The Sandman (Thread for those who have read the comics + Tv Series)

[Small Man Big Horse]

First off - There's going to be spoilers all over the place here, so it should only be read by those who have read all of the comics / just don't care!

I figured I'd start a new thread for this as the tv show starts on Friday, and I've recently finished a read through of the comics, I bought and read them all originally as they came out on a monthly basis but had never gone through them in trade paperback form over the course of about a month or so until this year. Here's some poorly thought out and often random notes which will probably be quite unsatisfying!

The Sandman Vol. 1 Preludes and Nocturnes - Minor aspects of this are a bit clunky, and I'm glad Sam Keith buggered off fairly early on as while some of his art is stunning some didn't quite work for me, but otherwise I thought this was fantastic stuff, I actually like Dream's interactions with the DC Universe characters as it's such a weird idea, but it's probably a good thing that Gaiman (all but) never included them again.

The Sandman Volumes 2 - The Doll's House - Sees the series really find its feet, Gaiman introduces a whole bunch of supporting characters who'd play fairly large roles at times in the rest of the series, though weirdly I never really clicked with Rose Walker, she always seemed a bit bland, a bit aimless, but maybe that's the point after she was stripped of her role as the vortex.

The Sandman Vol 3 - Dream Country - This for me is the one off's at their best, I still struggle with Gaiman being a wanky pretentious sort these days, but this proves that he once was able to create something pretty special.

The Sandman Vol. 4 - Seasons Of Mists - The Nada storyline is resolved, Dream has the key to hell but is the only lifeform who seemingly doesn't want it, and this storyline is great in general. Though one thing I think the series really never addresses is just how much of an utter cunt Dream was for sending Nada to hell for so many thousands of years, I get it that it's used as a device to show how Dream was changed by his period of incarceration, and character's chastise him for having done it, but jesus Morpheus, ten thousand years in Hell just for rejecting you? Ugh, you utter piece of shit you.

The Sandman Vol. 5 - Fables  & Reflections - Dream Country shows how Gaiman can write a one off perfectly, but for my money this is the first collection that hints of him buying in to his own acclaim as the king of stories, telling long drawn out tales which have a tenuous link to Dream and his world, and most of them have a moral which is a glaring obvious. It's not all bad, I quite liked The Hunt and Three Septembers And A January, but Thermidore and August (with the ah, he's miserable because he was raped by Julius Caesar reveal feeling like Gaiman at his worse) were both a drag, and while I know it was only for Vertigo Preview, Fear Of Falling is embarrassingly on the nose.

The Sandman Vol. 6 - A Game Of You - We're back to form with Gaiman playing with fantasy tropes as Barbara and Martin Tenbones return (albeit brutally briefly with the latter) and the series is far, far better. I'm not happy with the eventual fate of Wanda, I think Gaiman deserves some acclaim for the positive portrayal of a transgender woman all of these years ago, but killing her off seemed like a shitty, pointless move.

The Sandman Vol. 7 - Brief Lives - A wacky road movie with lots of larks as Dream and Delirium attemp to find missing brother Destruction, and we dip in on those he knew along the way. The stand out issue is the one set in the strip club if only because the art is stunning. Delirium is an incredibly annoying character at times but she's tolerable here, and I was fond of the insights in to Destruction and Barnabus especially, the latter of whom definitely should have had a spin-off comic.

The Sandman Vol. 8 - World's End - Where I started to to think I don't like about 50% of the one off's, "Cities might wake up" has a lot of dull prose and great art, while the one about the fairy being imprisoned is a cute tale but what is it really saying other than power corrupts, fairy's shouldn't be crossed, and Dream wasn't always a pompous prideful turd? On the flip side I did like Hob's Leviathan and Cerements so that's, um, something?

The Sandman Vol. 9 - The Kindly Ones - The End is nigh, but old Sandy doesn't seem too upset by this, as it turns out that murdering your old son (twice, if you count the time you didn't help him) causes a great deal of grief. I've very mixed feelings about the art, sometimes it works (the scenes featuring Lyta Hall especially as she descends in to a grief filled madness), 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.

The Sandman Vol. 10 - The Wake - I didn't connect with the ending to Sandman when I first read it in comic form when it was published, but did wonder if it was due to reading it one issue at a time, but having read the whole series over the space over a relatively short time I still didn't really feel anything other than mild interest. The Wake itself is okay, and seeing various characters getting something of an ending was sometimes satisfying, but I really think it should have ended with issue 72 and the new Dream meeting his new family. Mainly as I didn't click with the final three issues, the one with Hob seems mainly to be Gaiman making an apology for how the series dealt with Hob and his past actions regarding slavery, issue 74 and the story of a desert crossing issue was another parable I found bland and the message behind it was weak, and then The Tempest left me with a shrug, I just didn't care about any of the characters, and Morpheus only turns up to explicitly spell out themes found within the rest of the series regarding the nature of stories, and those who tell them, which felt patronising. I'm fully open to it being me who is missing something here, but while I loved the majority of the run these final three issues really left me cold.

The Sandman Vol. 11 - Endless Nights - Stories about the Endless, some of which are weirdly pointless (Destiny), packed with cliché and some quite bad writing (Despair), exploit rape (Delirium), though I half liked Dream, Desire and Destruction, and some of Death, though I'm not quite sure what Gaiman was trying to do with the soldier character as if we were supposed to like him, as sort of feels the case, it didn't work for me at all.

Absolutely Inessential Spin-Off: Sandman Midnight Theatre - A one off plotted and drawn by Matt Wagner but written by Gaiman, this sees Wesley Dodds and Dream briefly encounter each other but it takes a long while to get going, some of the art impresses but some of it murky and ugly, and even though this is relatively short I found myself reading it over three evenings rather than in one go. 2/5

One more minor moan - towards the end there's discussion of exactly what Dream was, and Abel supposedly reveals the shocking secret that he was "A Point Of View". And you could argue in many ways he is, he's an example of a view which rarely changes and can only do to a certain extent, but he has his limits and will choose death over breaking the main beliefs he has. But I think it's a bit of a simplistic description, there was a lot more to Dream than that, good and bad, from those he loved, the friendships he created, and the relationships he's had with various family members. Unless I'm interpreting the phrase badly, which is more than possible.

EDIT: Right, I've finally finished editing it. There's probably still plenty of typos, but this will have to do for now.

[Mister Six]

There's another volume that, like Endless Nights, came after the series proper (but before that one) - The Dream Hunters. Not read it, mind. And there was that Sandman Overture that he did a few years back.

Good thread, anyway, and it's another push for me to give the series proper a re-read. Haven't gone through the whole thing for nigh on 20 years.

[13 schoolyards]

Overture was surprisingly good for a prequel coming thirty years after the original series. The story itself is pretty basic but it has plenty of nice flourishes and foreshadowing, and it really steered hard into the cosmic angle of Dream that the main series only rarely touched on. Plus in JM Williams it had an amazing artist that - for once - Gaiman treated as an equal and let loose with the visuals (I really liked the brief semi-Western segment where Williams channeled Giraud's Blueberry)

It's not really a place for new readers to start, but it's definitely part of the main story in a way that Endless Nights or The Dream Hunters aren't.

[Small Man Big Horse]

There's another volume that, like Endless Nights, came after the series proper (but before that one) - The Dream Hunters. Not read it, mind. And there was that Sandman Overture that he did a few years back.

Good thread, anyway, and it's another push for me to give the series proper a re-read. Haven't gone through the whole thing for nigh on 20 years.

I've got the prose version of The Dream Hunters but have yet to read it, I guess the completest in me will make me do so but I'm not in any rush. I didn't know about Sandman Overture though, so have just ordered that now, so thanks for that.

And I hope you enjoy it when you do, there were times I was really enamoured by it, and to give Gaiman his due there are things in it which I don't think you'll see elsewhere in the comics medium, I just wish I didn't have quite so many issues with other aspects of the run.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

It's been so long since I read it that I genuinely can't remember some of the stuff mentioned in the OP. Need to read it all again. The Netflix thing does not look promising at all but I'm hoping to be proved wrong.

[Dayraven]

I actually like Dream's interactions with the DC Universe characters as it's such a weird idea, but it's probably a good thing that Gaiman (all but) never included them again.

That's probably partly due to the influence of Swamp Thing on Sandman, since that series featured DC characters viewed through a different lens a lot more often. That and the more horror-based stories went away as the series found its own voice.

towards the end there's discussion of exactly what Dream was, and Abel supposedly reveals the shocking secret that he was "A Point Of View".

I don't think was intended as a shocking secret. Just an answer to the question of what's actually died if there's still a Dream who has some continuity with his past self.

[Mister Six]

Weren't the DC characters mandated by editorial to keep sales up early on? And then ironically they'd have been banned from use for the last three years of the comic anyway, as the creation of the adult Vertigo imprint sheared off the mature readers characters (Swamp Thing, Constantine, Morpheus and co etc) from the superheroes.

IIRC Gaiman had to made a special request to use Superman and Batman in The Wake, but by that point he had enough pull they'd never have turned him down. I think the comic was doing 3 million copies a month, at peak?

(Does anyone else think the comic should have ended with

Spoiler alert

"...and then you woke up", and that the stuff that follows with Shakespeare etc is a bit anticlimactic?)

[close]

[olliebean]

This is pretty interesting: Neil Gaiman's quite detailed commentary on the trailer for the Netflix series.

[Small Man Big Horse]

That's probably partly due to the influence of Swamp Thing on Sandman, since that series featured DC characters viewed through a different lens a lot more often. That and the more horror-based stories went away as the series found its own voice.
I don't think was intended as a shocking secret. Just an answer to the question of what's actually died if there's still a Dream who has some continuity with his past self.

Ah, that makes sense, I guess I was reading too much in to it (and Cain's shocked reaction) as you're completely right about aspects of Dream still existing within the new version.

(Does anyone else think the comic should have ended with

Spoiler alert

"...and then you woke up", and that the stuff that follows with Shakespeare etc is a bit anticlimactic?)

[close]

I'm with you there, I get why he ended it with The Tempest but whereas the A Midsummer Night's Dream issue felt vibrant and playful and full of interesting ideas, the final issue lacked any flair and was a dull retelling of a play I really love, with the additional elements involving Morpheus feeling forced this time around.

Edit: One other thing I forgot to mention was that I've had a hardback version of The Furies sitting on my shelf for about four years now, does anyone know if it is worth reading?

Also: Fuck, I knew there were quite a few spin-off's, but not this many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Sandman_spinoffs

[Mister Six]

I love much of Mike Carey's work (including Lucifer, if we're talking Sandman spin-offs), but I found The Furies to be thin gruel. One of those Vertigo OGNs that doesn't have the space to explore an idea in depth or the story to sustain the pages that are there. Much like the three-issue miniseries (which were about the same length, I think), most of them just don't work.

The art's mostly all right, but I remember quite a few pages looking suspiciously like they were just photos that had had a bit of white paint daubed on them.

If you've bought it you might as well read it though. It won't take you long, at any rate.

EDIT: I see Carey's God Save The Queen is on that list of spin-offs, too. I remember buying that OGN, but not what it's actually about, so chalk that one up as a victim of the same problem.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I love much of Mike Carey's work (including Lucifer, if we're talking Sandman spin-offs), but I found The Furies to be thin gruel. One of those Vertigo OGNs that doesn't have the space to explore an idea in depth or the story to sustain the pages that are there. Much like the three-issue miniseries (which were about the same length, I think), most of them just don't work.

The art's mostly all right, but I remember quite a few pages looking suspiciously like they were just photos that had had a bit of white paint daubed on them.

If you've bought it you might as well read it though. It won't take you long, at any rate.

Ah, that's a shame, I'll get round to it soonish but will have the lowest of expectations.

On the subject of Lucifer, I read it all online (back when I committed such a sin) and loved it too, and last week was in my local Oxfam where I picked up volumes 10 and 11 for £2 each. I asked if they had any of the earlier books, someone went to check, and apparently not (though they did have the first two Kick Ass books and tried to sell them to me, the evil bastards), so now I'm really confused as it appears someone donated the final two volumes but not the rest of the series.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I'm watching the first episode now and there's a lot of characters who are now black (Lucien, Unity Kincaid, her family) which is obviously a great thing, but it does serve to highlight how very few there were in Gaiman's now clearly massively racist original run.

Edit: Eh, I quite liked that surprisingly. Heading off to the cinema but will post a few thoughts later on today or tomorrow.

[elliszeroed]

So I watched the whole series today. Spoilers yo!

First episode is pretty crap. Morpheus' monologue was dull, as was Lucien's warning him about entering the waking world. But it gets better.

I suppose what every Sandman fan is wondering is: The Sound Of Her Wings. It is considered a MAKER of the comic, but what about the TV series, especially with a Death who is... shudder...black!?! Great dialogue, above average presentation. Kudos on showing the baby death. Death as compassion I found heart warming. Just like the comics. Her skin color/ dress really seems incidental.

There's a good discussion of Dream finding "joy" in having a purpose, and then we have Death telling him that their function is their purpose, and her having joy in that. Rich text.

I didn't think much of Lucifer TBH. The aesthetics seemed all wrong. Big black wings, overly curly hair. I didn't care for it. The presentation and dialogue never came across as smart, manipulative, sexy, or anything else. Very, very dull.

Desire was spot on. Made me think of a 1960's Joker.

Still not sure on the guy who played Dream really, he wasn't bad, or good, he just didn't seem able to convincingly show emotion.

Serial Killer convention wasn't like in the comics, and much like the comics I neve really understood the Rose Walker story- Unity was supposed to be the vortex, but because Dream was in prison she was raped by Desire and that led to Rose being the vortex? With Desire knowing that if Dream killed Rose he woud be killing a child of the Endless? I think that's right?

Enjoyed seeing Hob Galding. I forgot/ didn't realise they missed a meeting due to Morpheus being inprisoned (and this was after Morpheus said he would never see him again?)

Not a bad series, but not a great one either.

Sometimes Morpheus looked skinny in the face, other times like  he had eaten too many pies.

Oh, and Jenna Coleman wasnn't shit either.

Overall, I would give it a 7/10. Whatever numbers mean nowadays.

[Dayraven]

Unity was supposed to be the vortex, but because Dream was in prison she was raped by Desire and that led to Rose being the vortex? With Desire knowing that if Dream killed Rose he woud be killing a child of the Endless? I think that's right?

Think that's all correct — thing is, if you take The Doll's House alone it's more convoluted than necessary, it works much better when seen as part of the comic's later overarching plot.

[13 schoolyards]

The thing that always made me a bit dubious about adapting the comic is that Dream works well as the host of the series - someone who pops up to introduce things or wrap things up. The way he gradually develops his own story (and that story becomes his downfall, which is ironic for the Prince of Stories or whatever he is) is like a fun bonus element.

But the character stuff isn't enough on its own to support a series; the Endless aren't the Jersey mob in The Sopranos, and it takes a while to establish Dream as a mopey goth who basically just wants to sulk in his room while letting us know he's slept with loads of hot chicks, seriously.

I guess they'll eventually weave in a few of the stand-alone stories from the comic into the series, but Dream himself just isn't interesting enough as a protagonist to build a whole show around, and every attempt (in the comics at least) to shift focus to his supporting cast has fizzled out.

[Wentworth Smith]

IIRC Gaiman had to made a special request to use Superman and Batman in The Wake, but by that point he had enough pull they'd never have turned him down. I think the comic was doing 3 million copies a month, at peak?

I don't think any comic has ever sold anywhere near 3 million a month. The Superman comic of the 40s/50s sold about half that. I would guess it was less than 100k per month.

[13 schoolyards]

I think there was some talk at the time that the final few issues of Sandman were close to being DC's top-selling comics across their entire line, which back in the early 90s would have been well into six figures. I doubt it did as well as the early Image titles, which sold in the millions but mostly to collectors or stores that still have unsold boxes worth out back.

Sandman was also raking in the cash in the collected editions though, and supposedly it was a comic read by people who didn't read many (or any) other comics at the time, which gave it some extra clout. And there was also the whole "oops, we kinda fucked up with Alan Moore, let's not make that mistake again" at DC, which gave Gaiman the leverage to end the series when he wanted to on his terms and keep Dream and Death as basically "his" characters despite them being owned by DC.

[Critcho]

Tend to agree the series had at least two epilogues too many. You get a satisfying feeling of conclusion with the family meet and greet, and then it just... carries on for a bit, for reasons that seemed like they had more significance for Gaiman personally than for the reader (or this reader anyway).

I didn't mind the The Kindly Ones art style in of itself, but the problem was it being applied to a storyline that went on and on, and it contributed to a kind of claustrophobic atmosphere that isn't all that enjoyable.

From Season Of Mists through to Brief Lives the main plots are firing on all cylinders and is generally great, at least that's how I remember it. I have a feeling I read these at the right age, reading this thread makes me a little wary of revisiting them in case time has made the cracks more obvious.

[Mister Six]

I don't think any comic has ever sold anywhere near 3 million a month. The Superman comic of the 40s/50s sold about half that. I would guess it was less than 100k per month.

Just did a quick Google and yeah, I'd misremembered, but apparently it was about a million copies a year at peak, which would make your figure about right.

And there was also the whole "oops, we kinda fucked up with Alan Moore, let's not make that mistake again" at DC, which gave Gaiman the leverage to end the series when he wanted to on his terms and keep Dream and Death as basically "his" characters despite them being owned by DC.

IIRC (and I appreciate this comes after me misremembering something else, but I'm more certain about this one), he gets to weigh in on any use of Sandman characters, after one of the writers in The Dreaming pissed in his chips by killing Matt the raven (who was technically also Matthew Cable, Abby's husband in Swamp Thing, if anyone is counting).

[13 schoolyards]

There were a few very vague suggestions going around at the time that Gaiman - who as always in these situations, seems to be both a very charming and agreeable guy and also someone extremely aware of every aspect of his legal rights - had suggested to DC that he'd done enough to change "The Sandman" from the previous DC versions and if he tried to assert his rights to it as an all-new creation he wouldn't automatically lose right away, so perhaps they could work something out that both sides would be happy with.

I doubt it ever went that far, but it does seem like for whatever reason DC were willing to give him rights over the character that they didn't extend to anyone else working on what was technically a DC universe character.

I think what had him weighing in on things was an appearance by Death in someone else's comic (Captain Atom #42, of all things) during the original Sandman run where she was presented as being just another aspect of "death", and Gaiman said no, his Death was "the" Death, not just another one of DC's collection alongside the Black Racer and so forth.

Found it: https://imgur.com/a/qVQOa

Supposedly ever since Gaiman gets to veto any Endless appearances in the DC universe.

Spoiler alert

The way the series wrapped up put the Morpheus version of Dream permanently off limits anyway, while the Daniel version has appeared in various places - reportedly Grant Morrison specifically asked Gaiman if he could use Daniel in his JLA run

[close]

[Catalogue Trousers]

she was presented as being just another aspect of "death", and Gaiman said no, his Death was "the" Death, not just another one of DC's collection alongside the Black Racer and so forth.

Ooh, 'ark at 'im.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I'm three episodes in and quite enjoying it now, I won't write a long rambling post until I've finished the first season, but I had the urge to comment on the casting.

Dream - I find Tom Sturridge's voice strangely soothing and quite like his portrayal of Dream, I've not read all of the posts above as I wanted to avoid spoilers, but I did notice someone referred to him as emotionless, which at this point I think mostly fits the character, but there's the odd time he's visibly emotive and I think Sturridge has done well on that front.

Lucien - Wasn't sure initially if only as the character feels different, but Vivienne Acheampong's really growing on me.

Constantine - I was expecting to hate Jenna Coleman's portrayal after the trailer, but she's not too bad, I don't think I'd want to see her in a ongoing Hellblazer series but if this mirrors the comics then I'm quite surprised that she did an okay and even slightly nuanced take on the role.

Abel - I'm going to be charitable and blame the director here, as I really don't think Asim Chaudhry's very good, at least if he's supposed to be similar to the comic and on edge and nervous all the time, and his Abel is far too chirpy.

Cain - While Sanjeev Bhaskar's fine I suppose, but not snidey or vicious enough by far.

Matthew - Annoyed me a lot. Bad Patton, bad.

John Dee - Pretty superb, but it's Thewlis, so wasn't a shock.

The Corinthian - Really great too, pleasingly.

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Sandman Overture - Blimey, I quite liked this. Not all of it, and sometimes the writing is a bit embarrassing, like this early part:



which is the kind of whimsy that makes me wince, it's not even that inventive and the language is simplistic, but I can't help but think of Gaiman masturbating furiously over print outs of his scripts. Which is very mean of me to say, but anyhow, otherwise it mostly works and introduces some intriguing ideas, while also tying up a few unanswered questions from the original series. Oh yeah, and the artwork is stunning, some of the best I've seen in a comic and certain pages are point blank beautiful. 4/5

Edit: Just watched Episode 4 and despite knowing who was playing the character I did not expect Lucifer to look so much like Grange Hill's Mrs McCluskey. I'm not sure about Christie's performance either, sometimes it seems okay, sometimes like a patronising headmistress, though maybe that's the McCluskey thing getting in to my head again. Otherwise I have no complaints (bar that once again Patton Oswalt's shit, and the audio even sounds poor to me, like he recorded his dialogue on someone's answerphone from the nineties.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Episode 5 - Fucking hell, this was awful, an enormous disappointment. I really like David Thewlis's performance and issues 5 and 6 see Gaiman explore some really bleak and disturbing ideas (sometimes effectively, sometimes not), but this was just fucking tedious. All of the characters only seemed interested in love or sex, and while it got violent towards the end it wasn't in the bizarre or unusual ways of the original comics, while Dee's big speeches about "No good or bad, there is only the truth" was really trite and cliched stuff. Then they took the big face off between Morpheus and Dream and made it lazy, melodramatic shit, and to top it all off the reveal of Desire was appallingly done. I don't think I've ever seen a show go from good to profoundly terrible quite so quickly, and it was so bad that I'd normally quit a show after such an awful episode, but a friend has told me this is a real low, and it quickly returns to form in the next episode so I'll give it one more shot.

[Dr Rock]

THERE'S A NEW ONE WIT ALL THE CATS. I LIKED IT. oops sorry caps.

[Mister Six]

Mrs Six showed an interest in the show, but her hatred for Jenna Colman pushed her away, so we've been reading the trades, which I'm nabbing from the local library. We currently have the first four. I'm looking forward to pressing on past them and checking out the later stuff I never read, like Overture and Endless Nights. But we'll get to that.

Vol. 1, Preludes and Nocturnes
Christ, it's shonky, this one. Really shows Gaiman's inexperience and the awkwardness of trying to fit these nascent ideas into the DC universe. The pacing is really odd, and each issue is packed with really clunky, graceless exposition. Morpheus is our protagonist here, rather than the supporting character he is in many of the subsequent volumes, yet there's not really much indication of

Keith's art is fun in places, but he doesn't fit the tone of the thing, and his panel layouts are a bit confusing, not helped by the 30th edition remastered colours, which strip all the EC Comics-inflected charm out of it and cause the panels to break down into their constituent parts. A comparison:



All those gradients and the "realistic" colouring, coupled with the blacks being pure deep black rather than slightly tinted by their nearest colour, completely destroys the page's cohesion. And who honestly thinks the window looks better as a weird metallic egg thing rather than an ominous orange oval?

Also, it was a daft mistake making Lucien look so much like Cain, made even worse during their introductory story, when the scene cuts from Cain to Lucien in different parts of the Dreaming, then back, on the same page. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder!

The popular opinion is that it doesn't really find its feet until "The Sound of Her Wings", but I think even that issue is somewhat overrated in retrospect. I can understand why it was special at the time, when the sudden change of pace would have stood out from the more action-oriented comics of the time (even Hellblazer wasn't going to devote entire issues to people sitting around chatting until Ennis took over a couple of years later)

2.5/5

MRS SIX'S OPINION: She's really not a fan of this volume, although not without reason. She doesn't really care about Morpheus and finds the appearances by Scarecrow, Etrigan and the other more obviously superheroic figures. She finds Keith's art ugly and his panel layouts hard to follow, and isn't really connecting to the story. TBF there's also a bit of a language barrier at play, as she's Chinese and Gaiman has various characters use quite archaic English language, but it's not a major one. She likes Death, though.

Vol. 2, The Doll's House
This is an immediate improvement on the first book, to the point that if you told me someone else wrote volume 1, or else Gaiman had put the comic on pause for a few years to master his craft, I'd almost believe you. The pacing and tone are more assured and recognisably "Sandmanny", and the weaving of real world and supernatural eeriness is far more organic. This is the start of Dream acting more as a supporting character in his own book, and it works wonders - partly because Rose, Hob, Jed and Nada are all much more relatable characters than the aloof Morpheus, and partly because it's easier to see the shape of Dream's character in his reactions to people we empathise with than when he's off on his own vaguely defined mission, following seemingly arbitrary rules.

The interweaving storylines concerning a "cereal" convention (with a subtle crossover to the Hellblazer issues of the time, and a deep cut to an Alan Moore Swamp Thing story), a kidnapped young boy, a fractured family and the machinations of Desire all combine gracefully and smoothly, and the winding up and releasing of tension is brilliant. Wish Morpheus wasn't such a cunt to Lyta, though. Like, I know that's kind of the point, but it feels like the artificial tension you get in TV shows where people just don't explain what it is they mean when they say something because then they wouldn't have a story.

On the art front, Kieth's out the door and Dringenberg and Jones are absolutely caning it, especially in the wonderful sequence that shows the varied dreams of the housemates. The art still has some of the cartoony, larger-than-lifeness of Kieth's illustrations from time to time (see in particular the rounder-than-round Funland) but it also merges seamlessly into solid realism and eerie strangeness when it has to.

My only real complaint - other than the Hob story kind of interrupting the flow, for reasons I'm not certain of (though I suspect just because he wanted to get it out there in 1989 so his historical dates wouldn't be thrown off. The issue was coverdated January 1990, so would have been on shelves in December 1989) - is that the endings of two of the storylines just sort of have Dream decide to put all the toys back in the box while facing no plausible threat, and I rather suspect that's going to be a recurring motif in the longer storylines.

MRS SIX'S OPINION: She's only just read the first chapter, but it left her a bit nonplussed. I stressed that it would pay off later on. She's not really connecting to the folk tale aspects of the story, and I wonder if that's going to be a bigger issue as it goes along I keep having to persuade her to just accept stuff like "no ordinary human can love one of the Endless without disaster befalling them" without asking why, who made that rule, etc. I can't remember how things go with Thessaly, so I look forward to trying to explain why the rule doesn't apply to her (is she not human by the point that she shacks up with Dream? I forget).

4.5/5

Vol. 3, Dream Country
IIRC this is the first of two collections of short stories, with the other one being Fables & Reflections, and it's a bit *frowns and waggles hand*. Not that any of the stories are terribly poor, but they amount to just four issues (with one of Gaiman's scripts in the back to pad it out), which is a bit of a pisstake given the price of trades these days.

The obvious standout is "A Midsummer Night's Dream", in which William Shakespeare puts on a performance of the titular play for an audience of fairies, at Morpheus's request. It's very clever, but is it very good? Gaiman's said that editor Karen Berger met his first script with the remark, "I don't get what this is about," which led to him adding a page in which Hamnet, Shakespeare's son, laments his distant father putting work above family. I still don't think that's enough, though, and I suspect that this one is more for Shakespeare buffs that laymen like me.

I much prefer "The Dream of a Thousand Cats" - the other obvious standout - which is a simple tale told very well indeed, with some genuine emotion (depending on how much you like cats, I suppose) and a smashing little payoff. Gorgeous art, too.

That leaves "Calliope" - which is a decent little morality tale that unfolds essentially how you expect it to, but has great (if rather male-gazey, given the content) art and a gruesome punishment for the protagonist - and "Masks", a pretty forgettable and rather thin story about a minor DC superhero in pain. "Calliope" does the "Morpheus turns up and ends the story" thing, by the way, if you're counting. And "Masks" does the same thing with a different character.

3/5

Vol. 4, Season of Mists
Some dangling plot threads wind together, only to open out into new possibilities in this, one of the "classic" Sandman stories. It's ably written, and the fringe stuff - the school full of ghosts and Desire's confrontation with Dream at the start - is interesting, as are the interactions between the various supernatural factions, and their encounters with Dream.

But the actual backbone of the story is pretty thin, and undercut by the ending's

Spoiler alert

very literal deus ex machina. Which might be intentional, but it doesn't half feel like a cop-out. And I'm certainly not a fan of how Nada treats Morpheus at the end, being initially a bit miffed about spending 10,000 years in Hell, then more or less getting over it and calling him "love", even inviting him to quit being The Sandman and run off with her. I'd have been much happier with her slapping the shit out of him and telling him to do one, but I guess that's not how Gaiman wanted to play it... for some reason, I'm not sure what.

[close]

Also, I've never dug the business about the Judeo-Christian God being supremely poweful, moreso than other gods, but I guess we can chalk that up to him being the widest-worshipped, between the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims and all their various offshoots. Lots of great bits, but they don't quite come together for me in the way I'd remembered.

4/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Mrs Six showed an interest in the show, but her hatred for Jenna Colman pushed her away, so we've been reading the trades, which I'm nabbing from the local library. We currently have the first four. I'm looking forward to pressing on past them and checking out the later stuff I never read, like Overture and Endless Nights. But we'll get to that...

That's a fascinating read Mister Six, my collection is made up of a mixture of the original trades and the 30th anniversary editions (with the first four all being the originals) and didn't realise just how extensively they'd been recoloured, the example you give makes me really pleased I don't have the new version of the first volume as I agree with everything you say on that front, the weird metallic egg is especially odd there.

I didn't dislike the first volume quite as much as you, though I'm no fan of the John Dee diner issue, but I quite liked the first trip to Hell and the Constantine's appearance. I'm with you on Volumes 2 - 4 though, it's funny, as a kid the Elemental Woman story had a quite strong effect on me, and for a long while I'd have said it was one of my favourites (the moody sod of a 16 year old that I was), but on my most recent reread I found it fairly shallow, the idea is a strong one but the dialogue disappointed.

Finally, I'm so glad I'm not alone when it comes to Nada,

Spoiler alert

I've spoken to friends about it and they were forgiving of Morpheus, claiming it's meant to show how cold he could be, how he held his pride in such high regard, and was not in touch with reality as we perceive it, but ten thousand fucking years in Hell? And then she wants to seduce him again? And there were pretty much no repercussions for his behaviour? Yeah, I wasn't happy about that at all.

[close]

[Dayraven]

(is she not human by the point that she shacks up with Dream? I forget).

She's a witch who's thousands of years old (she says she was born 'in the year the bear totem shattered'), so whether she's human or not she's definitely not ordinary.

Not generally keen on recolouring other than faithful remastering, it's often out of place and I tend to prefer a flatter colouring style anyway.

[Mister Six]

That's a fascinating read Mister Six, my collection is made up of a mixture of the original trades and the 30th anniversary editions (with the first four all being the originals) and didn't realise just how extensively they'd been recoloured, the example you give makes me really pleased I don't have the new version of the first volume as I agree with everything you say on that front, the weird metallic egg is especially odd there.

Cheers! From The Doll's House onwards, the colours were much less distracting, so I don't know if it's just that the first volume was the only one overhauled (or overhauled quite so drastically), or whether the more modern art style just gels more comfortably without Kieth on pencils. I haven't read the series for about 20 years, so it's all a bit vague to me. I do recall a particularly hideously inked issue of A Game of You that was (rightfully) redrawn at the behest of penciller Colleen Doran, so it's not all bad. I believe these versions have colours more in line with Doran's original requests, too.

I didn't dislike the first volume quite as much as you, though I'm no fan of the John Dee diner issue, but I quite liked the first trip to Hell and the Constantine's appearance. I'm with you on Volumes 2 - 4 though, it's funny, as a kid the Elemental Woman story had a quite strong effect on me, and for a long while I'd have said it was one of my favourites (the moody sod of a 16 year old that I was), but on my most recent reread I found it fairly shallow, the idea is a strong one but the dialogue disappointed.

I was worried I'd overstated my dislike for the first volume, but I think not only is it not great compared with what follows, it's also weaker than the opening arcs of its contemporaries - Hellblazer and Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, for example, kick off pretty much fully formed, with their tone, protagonist and arc plot comfortably in place (even if Delano says he was more or less making it up as he went along), while Sandman staggers about a bit. I wonder whether that's Gaiman figuring out exactly how much of his own passions for folklore and literature he can work in, or just editorial fucking with his shit by encouraging him to include lots of DC characters to get people to buy it (Karen Berger is an incredible editor, so I wouldn't accuse her of being cynical, but I can imagine wanting to stack the decks a bit in Gaiman's favour when the comic is this different from the other stuff out there).

Same here on all other points, including the one about Masks. I found it quite haunting at the time, particularly the missed call at the end, and Death's faintly creepy response to the guy. Now it just leaves me cold. I think maybe because the whole thing is in this one key of histrionic angst, where Gaiman's best short stories mix different moods and tones. Also, I'm not a fan of seeing superheroes in Sandman, so this was an unwelcome reminder of the first volume.

Finally, I'm so glad I'm not alone when it comes to Nada,

Spoiler alert

I've spoken to friends about it and they were forgiving of Morpheus, claiming it's meant to show how cold he could be, how he held his pride in such high regard, and was not in touch with reality as we perceive it, but ten thousand fucking years in Hell? And then she wants to seduce him again? And there were pretty much no repercussions for his behaviour? Yeah, I wasn't happy about that at all.

[close]

I don't really mind Morpheus doing it, because part of the point is that he's a weird, aloof, inhuman (literally) arsehole whose time as a captive and subsequent experiences change him, and who ultimately has to confront those changes in his personality. But Nada cooling off so fast (if at all) about having spent 10,000 years in discomfort and outright pain is weird. Especially when her prior relationship with Morpehus was so thin. Mrs Six is going to fucking hate it.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I was worried I'd overstated my dislike for the first volume, but I think not only is it not great compared with what follows, it's also weaker than the opening arcs of its contemporaries - Hellblazer and Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, for example, kick off pretty much fully formed, with their tone, protagonist and arc plot comfortably in place (even if Delano says he was more or less making it up as he went along), while Sandman staggers about a bit. I wonder whether that's Gaiman figuring out exactly how much of his own passions for folklore and literature he can work in, or just editorial fucking with his shit by encouraging him to include lots of DC characters to get people to buy it (Karen Berger is an incredible editor, so I wouldn't accuse her of being cynical, but I can imagine wanting to stack the decks a bit in Gaiman's favour when the comic is this different from the other stuff out there).

Same here on all other points, including the one about Masks. I found it quite haunting at the time, particularly the missed call at the end, and Death's faintly creepy response to the guy. Now it just leaves me cold. I think maybe because the whole thing is in this one key of histrionic angst, where Gaiman's best short stories mix different moods and tones. Also, I'm not a fan of seeing superheroes in Sandman, so this was an unwelcome reminder of the first volume.

Oddly I quite like the involvement of some of the DC characters, as it serves to show how different a world this comic is set in 99% of the time, but that said I'm glad there weren't any more appearances, and when it comes to Elemental Woman I had no previous awareness of the character so it didn't feel like a part of the DC universe.

I agree with you about the short stories too, which is why I think there are some in later volumes that I didn't gel with because they were very simplistic, but I'll comment more when you get to those.

I don't really mind Morpheus doing it, because part of the point is that he's a weird, aloof, inhuman (literally) arsehole whose time as a captive and subsequent experiences change him, and who ultimately has to confront those changes in his personality. But Nada cooling off so fast (if at all) about having spent 10,000 years in discomfort and outright pain is weird. Especially when her prior relationship with Morpehus was so thin. Mrs Six is going to fucking hate it.

What you say about Morpheus is absolutely spot on, and due to that perhaps I shouldn't have been pissed off with the character as much as I was, but I remember being equally annoyed with Death's response, she's supposed to be the most human of all of the Endless and all she does is give him a minor reprimand that he barely notices. Plus I'm completely with you when it comes to Nada's response as well, it doesn't make sense at all!