Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, all of that)

[AngryGazelle]

Working my way through this series now (via the deluxe editions) and have just finished 'A Game of You'.

Really strong stuff but I'm not 'in love' with it quite as much as some people are. The jumping around of storylines is fantastic when they land but frustrating when they don't; nothing has been bad but a few stories have been dull.

The writing is always strong - on occasion I find characters speaking in a way that doesn't fit them but that is rare - and there is so much variety in the stories and settings that even when I'm reading an issue I don't gel with, I'm excited for what's coming next.

The art is not the books strongest point... I don't hate it, I just wonder how much the series would be elevated if it had art to match the writing.

[13 schoolyards]

The art is not the books strongest point... I don't hate it, I just wonder how much the series would be elevated if it had art to match the writing.

I always thought the art took a hit for a while when Mike Dringenberg left / got sacked - supposedly Gaiman wanted to make sure it was "Neil Gaiman's Sandman" and the way to do that was to constantly bring in different artists - but it was never less than decent, and the more confident (and successful) Gaiman got the more willing he was to work with stronger artists.

For mine at least I think the series would have suffered a lot if it had used more traditional fantasy artists. The artists he did have almost always played up the human angle to things (they were usually better at characters than backgrounds) which Gaiman's scripts and the story in general needed. And then when things did go full fantasy with The Wake it made sense because it was a new era free of

Spoiler alert

the kinda grubby and tangled and very human relationships that had increasingly been a hallmark of the previous regime.

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But then I really liked the art in The Kindly Ones which I know a lot of people don't, so YMMV

[Dayraven]

A Game of You specifically has three good artists who don't mesh very well — the edition you've got fixes the absolute disaster of an inking that Doran's issue got, at least.

[AngryGazelle]

So far none of the art has been particularly bad; some of it has been pretty good but nothing stands out as being really great.

I read Invincible last year and during the Conquest arc (as well as others) pencils, inks and colours are all operating on a really high level and its fantastic to look at.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I'd definitely read a re-issue of The Sandman with all new artists, but I guess it would be seen as a complete betrayal of the original guys, and probably rightly so.

[Small Man Big Horse]

But then I really liked the art in The Kindly Ones which I know a lot of people don't, so YMMV

That was the one bit I didn't click with, and mentioned it on the first page - I've very mixed feelings about the art, sometimes it works (the scenes featuring

Spoiler alert

Lyta Hall especially as she descends in to a grief filled madness

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), but at other times it feels bizarrely cartoonish and just plain poor, this contains some of Gaiman's best writing but I really, really wish a different artist had been chosen.

I'd still be against new artists being brought in though, it would just feel wrong in a way I can't quite explain.

I read Invincible last year and during the Conquest arc (as well as others) pencils, inks and colours are all operating on a really high level and its fantastic to look at.

I think a lot of that just comes down to the technology we now have, I wouldn't say everything new is better, but certain modern titles have artists who can produce really beautiful effects that weren't really possible before, or if they were it was so time consuming it rarely took place.

[AngryGazelle]

I think a lot of that just comes down to the technology we now have, I wouldn't say everything new is better, but certain modern titles have artists who can produce really beautiful effects that weren't really possible before, or if they were it was so time consuming it rarely took place.

This is a fair point but I still think there is something special about the art in Invincible (not all of it, of course) and even a lot of modern comics are not on it's level. Now, I'm not saying Invincible has the best art of all time or anything but in my opinion it is well above most superhero comics.

Ryan Stegman's work on venom is also particularly good; I must admit I don't know who coloured it.

I hear that the art in the sandman prequel is much better, too.

[Mister Six]

I hear that the art in the sandman prequel is much better, too.

Sandman Overture? Yeah, it's amazing - JH Williams III firing on all cylinders, and Gaiman really pushing him.

Read it after the main series concludes though.

[Small Man Big Horse]

This is a fair point but I still think there is something special about the art in Invincible (not all of it, of course) and even a lot of modern comics are not on it's level. Now, I'm not saying Invincible has the best art of all time or anything but in my opinion it is well above most superhero comics.

Ryan Stegman's work on venom is also particularly good; I must admit I don't know who coloured it.

I hear that the art in the sandman prequel is much better, too.

I'm sure you're right, I have read (and enjoyed Invincible) but it was a while ago now and my memory is poor. I do remember being impressed by a fair bit of it though, and Invincible's always confused me as it's almost the opposite of The Walking Dead in that it's bright, inventive and fun, and has great art, but while I liked The Walking Dead initially half way through I started to hate it, and by the end each issue made me fairly furious. To this day I'm not quite sure why I bothered sticking with it, other than that I was reading it online for free and an issue tended to take less than five minutes to skip through.

[13 schoolyards]

I can't even get on board with the new colouring for the reprints of the early Sandman issues, so all-new artists would be a nope from me

[madhair60]

I've never made it through Sandman - stalled out at Marco Polo, I think it was? I shall have to try again sometime, I'm sure it deserves my patience and will reward it

[ERADICATOR!]

I feel like the only person in the world that doesn't like Gaiman's work. It's all a bit too twee for me, even when it's 'dark'.

I've read most of it and tried to enjoy it. but, nope. I just can't.

I once described him as Alan Moore for middle class pony-girls and I stick by it.

[13 schoolyards]

It's interesting that Gaiman deliberately steered into the "twee" aspects of his work - his very early stuff was much more horror-tinged. But I guess he figured out what his audience really wanted pretty quickly, and the horror bubble was definitely bursting by the end of the 80s anyway, so The Sandman went from being master of dreams (and therefore nightmares) to the more softer-edged "master of stories".

[Small Man Big Horse]

I haven't read the book but the play of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane flirts with horror, what with the death at the beginning, and the central villain being pretty disturbing in the doors scene, but even then Gaiman can't resist spoiling it all and blathering on about the importance of stories and creativity.

[Mister Six]

It's interesting that Gaiman deliberately steered into the "twee" aspects of his work - his very early stuff was much more horror-tinged. But I guess he figured out what his audience really wanted pretty quickly, and the horror bubble was definitely bursting by the end of the 80s anyway, so The Sandman went from being master of dreams (and therefore nightmares) to the more softer-edged "master of stories".

I think you're  being a bit too cynical there (yes, I know that's the tone of the overall thread, and it's my fault!). You seem to imply that Gaiman's shift from horror (and I'm guessing you're including stuff like Mr Punch in that too) to a more fantasy angle was calculated - I think it's probably more likely that it was the other way around: Gaiman leaned towards horror early on because that was what sold back then, and his gradual shift was less about writing "what his audience really wanted" and more about actually having the clout to write what he really wanted.

For sure, the first 12 or so issues lean a lot heavier on the horror than the later ones, but you have to remember that it was a DC-owned comic being filtered through a DC editor (albeit the excellent, creator-friendly Karen Berger). Horror comics were hot shit at the time - Hellblazer was picking up steam, Grant Morrison's Animal Man was face to face with grotesque animal experimentation, Batman was facing down "The Cult" (with art from Swamp Thing originator Bernie Wrightson!), The Spectre and The Shadow both had noiry horrory comics and there was even a horror-themed DC anthology comic, The Wasteland.

So in that context, a horror comic made sense - in the same way that those early Sandman appearances by The Joker, Mr Miracle, Martian Manhunter, Dr Destiny (aka John Dee) and so on made sense, and in the same way that brief crossover with Constantine (Morpheus making a one-page cameo in Hellblazer the same month) made sense. It was a commercial decision, at least partly informed by DC's editorial mores, to give the comic a good chance.

The Sandman that emerges in the comic's second year is way more in line with all of Gaiman's subsequent major works - the preoccupation with stories, obviously, but also with gods and magic and folklore. I think to keep that up for the next couple of decades out of some kind of deranged commitment to brand loyalty would have been way too wearying to bother with, especially when he could have (and indeed did) release any old cack to at least some applause from his fanbase.

And even though he dials back on the serial killers and melty people and stuff, the horror and brutality never actually leave The Sandman. People still die, horribly. A guy gets his face cut off and nailed to a wall in A Game of You, then a couple of very sympathetic supporting characters are crushed to death. Dozens of people die, one prominent character by burning to death, in Brief Lives. More casual slaughter of supporting characters, including innocent humans (and a human toddler, who gets repeatedly burned to death then resurrected), occurs in The Wake.

Then you've got teenagers being sacrificed in American Gods, along with a bunch of other hapless humans being killed in various ways. A little boy gets turned into a goat then arbitrarily killed in Stardust. Neverwhere had some grisly stuff. A bunch of his short stories have some really horrible stuff, including one with a narrator who's revealed to be a paedophile who beats his regular child prostitute up when he's in a bad mood.

In fact, I'm not sure what bits of Gaiman's pre-Good Omens 2 (fuck Good Omens 2) work could really be described as "twee". Delirium in The Sandman? Except she drives a cop permanently insane in Brief Lives and there's a constant air of danger around her.

Anansi Boys, I guess, but that's obviously just him having fun doing a Pratchett riff, and is out of step with the overall tenor of his bibliography.

[Mister Six]

I haven't read the book but the play of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane flirts with horror, what with the death at the beginning, and the central villain being pretty disturbing in the doors scene, but even then Gaiman can't resist spoiling it all and blathering on about the importance of stories and creativity.

I haven't read it (got a second hand copy sitting around waiting for me) but Gaiman says it's part of an unofficial trilogy alongside Violent Cases and Mr Punch, so I would imagine it's a bit grim at the very least.

[13 schoolyards]

I think you're  being a bit too cynical there (yes, I know that's the tone of the overall thread, and it's my fault!). You seem to imply that Gaiman's shift from horror (and I'm guessing you're including stuff like Mr Punch in that too) to a more fantasy angle was calculated - I think it's probably more likely that it was the other way around: Gaiman leaned towards horror early on because that was what sold back then, and his gradual shift was less about writing "what his audience really wanted" and more about actually having the clout to write what he really wanted.

It's the kind of thing where there's never going to be a firm answer (and there probably wasn't one to begin with). Something like Violent Cases definitely has more in common with the tone of his later work, despite being very early in his career, and definitely bolsters the case that his horror work was out of character. But honestly, my take on Gaiman's career as a whole is pretty cynical, so I doubt we'll ever agree on this front.

One thing that has come to mind with Gaiman, especially with the kind of stories he likes to tell; he never seems to delve particularly deeply into the specifics of his own past. Most authors with careers as long as his eventually end up mining their childhoods fairly specifically (even if just the settings, a la Alan Moore), but while Gaiman seems very interested in childhood in general and as a location for his stories, there aren't a lot where I've come away thinking "yeah, that feels like it came from real life".

Violent Cases and Mr Punch probably come the closest for mine, but even there I didn't come away feeling like I'd encountered a real person - just a skilled storyteller.

[Edje]

One thing that has come to mind with Gaiman, especially with the kind of stories he likes to tell; he never seems to delve particularly deeply into the specifics of his own past. Most authors with careers as long as his eventually end up mining their childhoods fairly specifically (even if just the settings, a la Alan Moore), but while Gaiman seems very interested in childhood in general and as a location for his stories, there aren't a lot where I've come away thinking "yeah, that feels like it came from real life".

His family are or were scientologists, right? I wonder if partly he doesn't dig into that stuff because there's no way of doing it without causing massive issues (IIRC he's never said much publicly about it beyond confirming that it's true and that he isn't in the church?).

[Edje]

His family are or were scientologists, right? I wonder if partly he doesn't dig into that stuff because there's no way of doing it without causing massive issues (IIRC he's never said much publicly about it beyond confirming that it's true and that he isn't in the church?).

Huh, no idea to what extent this is it's own kind of crank shit, but: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/neil-gaimans-scientology-suicide-story/

[Jack Shaftoe]

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane does seem to delve into his own childhood more than anything else he's written, with the locations, at least (I think he was talking about that a bit in a podcast interview or it could have been footnotes). He does seem a little happier to talk about his dad being a Scientologist these days, although it always feels more like 'My dad was often away doing his own weird stuff' than anything that dramatic.

[Pranet]

As a young man he gave Battlefield Earth a good review, which I can't help feeling was influenced by his background.

[AngryGazelle]

Have reached the World's End' section and like all the one off stories, it's a real mix of 'wow, this is cool and interesting' and 'fucking hell, how can 24 pages feel so long'

Still a great read on the whole and something I'm sure I'll return to in the future. I just sort of wish there were only about half the amount of one off stories and that the 'spare' issues were made into short arcs instead, as I feel that these are nearly always better.

For me it's not a page turner but I do really enjoy immersing myself in the world Gaiman has created, and there is always some interesting deeper meaning to dig into (I'm certain some things are going right over my head)

[Small Man Big Horse]

I felt the same way about the one off's around that point, and the disparity in quality is really odd. Part of my cynically began to wonder if he liked the idea of the series being 75 issues long, but a certain amount of filler needed to be written to get to that point.

[AngryGazelle]

So I'm nearly done with the Kindly Ones and it's been good so far, things are very clearly coming to a head and I like the pacing in this arc. The art, though -- yeah, they should have gone in a different direction.

I am sort of rushing through this read a little, as I am keen to read other things (Animal Man, Swamp Thing) and other than my attention span being to blame, I think it's because as mentioned above Sandman is longer than it needs to be and it hasn't held my interest throughout due to being all over the place story-wise.

Once this arc is done, I'm taking a break and will finish the whole at a later date.