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

[selenak]

*beams* I'm glad the write-up fulfilled its purpose! I just checked, and alas the vid links don't work anymore, it seems, but I did find a good character vid of Connor on YouTube, so you have a few visuals: Numb.

If you want, with the background you now know, you can also check some shorter bits of fanfic I wrote about Connor (longer than drabbles, not often not quite story length):

Cuttings

Unforgivable

Summertime Blues

Word made Flesh

Unfortunately, the longer story featuring him I like best is also about his mother, Darla, and I suspect understanding it does depend on being familiar with her arc through the series (it's in her pov). (Short version: Darla starts out in Buffy - she's in fact the first character we ever see, in the teaser of the pilot, her backstory with Angel (that she created him) is first revealed in mid BTVS s1 where she's also dusted, but then the BTVS s2 finale brought her back in a flashback to Angel's past, which showed Julie Benz was capable of much more than the these early s1 eps had indicated. Which meant that when the spin-off series Angel happened, Darla got resurrected by the show's primary villains, the law firm Wolfram & Hart, in an attempt to get at Angel. However, they couldn't or wouldn't bring her back as a vampire, but as the human she'd been when she died and got sired as a vampire the first time around - which meant she was lethally ill again. Cue very complicated and intense scenes with Angel - who wants to be human while she wants to be a vampire again -, culminating in her accepting mortality which is of course just when Wolfram & Hart snaps their trap and bring Drusilla, the mad vampire whose existence Angel and Darla in the bad old days were both completely at fault for, who turns Darla again. There are more ups and downs (and a lot of dead lawyers) until Connor comes into existence and Darla sacrifices her (un)life for him. Since this is a suburban fantasy show featuring vampires, demons and at one point time travel, I still figured out a way for them to interact: The Haunting, Hunted Kind.

ETA: more visual illustration: Devil's Dance Floor is a Darla-Angel-Connor vid capturing their collective tale pretty well./ETA

Would B5 be appropriate for a very young teenager? By which I mean, would she be totally lost?

How young is very young - 12? 13? If so, I think she can cope. However, the first season of B5 is pretty uneven. It's by no means skippable as a season - people who advise newbies to start with s2 push one of my fannish red buttons and make me go nuclear. There is so much important character and story develpment started there. But there are episodes you can skip. If you like, I can write you a list of "must watch"/ "if you have the time"/ "skippable".

[cahn]

Ah, thank you for the vids! Oh man, I was not prepared for the first shots of Connor to be so young. (Even though I knew intellectually he was...)

I will check out the Connor fic, hopefully this weekend! Heh, yeah, I thiiiiink I might need more on Darla (clearly, she needs a crossover with some other fandom I know about :P ) before I can do something all in her POV :)

E is actually 11 1/2, so... okay, not really a teenager yet. (for which I'm grateful!) Hmm! I think I've promised her she can watch the movie version of LotR first (her: So is it very different from the books? Me: Well, there was a point in Two Towers where I realized I didn't know what was going to happen next...) but... I'm liking more and more the idea of trying this next in her media education (and not coincidentally getting to watch it myself, finally); she's been asking for SF. At the rate we watch things it might take a while to get there, but yes! thank you! I will hit you up for that list when we do!