Death: The High Cost of Living

AUTHOR: Gaiman, Neil

ARTIST: Dave McKean (illustrator); Chris Bachalo (penciller); Mark Buckingham (inker); Steve Oliff (colorist); Todd Klein (letterer)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1993

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1994

Publication History

Originally released in single magazine format as Death: The High Cost of Living Volumes 1-3 and Death Talks About Life, and published by DC Comics, Death: The High Cost of Living was released in three monthly installments from March through May, 1993, under the following titles: The Spirit of the Stairway (March, 1993); A Night to Remember (April, 1993); and The High Cost of Living (May, 1993). The hardcover edition of Death: The High Cost of Living, with the appended Death Talks About Life, was published in November, 1993. The trade paperback was published in June, 1994.

The story of Death was released as an offshoot of Neil Gaiman’s popular The Sandman (1989-1996) series; the title character is one of the Endless of that series, the sister of Gaiman’s popular characters Dream, Delirium, and others. Gaiman and Dave McKean were already well-established graphic novel writers and artists, respectively, at the publication of this graphic novel, and Mark Buckingham had established his talent during the previous decade with Hellblazer, issues 18-22. Chris Bachalo, having achieved recognition for his work with The Sandman series, gained further recognition for his work in Death. Death: The High Cost of Living was released in full color, though Death Talks About Life, illustrated by McKean rather than Bachalo, was released in black and white and sepia.

Plot

For one day each century, Death takes human form and walks among the living, learning about their lives to better sympathize with those whom she must escort from life. Death: The High Cost of Living is the story of one of those days—a fairly average day in the early 1990’s, when Death has come to Earth in the form of a teenage girl named Didi and has landed right in the middle of New York City.

Readers first encounter Mad Hettie, a two-hundred-fifty-year-old woman seeking her lost heart. After roughing up a gang of tough-living teenagers who have tried to take advantage of her, Hettie divines Death’s impending arrival among the living. Mad Hettie, readers learn later, will implore Death to find her heart for her.

The first living person that Death meets is Sexton Furnival, a jaded and suicidal sixteen-year-old boy who has lost all interest in life. Sexton is introduced to readers through the suicide note he is drafting on his computer while his mother does housework in the other room. Though his suicidal intentions are hardly to be taken seriously, interrupted as they are when his mother sends him out for the afternoon so that she can do her spring cleaning, his imminent encounter with Death hardly seems coincidental.

Death, in her human form as Didi, rescues Sexton from the garbage heap in which she has found him, then brings him to her place to get him cleaned up. Her place and her human form are part of a facade, established by some unknown power as a cover for her presence on Earth. Death is aware of the fabrication and mentions as much to Sexton, who begins to doubt her sanity. This doubt catalyzes both his continued interest in Didi throughout the remainder of her day on Earth and his skepticism about the reality of the strange events that follow.

Once Sexton is cleaned up, he and Didi begin roaming the city together: She charms everyone she meets and finds myriad ways to intertwine with the lives of those around her; he stands back and watches as she navigates New York City culture in wholly unusual ways. At a nightclub, Sexton and Didi are confronted by Theo, a minion of the Eremite, who lures them into an abandoned warehouse, where they are imprisoned. The Eremite, blind, ancient, and seemingly supernatural, steals Death’s ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol of life, believing it to be the key to her knowledge and power. Indeed, Death seems less powerful once her ankh is gone. She and Sexton experience some of their most typical human moments together—as well as the only human death to occur in this story—once she is robbed of this symbol.

Meanwhile, Mad Hettie, sensing Death’s distress, leads Didi’s friend and landlord, Mrs. Robbins, to rescue them from the warehouse. Once freed, Sexton and Didi spend a relatively normal morning together, eating breakfast and strolling in a park before Death’s time on Earth is done and she is forced to leave. However, before she leaves she evades the Eremite again and fulfills her promise to Mad Hettie.

Characters

•Death, a.k.a. Didi, the protagonist, is the human incarnation, for one day each century, of the concept she represents. Pert, chipper, and dressed in all black, she is the Grim Reaper, the one who comes to greet the living as they depart from Earth. For the duration of this story, she is a teenage girl much like any other, trying to navigate the complexities of human life and charming all she meets.

•Sexton Furnival is a suicidal sixteen-year-old boy with no appreciation for life or its many charms. Unwittingly swept into Death’s day on Earth when she finds him trapped in a garbage heap, he represents the depressed and jaded members of humanity who Death all too frequently has to escort from Earth before their time. He experiences the most dramatic development of any character in this story.

•Mad Hettie is a slovenly, two-hundred-fifty-year-old bag lady who is seeking Death with the intention of asking her a favor. Killing a dove to discern the time of Death’s next arrival on Earth, Hettie adds a touch of the supernatural to the story and to Sexton’s experience.

•The Eremite, blind and disheveled, has been chasing Death across centuries to steal the one thing she has that is of value to him: knowledge. Not seeming to realize that such a thing cannot be stolen, he pursues Death relentlessly, heedless to the harm he causes along the way. He traps Sexton and Death in an abandoned warehouse and kills Theo.

•Theo, a classmate of Sexton, is a fast-talking street hustler who has taken up with the Eremite in an attempt to earn quick money. His is the only death depicted in the story, which, as the first death Sexton has ever witnessed, provides an opportunity for Sexton and Death to discuss what death means.

Artistic Style

Death: The High Cost of Living employs remarkably bright and vivid coloring for a book about such a grim subject. The coloring, which emphasizes the items and characters in which Death finds intense joy as she experiences her one day on Earth, is only one of several elements used to emphasize specific aspects of the story. Meticulous use of light and shadow and chiaroscuro shading, as well as close attention to seemingly innocuous background details, serve to heighten the reader’s awareness of the minute elements of daily existence that make life interesting. In this way, the artistic design dovetails neatly with one of the prominent themes of the story.

Though the book relies heavily on dialogue (presented through speech balloons) to progress the plot, a portion of the narration occurs through Sexton’s suicide note and thoughts, which are presented in text boxes; the suicide note in particular uses computer-font-style lettering. In a departure from the lettering of The Sandman series, the text is otherwise uniform, and different characters are not given their own lettering styles. However, characters are generally distinguished by their own thematic colors: Death always appears in all black surrounded by bursts of color in the background, while Sexton appears slightly shadowy in muted blues and with comparatively darker shading over his face. Characters’ coloring thus reveals as much about their traits and characteristics as their words.

Death Talks About Life reveals a wholly different artistic approach, under the hand of McKean. Death’s character appears more cartoonish and roughly crafted, without the sharp lines and realistic details of Bachalo’s sketches. However, the rough-hewn nature is in keeping with the casual approach to the topics of sexual heath and sexually transmitted disease, and the minimalist approach detracts nothing from and rather supports the discussion of so significant a subject.

Themes

The prominent theme of the story, expressed in its subtitle, is the cost of life and an appreciation for its value. Death is present on Earth, for a one-day respite from her usual duties; she spends the day experiencing the joys of life, rather than escorting others from it. Only when weakened by the loss of her ankh does she escort a human from his life on Earth (though she does not serve in her usual role as psychopomp, or the guide between realms, but is simply another human presence attending his demise).

The novel’s intense sensitivity to the value of life is striking in its contrast to the senseless violence so often depicted in comics and provides a backdrop for exploration of other themes, including love, friendship, mortality, and human strength. Though the friendship between Didi and Sexton has the potential to blossom into romance, the novel carefully avoids these grounds and limits itself to themes of platonic love and relationships.

The character of Death gives voice to the exploration of the meaning of life. While the meaning of life is never stated overtly, through Sexton’s character development, the reader is able to witness a remarkable transformation from apathy to interest and almost excitement at the variety of experience life can contain. Minor supporting characters, some voiceless, provide further opportunities to explore the value of life and living, and what that may mean for different people. Though death is presented as inevitable, even for those with extreme longevity, the story does not evince fatalism but rather revels in human choices and intentions.

Impact

Death: The High Cost of Living is less significant on its own than as an offshoot of Gaiman’s popular and highly acclaimed The Sandman series. The title character herself is not an original creation but a member of a family more fully represented in The Sandman stories. While the novel, which relies on many standard and easily accessible elements of the graphic novel genre, provides an excellent starting point for those newly acquainted with the format, the technique is not particularly groundbreaking nor does it represent a significant departure from the creators’ typical work.

The most striking component of the book is the appended Death Talks About Life, which many readers have tended to dismiss as an afterthought but which represents far more intense attention to specific social issues than is generally expected of comic books or graphic novels. Death’s no-nonsense discussion of sex, sexual health, condoms, sexually transmitted disease, AIDS, and drug and needle use is far more frank and direct than is common for comic books, which tend to allegorize such matters. Nevertheless, the subject is appropriate to the character and has helped to expand the role of the graphic novel medium in presenting challenging subjects to a vast and varied readership.

Further Reading

Carey, Mike, and John Bolton. God Save the Queen (2007).

Carey, Mike, et al. Lucifer (2000-2006).

Gaiman, Neil, et al. The Sandman (1989-1996).

Kwitney, Alisa. Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold (2000).

Miller, Frank, and David Mazzucchelli. Batman: Year One (1988).

Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen (1995).

Simmonds, Posy. Tamara Drewe (2008).

Wagner, Matt, and Steven T. Seagle. Sandman Mystery Theater (1993-1999).

Bibliography

Howard, Elise. “Neil Gaiman.” Horn Book Magazine 85, no. 4 (2009): 351-354.

Sutton, Roger. “It’s Good to Be Gaiman.” School Library Journal 55, no. 3 (2009): 30-32.

Wagner, Hank, Christopher Golden, and Stephen R. Bissette. Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008.

Zaleski, Jeff. “The Arts and Ambitions of Neil Gaiman: Comics! Books! Films!” Publishers Weekly 250, no. 30 (2003): 46.