Sandman (Gaiman)

[cahn]

selenak reminded me this graphic novel series existed, and that I'd never checked them out at all even though they were Classics of the genre. (I had read Watchmen and thought it was amazing, but only because someone in grad school -- D, maybe? -- told me I had to.) Turns out the library had all but one of the ten-volume set, so I was submersed in these for a while. The first several volumes were quite slow going, partially because (as selenak had warned me) there is a lot of straight horror in those first few volumes, which is really not my favorite, and partially because A. was curious about them, meaning I had to read them mostly when he was busy with other things because I really didn't think it was suitable for him :P Then it got really compelling and I zoomed through basically the rest of it in a week, which is super fast given how long it is and the fact that I had to use time where A. wasn't around (and which I wasn't using to do other things).

I still am not sure I can say "I really liked it," as I might do with some other work; I will say that I found it riveting and disquieting and very interesting. One of the things I found so interesting about it is that it took advantage of the graphic format not just with playing around with artistic styles (which it did do) but also with the trope where throwaway characters come back later in more important roles. Not, of course, that one can't do that in a non-graphic format, but there's an immediacy with the visual medium, a sort of "waaaaait I've seen that face before!" that I think doesn't really replicate exactly with text (much as I love text format :P )

And of course there was also a lot of "...hold on, THAT was whom he was referring to earlier??" which isn't necessarily a graphic-format thing, but which I love. And the thing where it's made up of a lot of stories that are self-contained, but which have an arc that connects them.

There's something very dreamlike about the whole series, the way it hints at a lot of things and spins stories about a lot of things with a kernel of truth within the larger story, that's very fitting for a series about the incarnation of Dream. It hasn't got the tight plotting-with-every-panel-being-meaningful that attracted me to Watchmen, and it is, well, Gaiman, so it's well-stocked with disturbing images, but I'm glad I read it.


-I was spoiled for the overarching plot by reading a comment Gaiman made where he apparently synopsized the series as “The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision," and... by that time I had read far enough into the series to know what the answer to that was going to be. Unpredictable Morpheus was not :P

-I don't think I can describe the experience of reading about Prez Rickard in 2021. :P

-My very favorite mini-story was the story about Emperor Norton, whom I learned about as a child and whom I was totally delighted to see here. I also rather liked the story of the young man of the People in the same volume (Fables and Reflections).

-Also, Fiddler's Green! He was my favorite <3 To be honest I was extremely suspicious of Gilbert when we first came across him -- I was sure he would turn out to be some sort of creeper. But then he was just... Fiddler's Green, he was just a sweetie. And I did think it was fitting that he didn't come back in the end (although I don't think it's at all right the Furies killed him, that was just mean).

-Daniel Hall, I'd wondered about him every time he appeared and what sort of life he could possibly have, raised in Dream like that... though I'd been spoiled for Morpheus, I hadn't been spoiled for Daniel, and I found that very satisfying, though very tough on Lyta *sigh*

-It's interesting to me how the series would sometimes have compassion on someone and sometimes just be extremely ruthless. Morpheus himself becomes more compassionate and less ruthless as the series goes on, but then you get random bits like Loki and Puck burning Lyta's friend Carla to death because, well, she was in the way. Idk, I see why structurally but viscerally I didn't like it.

-...yes, the Hohenzollern would make good Endless :P

Comments

[cahn]

Awwww baby!goth you sounds adorable! Sandman is so powerful even in 2021 -- I can imagine it just knocking everyone's socks off in the 90's.

Sometimes, like I said in the post, the ruthlessness got to be too much to me, but yes, sometimes the contrast was really interesting -- I also really thought Thessaly and the whole Kindly Ones plotline was so fascinating!

I love Hob too! I liked Will S., though I admit probably not as much as you and selena :)