As the creator of The Sandman for DC Comics, writer Neil Gaiman has won every major award in the comics industry, as well as the prestigious 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, the only comic-book writer ever to be awarded this literary honor. Cited by the LA Times as "the greatest epic in the history of comic books," the ten Sandman collections have sold several million copies and remain in print to this day. Having thus made his mark, Gaiman wrote another highly regarded series for DC with Books of Magic. Also noteworthy was his work on Eclipse Comics' Miracleman, which he picked up after close friend Alan Moore left the book. In addition, Gaiman collaborated with Terry Pratchett on the wistful apocalypse novel Good Omens and in 1997 wrote the BBC teleplay Neverwhere, a story he later adapted into a novel. Gaiman's other novels, American Gods and his children's book Coraline, garnered New York Times best-selling status and international acclaim including the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards. In 2001, Gaiman made his first foray into Marvel Comics with his series Marvel 1602, a series in which Gaiman took the core cast of Marvel's Silver Age comics, placed them 400 years in the past and retold their stories in his own inimitable way. Aided by stunning art from Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove, Marvel 1602 was the top-selling comic of the year.

Next venturing into film, Gaiman collaborated with artist Dave McKean -- a compatriot from his days on Sandman -- on the feature Mirrormask, a mix of live-action, animation and puppetry that saw its critically acclaimed premiere in late 2005. As a passionate defender of the First Amendment, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund named Gaiman the 1997 Defender of Liberty, and he now serves on that organization's Board of Directors. Born in Porchester, England, Gaiman lives outside Minneapolis with his wife, Mary, and their three children. Growing up in England, Mark Buckingham always dreamed of drawing comics. In 1987, he inked the best-selling Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo. He went on to contribute to Gaiman's Miracleman, The Sandman, Hellblazer and Shade the Changing Man. Buckingham has been the regular artist on Batman: Shadow of the Bat, The Titans, Peter Parker: Spider-Man and Fables.