Yuko Shimizu

The Sandman The Dream Huntersjust hit the comic book stores near you. I got my own copy messengered from DC Vertigo this morning. My very first DC cover! I have illustrated a lot of things, but “first” is always, always exciting. This gig came through a rather unexpected route.Nicholas Blechman, art director at The New York Times Book Review, contacted me a few years ago to draw a portrait of Neil Gaiman. Nicholas thought I would be a perfect fit to illustrate the writer who deals a lot with dreams. A few weeks later when the Book Review came out, my studio phone rang. On the other end of the line was, to my big surprise, Neil Gaiman himself. He gave me the nicest compliment by saying this was the first time he saw a portrait that actually looked like him. Later on I got contacted by editors of DC Vertigo asking if I am interested in possibly drawing one of Neil’s stories into graphic novel, which I had to turn down. I have been illustrating for a while, also a lot of my closest friends are comic artists. I knew very well what it takes to be a comic artist, and I knew I didn’t qualify.I had been in touch with wonderful editors from DC Comics (Karen Barger and Pornsak Pichetshote) since. There were multiple ideas and project that came and went. Finally, the first project came that actually worked out, that was this four volume series of SANDMAN. And it was such a fun project to work on. Thank you Neil, thank you Karen and Pornsak.

Cover illustrations are uploaded to ILLUSTRATIONS SECTION.