Gaiman has been very forthright about going to Moore and talking to him as he was starting out about how to write comic scripts. He’s also stated numerous times that it was Moore’s work, particularly Swamp Thing that brought him back to comics after a significant hiatus.
But sure. Let’s ignore what the man himself has said in pretty much every interview.
This is why I don't post to most forums.
The Sandman was nothing like anything Moore ever produced, and it was influenced from classical literary works, and his deep study of folklore...
He actually wrote this INSIDE the letter columns and the fan media at the time and inside the books.
His intertwining with Moore was because largely because Karen Berger recruited them and they worked together for DC, and Moore was the ground breaker into the American Market. The influence for the Sandman came from a prototype idea Gaiman pitched to Berger after Black Orchard and was turned down. After that, they handed Berger Sandman, and Berger handed Sandman to Neil who then shoe horned hos previous idea into the Sandman title. The group of Brittish talent that came together as a class inclued, Borland, Moore, Gibson (who sucks btw), Gaiman and I am probably leaving someone out.
Now, this is how it was. As for your comment, I did quote Gaiman himself. - straight from his own website.
As for the quality, Moore is a second rate author compared to Gaiman in terms of story depth, character development, plot development, staging, language usage, and literary knowledge. Gaiman is a literary encyclopedia, and his work reflects this. Gaiman's Sandman has stories within stories, within stories, that unfolds like rose pedals. The character Death herself is a greater literary invention than anything Moore ever could produce... including John Constantine who is frankly a retreaded character, although well done.
The Sandman is probably the greatest Comic Work of the 20th century, on any objective standard. It has zero stamp from Moore. Moore had zero influence on the creation of the Dreaming, the Endless, Seasons of Mists, Prelude or any of the story lines. He had zero influence on Destruction, Dream, Destiny, Delirium, the Fluries, or the interweaving of Marvin, and Cain and Able or any part of the Sandman. The Sandman worked on a Metadata level of comic story telling that sweeps through a greater part of comic and folklore, to produce a completely new mythology by breaking through the third wall, so to speak, in a way that DC is kind of trying to do with the Watchmen now, or as Planetary tried to do with some success, or as was in the overall storyline of Mister Miracle in this last run. But Sandman not only did this first, but it did this in an integrated and well planned way from the very start. Gaiman created a context that could draw from any fictional work, or real events, and place them in the context of his new mythology. Nothing has ever been produced like it, and it is likely nothing ever will...
Criticism of it here is frankly laughable. Long after all these forums are dead, long after the internet is dead, long after the Comics medium is dead, long after Gaiman himself is buried, The Sandman will continue to be read and studied. I know this. Everyone in the publishing industry knows this. And I am not even a fan of the Sandman.
