In the late 1980s, after getting burned out on mainstream comics*, Steven Bissette created his own publishing imprint called Spiderbaby Graphix. Among other projects he created a horror anthology called Taboo. Taboo featured short stories and continuing stories that were mostly horror by some of the industries top names. Alan Moore created two ongoing stories, From Hell and Lost Girls, in the pages of Taboo. Bissette published Taboo through issue #7 before turning it all over to Kitchen Sink Press. Taboo #8 and #9 were published by them.

*Stephen Bissette has a great 12 part series on his blog that deals with this time period. It’s required reading for anyone who’s interested in that era of comics.

In the last self-published issue of Taboo, there was the start of another ongoing story. But with the change in publishers and the issues being published a lot less frequently, that story just died with no other episodes in the story. Neil Gaman and Michael Zulli had started a Sweeney Todd book. All we have left of it is the 26 pages in Taboo #7. This chapter is more of a prologue. It features Neil Gaiman driving with a friend to go to Temple Bar (a large gateway that was on Fleet Street) to get pictures for Michael Zulli to use a reference. Neil and his friend Mike find it and then stop off for food, only to find out from the waitress that they were at the wrong place. Then they go and find the real Temple Bar and Neil starts dreaming of Fleet Street and Sweeney Todd and the story ends.

It’s a wonderful tease for what looked to be a great story and one that, most likely, we’ll never see.