“…Neil was adamant that the Devil was David Bowie. He just said, ‘He is. You must draw David Bowie. Find David Bowie, or I’ll send you David Bowie. Because if it isn’t David Bowie, you’re going to have to redo it until it is David Bowie.’ So I said, ‘Okay, it’s David Bowie.’…”
Kelley Jones
From Hanging out with the Dream King (a book consisting of interviews with Gaiman’s collaborators)
The title character from the cover of Lucifer #16, artist Christopher Moeller.
Gustave Doré, Depiction of Satan, the central character of John Milton’s Paradise Lost c. 1866
Lucifer Morningstar is a DC Comics character appearing primarily as a supporting character in the comic book series The Sandman and as the title character of a spin-off, both published under the Vertigo imprint.
Though various depictions of Lucifer – the Biblical fallen angel and Devil of the Abrahamic religions – have been presented by DC Comics in their run, this interpretation by Neil Gaiman debuted in The Sandman in 1989.
In the earlier related series The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman, Lucifer abandoned his lordship over Hell. While Lucifer had previously appeared in various stereotypical guises in earlier DC books, Gaiman’s version was premised on English poet and prose writer John Milton‘s Paradise Lost (at Gaiman’s request of the artist, Lucifer looks like David Bowie at the time).
The Genealogy of Style 