The Dead Boy Detectives are fictional characters that have appeared in comic books published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. They were created by writer Neil Gaiman and artists Matt Wagner and Malcolm Jones III in The Sandman #25 (April, 1991).The characters are the ghosts of two dead children, Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine, who rather than enter the afterlife stay on Earth to become detectives investigating crimes which involve the supernatural.