Death is everyone’s favorite older sister. She’s sassy, pragmatic and brings real sartorial flair to the concept of the grim reaper. Every so often Death likes to take a day and spend it as a human, to keep in touch with what it means to be alive and what you risk when you die....
Read more »
This is the second volume that Gaiman wrote about Dream’s older sister, Death. Unlike Death: The High Cost of Living this book isn’t so much about Death as it is about death and the choices we make while we’re alive. Gaiman brings back the characters of Hazel and Foxglove from the Sandman series. Since...
Read more »
Introduction
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series is one of the classics of the comics world. Much like an English major confessing that they’ve never read Shakespeare, when you tell people you haven’t read Sandman they give you horrified looks and instantly volunteer their collection. And, much like the bereft English major who has never encountered Hamlet...
Read more »
Bill Willingham, of Fables, has delved into the Sandman universe and written a series of stories about the supporting characters of the Sandman universe. The explorations are fun and whimsical, and a great addition to the Sandman legacy. “The Further Adventures of Danny Nod, Heroic Library Assistant” is my favorite story in the collection....
Read more »
Thessaly is one of my favorite characters from Sandman. She looks like sweetness and light, until she opens her mouth. Lurking beneath the big eyes and...
Read more »
SPOILER WARNING: Don’t read this if you don’t want to know how The Kindly Ones ends. Then again, I imagine if you read this far in the series nothing that I am going to say one way or another is going to stop you reading The Wake.
Read more »
In 1916 Dream is mistakenly kidnapped and imprisoned in place of his sister Death. Without Dream a rash of ‘sleeping sickness’ sweeps the world leaving those affected in half-lives, as sleepwalkers in daylight hours, and sometimes in a coma like sleep. After waiting over 70 years one of his captors makes a careless move...
Read more »
The Doll’s House contains two separate short stories within a larger narrative. The two stories, “Tales of the Sand,” and “Men of Good Fortune” introduce people from Dream’s past. The stories may initially seem disconnected from the meta-narrative of The Doll’s House but Gaiman doesn’t introduce characters at random, and the past always has...
Read more »
Dream Country contains four short stories which explore the nature of the dream, and begin to give some insight into who Dream used to be and how his imprisonment has changed him. “Calliope” is about the muse Calliope, Dream’s former lover and mother of his child, Orpheus. She has been trapped by humans who...
Read more »
Season of Mists sends Lord Morpheus down into Hell in order to free the soul of the woman he loved whom he sentenced to an eternity in Hell (see “Tales of the Sand” in The Doll’s House). Dream goes prepared for battle and instead finds Hell abandoned. Lucifer hands him the keys to Hell...
Read more »
A Game of You tells Barbie’s tale. In the waking world she lives in a small, run down apartment, and is perpetually broke. In the dream world she is the hope of an embattled world. She is a Princess leading a hopeless quest to save the world. What happens when the dream world takes...
Read more »
This book is a series of short stories which have been brought together into one volume. They were not necessarily written at the same time. The fact that these stories were brought together to form a volume may explain the somewhat disjointed feel of the book. If you are looking for a book to...
Read more »
Brief Lives begins to explain what happened to Dream’s brother Destruction, and why his absence has had such impact on the Endless. Previous volumes have demonstrated the highly dysfunctional family dynamic between the Endless, and in Brief Lives Delirium asserts that it all went wrong when Destruction left and she wants to find him...
Read more »
This is another collection of short stories, connected by a common theme. They, like Fables and Reflections, are not necessary to the overarching plot of the Sandman universe. These are the stories of the guests of the World’s End Inn. It is a place which exists outside, or perhaps between, time and space. Each...
Read more »
This book blew my mind. If I had to pick a favorite in the series, this would be it hands down, no contest. It is the culmination of all the plot threads that Gaiman has spun in the previous eight volumes. This is when all the events of Dream’s life, all the choices that...
Read more »
I was not enthralled with this volume. Then again, I didn’t have to wait seven years and think that there was never going to be anymore Sandman. I came late to Sandman, as in last month, and I knew that when I finished The Wake there was another volume waiting for me. Its hard...
Read more »
This is technically neither a graphic novel, nor a part of the Sandman series. I’m including it here because it works within the Sandman universe, was written by Neil Gaiman, and has some of the most spectacular artwork I have ever seen. Neil Gaiman adapted the story of The Dream Hunters from a Japanese...
Read more »
