I'd been wanting to read The Sandman for years and years and finally bought myself volume one this month! People always talk about it as one of the best comic books (or graphic novels I guess depending if you want to get snobby about it) of all time, that is literary as well as a fun read. Plus it's Neil Gaiman!

This is the first volume so it takes a while to set up the story. Basically some shady devil-worshipping types decide to try to trap Death, but instead get the wrong member the family and trap Dream/Sandman/Morpheus (pick a name!) instead, and his has a disruptive effect on sleep across the world. The Sandman is imprisoned for almost a century, patiently waiting until his human captor dies of old age. Once free he is weakened and needs to regain three objects in which he had placed some of his power. One was held by John Constantine, one was taken by a demon in Hell and the Justice League of America had confiscated the third from Doctor Destiny who is locked up in Arkham Asylum.

It's really nothing like anything I had ever read before (and I'm quite new to reading comic books in general!) and it took some time to get my head around the mythology that was being built, as intriguing as it is. This story is really a simple "fetch quest" idea and he doesn't have much trouble with any of it other than Doctor Destiny/John Dee in the three parts Passengers, 24 Hours and Sound & Fury. This was pretty awesome though, really creepy and a great satisfying ending. By the end he is back up to strength, and I look forward to what he will do next.

The artwork is brilliant. Dark, really creepy when it needs to be and a bit weird! I felt like it really fit with what Gaiman was trying to achieve. The content and the ideas that Gaiman is exploring are perhaps more literary than your typical comic book fare but it never feels like you reading something too high-minded, and the dialogue and thoughts of the Sandman flow very well. I absolutely loved Death when she turned up in the final part. Gaiman recognises that Death is and should be viewed as a beautiful thing, and not something that we should hold such a mortal fear of. Plus she makes a Mary Poppins reference which is just awesome. I look forward to seeing more of her.

I'm giving it 3.5 stars because while I did enjoy it, I think there is a lot of room and potential for the series to build from here and get better. I will order Volume 2. ( )

638

Audible’s adaptation of The Sandman: Act III collects material from Brief Lives and Worlds’ End, the seventh and eighth volumes of The Sandman that collected issues 41-49 and 51-56 of the comic series. The stories focus on Delirium of the Endless seeking out her brother, Destruction, who disappeared hundreds of years prior. Their journey brings with it a great deal of tragedy and destruction, particularly fitting as the end of a recent love affair continues to burden Dream. Unhappily, Dream must consult his son Orpheus, who lives on as a head in a shrine following the Maenads mauling of him. Though they eventually find Destruction, their meeting comes at great cost and Dream commits the cardinal rule of the Endless. World’s End uses an inn called the World’s End as a framing device for various travelers’ stories à la Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Boccaccio’s The Decameron. The stories in World’s End include “A Tale of Two Cities,” about a man terrified that cities will someday awaken; “Cluracan’s Tale” about the world of faerie; “Hob’s Leviathan” about a girl who poses as a boy to go to sea and there meets Hob Gadling and a king of India; “The Golden Boy” about Prez Rickard, who becomes U.S. President after Richard Nixon, becoming a living representation of the American Dream; and “Cerements,” which tells of the necropolis Litharge and its devotion to various methods of burial.

Dirk Maggs oversaw this adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic series, working to translate the visual medium of the comic books to the audio format. The full cast adaptation makes this possible. Act III stars Neil Gaiman as the narrator, James McAvoy as Morpheus, Riz Ahmed as the Corinthian, Kat Dennings as Death, Billy Boyd as Petrefax, Miriam Margolyes as Despair, David Harewood as Destruction, Mathew Horne as Hob Gadling, Andy Serkis as Matthew the Raven, Regé-Jean Page as Orpheus, Kristen Schaal as Delirium, Niamh Walsh as Nuala, Wil Wheaton as Brant Tucker, KJ Apa as Prez, Jeffrey Wright as Destiny, Kevin Smith as Merv Pumpkinhead, Justin Vivian Bond as Desire, Emma Corrin as Thessaly, Joanna Lumley as Lady Johanna Constantine, Kerry Shale as Abel, Simon Vance as Lucien, Samantha Béart as Calliope, Clare Corbett as Eurydice, Barnaby Edwards as the Psychopomp, Ashleigh Haddad as Ishtar, David Holt as the Satyr, among many others.

If these Audible adaptations continue, Act IV will adapt the final two volumes, The Kindly Ones and The Wake. Those will conclude the regular Sandman series, though they could potentially adapt Endless Nights and Overture as well at some future date. ( )

4,5 ( )

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes collects issues 1-8 of The Sandman. I read the German translation by Gerlinde Althoff.

Content Note: rape

Plot:
When the magician Roderick Burgess sets out to capture Death (and end up with immortality), something goes wrong. Instead of Death, he ends up with Dream in a cage. Ever enterprising, Burgess is sure that he can make this work for himself, too. And if he can’t, it is probably better to keep him locked up and not draw attention to the fact that he did. But Dream is one of the Eternals. Even without the magical items Burgess stripped from him, he can bide his time. And his day will come. Meanwhile though, a world without Dream shows signs of decay as a sleeping sickness ravages its people.

I’ve had the Sandman comics at home since about forever (I bought them so long ago, I still have them in German and not English). But as these things go, I never read them. Now with the TV show out, I decided it was finally time. And the start is definitely promising, albeit a little uneven.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2022/09/22/the-sandman-preludes-nocturnes-neil-gaiman-sam-... ( )