This deluxe slipcase edition of Neil Gaiman's Sandman is set for release from DC in November. Gaiman says that this new edition will use the recolored pages from the Absolute Sandman collection.

New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman's transcendent series The Sandman is often hailed as the definitive Vertigo title and one of the finest achievements in graphic storytelling. Gaiman created an unforgettable tale of the forces that exist beyond life and death by weaving ancient mythology, folklore and fairy tales with his own distinct narrative vision.

This set includes all 10 trade paperback volumes of The Sandman in a 6 3/4 x 3 3/8 x 10 5/16 slipcase.

Yesterday the internet and its users made their voices heard load and clear, as many sites shut down for the day, senators and congress people who have been leading the charge for the censorship in the name of curbing piracy in the name of national security legislation that is SOPA'/PIPA. Corporations continue to smear opponents of the bills such as Wikipedia and Google as pirate profiteers, and when the sites went dark yesterday to protest their inability to take part in this crucial conversation, the MPAA and RIAA went triple Orwellian irony and accused them of abusing their power with "dangerous stunts." So, if the Disney Company turns off Wikipedia, that's good. If they turn themselves off, that's bad.

Weird stuff.

Much is made about artists and content creators and how they are being pilloried by piracy and it's for them that these bills must pass. Actually, numbers for creatives' sales are holding steady, and what's more there have been many very successful releases directly from the artist to the audience - Louis C.K. is just the most recent example, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead also had huge success with little overhead, zero perceptible threat and the artists made loads of cash - the only things lacking were lawyers getting paid to file speculatory extortion lawsuits agains children and the elderly, and crippling DRM to prevent the purchaser from enjoying the content they bought from the artist on multiple devices and in different formats.

So maybe we don't need to be on Def-Con 1 because the same fight the entertainment industry has been waging since the dawn of the phonograph is now on computers and we can pretend it's a Tom Clancy novel instead of just the modern day equivalent of making a mix tape for your girlfriend. Especially since the worst part of SOPA/PIPA - whether you agree with me about the above or not - it's quite clear it will NOT curb actual piracy.

As for the artists that the Chamber of Commerce, the bills' sponsors, the MPAA and RIAA say they're fighting for? Many of these artists would very much for them to stop fighting because the internet is precious and they're doing just fine, thank you. Yesterday a coalition of awesome artists and performers, including an open letter to Washington from a coalition of awesome artists and performers including the great Neil Gaiman, posted this open letter to the people voting on this legislation.

An open letter to Washington from Artists and Creators

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.

We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.

We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.

We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA's impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.

Respectfully,

Aziz Ansari
Kevin Devine, Musician
Barry Eisler, Author
Neil Gaiman, Author
Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
Zoë Keating, Musician
The Lonely Island
Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
Erin McKeown, Musician
Benjamin Goldwasser, MGMT
Andrew VanWyngarden, MGMT
Samantha Murphy, Musician
OK Go
Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
Quiet Company
Trent Reznor
Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
Johnny Stimson, Musician

Check out this preview of Neil Gaiman's appearance on Sunday night's episode of The Simpsons!

Here's Fox's synopsis of the episode, titled "The Book Job":

Lisa becomes disheartened when she learns the shocking truth behind the ‘tween lit’ industry and her beloved fantasy novel characters. But Homer decides to cash in on the craze and forms a team to group-write the next ‘tween lit’ hit, with the king of fantasy, Neil Gaiman (guest-voicing as himself), lending his expertise to the effort. After catching the eye of a slick industry publisher (guest-voice Andy Garcia) at the Springfield Book Fair, the team gets an advanced copy of their work and discovers that the corporate lit business is a bigger operation than they imagined.

Neil Gaiman is such a reserved, humble, and down-to-Earth chap that it's easy to forget that he has quietly become a freaking pop culture god. Every now and then I get a reminder, like watching the crowd's response to his performance with his wife Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Her solo-supergroup included Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, Moby, and an almost-motionless Neil. And every time the Neil so much as inhales, the crowd just loses their shit. Check it out, as they perform "Science Fiction Double Feature" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Bleeding Cool points to this link on Neil Gaiman's blog in which he discusses a scene from his episode of Doctor Who that didn't make the final cut, for one reason or another.  In the context of Gaiman's post, it seems to be just one more unnecessary change in what he paints as a somewhat exasperating series of rewrites.