mark Buckingham
Letterer(s)	Todd Klein
Colorist(s)	Steve Oliff
Creator(s)	Neil Gaiman Mike Dringenberg
Editor(s)	Karen Berger Lisa Aufenanger
Collected editions
HC (Nov 1993)
TPB (Jun 1994)

Death: The High Cost of Living is a comic, written by Neil Gaiman with art by Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham. It is a spin-off from Gaiman's best-selling Vertigo Comics series The Sandman, featuring the Sandman (Dream)'s elder sister, Death of the Endless. Its premise is that Death takes human form once a century, to remain grounded and in touch with humanity, an idea touched upon in several other media, for example in the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday and in the Terry Pratchett novel Reaper Man.

A movie based on this series has been in the works for several years in various stages of development and until recently was in the works at New Line Cinema. Gaiman had previously confirmed that this movie was in progress and that he was planning on writing the script and directing it, with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer. The film, which is currently on hold, was operating under the title Death and Me.

Death: The High Cost of Living was originally published as a three-issue comic book miniseries, published monthly by Vertigo, DC Comics' mature readers imprint and cover-dated March to May 1993. It was the first stand-alone mini-series derived from the then-on-going Sandman series by Gaiman, and was written by him with artwork by Bachalo and Buckingham and covers by regular Sandman cover artist Dave McKean. The High Cost of Living was one of the first new titles published under the newly created Vertigo imprint, alongside Peter Milligan's Enigma, and is also notable for being one of the very few Vertigo comics to feature an alternative cover, as #1 did. Vertigo's other output in its debut month consisted of a half-dozen continuing DC series, newly moved to the mature imprint. These continuing series' included Hellblazer and Gaiman's own The Sandman.