Comic book collection: Sandman was a very important milestone in my maturing as a comic book reader, from a superhero-only man to a fan of all that comic books could offer. Neil Gaiman’s literate stories about stories and the blending of mythologies were mind-expanding for me, and one of the gateway drugs to another world of comic books. The variety of different interior artists may have been inconsistent, but the covers by Dave McKean were uniformally excellent. This image is the cover to Absolute Sandman Vol. 1.