Question: In what year was the writer of the DC Comics series in which "Brief Lives" is the seventh collection of issues born?

Context articles: DC Comics Bonus Book
DC Comics Super Hero Collection
Franco Aureliani
Limited series
Neil Gaiman
The Sandman: Worlds' End
DC Universe Online: Legends
The Sandman: Brief Lives
DC Comics insert previews
Bloodlines (comics)

DC Comics Bonus Books were 16-page comic book stories inserted into issues of existing DC Comics series to showcase new writers and artists.
 Running from April 1988 to February 1989, they consisted of a front cover, 14 pages of story, and a back cover with a brief biography of the story's creators.
 The addition of the insert did not entail an increase in the price of the comic book.
 The Bonus Books featured early work by such comics creators as Mark Askwith, Jim Balent, Randy DuBurke, Dean Haspiel, Rob Liefeld, Gordon Purcell, and Denis Rodier.
The DC Comics Super Hero Collection was a fortnightly magazine collection, by Eaglemoss Publications, and DC Comics, launched on the 15th, March 2008, in the United Kingdom.
 The series was inspired by the success of The Classic Marvel Figurine Collection, also published by Eaglemoss.
 Each issue featured a hand painted, lead figure of a character from DC comic books, as well as an informational magazine, about the character.
 The collection consisted of two regular issues a month; with a special issue released every two months, to accommodate the larger characters in the DC Universe.
 The series also spawned a sub-series called "The Blackest Night/Brightest Day" collection, featuring characters from the various lantern corps from the DC Universe.
Franco Aureliani is an American comic book writer/artist, best known for writing the DC Comics series "Tiny Titans", for which he won two Eisner Awards in 2009 and 2011.
 "Tiny Titans" also won a Harvey award in 2011.
 He was also nominated for another Harvey in 2013 for another project from DC Comics, "Superman Family Adventures".
 He and longtime writing partner and friend, Art Baltazar, won their third Eisner in 2014 for the Dark Horse Comics children's series "Itty Bitty Hellboy".
 He also teaches art at Carmel High School.
In the field of comic books, a limited series is a comics series with a predetermined number of issues.
 A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is finite and determined before production, and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues.
 The term is often used interchangeably with miniseries (mini-series) and maxiseries (maxi-series), usually depending on the length and number of issues.
 In Dark Horse Comics' definition of a limited series, "This term primarily applies to a connected series of individual comic books.
 A limited series refers to a comic book series with a clear beginning, middle and end."
 Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics refer to limited series of two to eleven issues as miniseries and series of twelve issues or more as maxiseries, but other publishers alternate terms.
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman ( ; born Neil Richard Gaiman, 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films.
 His notable works include the comic book series "The Sandman" and novels "Stardust", "American Gods", "Coraline", and "The Graveyard Book".
 He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals.
 He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, "The Graveyard Book" (2008).
 In 2013, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards.
Worlds' End (1994) is the eighth collection of issues in the DC Comics series "The Sandman".
 It was written by Neil Gaiman; illustrated by Michael Allred, Gary Amaro, Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano, Tony Harris, Steve Leialoha, Vince Locke, Shea Anton Pensa, Alec Stevens, Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss, and Michael Zulli; colored by Danny Vozzo; and lettered by Todd Klein.
 The stories in the collection first appeared in 1993.
 The collection first appeared in paperback and hardback editions in 1994 with an introduction by Stephen King.
 The collection's title, setting, and a number of its themes and images are also found in G.K. Chesterton's poem "A Child of the Snows".
DC Universe Online: Legends is a comic book limited series published by DC Comics.
 It debuted on February 2, 2011, and is an expansion of the story of the "DC Universe Online" MMORPG video game.
 The series was written by the game's story co-writer Marv Wolfman and Tony Bedard with Tom Taylor penning issues 16 and 17.
 Originally announced as a 52-issue yearlong weekly series, it was instead solicited as a biweekly series slated to have 26 issues.
 Although, solicitations for "DC Universe Online: Legends", along with many other comics, were dropped from the DC Comics website and Diamond/Alliance pre-order catalogs beginning September 2011 as part of DC's new continuity reboot, the remaining issues returned to the publisher's lineup with the October 2011 solicitations.
 By August 2012, three paperback books were published collecting the series.
Brief Lives (1994) is the seventh collection of issues in the DC Comics series, "The Sandman".
 Written by Neil Gaiman, penciled by Jill Thompson, inked by Vince Locke and Dick Giordano, coloured by Danny Vozzo, lettered by Todd Klein, with cover art by Dave McKean.
 The introduction was written by Peter Straub but was published as an afterword; Gaiman wrote a brief introduction explaining this.
DC Comics insert previews were 16-page comic book stories inserted into issues of existing DC Comics series to promote new series usually debuting the next month.
 Running from 1980 to 1985, they consisted of a front cover, 14 pages of story, and a back cover that depicted the cover of the actual first issue.
 The addition of the insert did not entail an increase in the price of the comic book, and the cover copy called the insert "a special free 16-page comic!"
"Bloodlines" was a 1993 comic book story arc published by DC Comics.
 It was an intracompany crossover that ran through DC's superhero annuals and concluded with a two-issue "Bloodbath" miniseries written by Dan Raspler.
 The antagonists were a race of monstrous xenomorph-like aliens who killed humans for their spinal fluid.
 A small fraction of the parasite's victims survived and become super-heroes via their ordeal.
 This plot device introduced a wave of "New Blood" super-heroes into the DC Universe.
 Seven DC Comics series were spun out of the event: "Blood Pack", "Razorsharp and the Psyba-Rats", "Hitman", "Anima", "Loose Cannon", "Argus" and "Gunfire".