Sampiro:
I was trying to think of some of the ones who have been characters:
Emperor Norton I
Those come immediately to mind. Any others?
GK Chesterton and Aleister Crowley, but under cardboard cutout identities. Elvis and Marilyn, sort of. Geoffrey Chaucer and Christopher Marlowe, and probably a few others in that Hob Gadling story. Mark Twain.
I vaguely recall that Crowley may have been in the Sandman Mystery Theater special where they discover Morpheus’ imprisonment.
Satchmo:
Thanks The_Peyote_Coyote !Yllaria , I guess I should re-read the first few books. Brief Lives, The Kindly Ones and The Wake are my favorites, I think.
What about Barnabas the dog? Clearly he was Destruction’s dog, but do you think he was like Mathew? (Used to be human, given a choice when he died, maybe?) Or did Destruction just take a normal dog and make him smarter and able to talk? Or my favorite speculation, did he change an art/literary critic into a talking dog and make him forget he was ever human?
Reminds me, Mathew the Raven was a human character in the Swamp Thing series written by Gaiman, I think. Need to find that that next time I have some money burning a hole in my pocket.
He became a human again, briefly, in one of the followup anthologies.