I blame my creative director…
I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. And I blame my creative director. I’ve been up way past my intended bedtime every night this week ever since he loaned me his Sandman collection. Sandman… lack of sleep… the irony…
Anyway, I finished Volume 1 last night (Preludes and Nocturnes), which collected Issues 1-8 of Neil Gaiman's series. Ah, there’s just something about comics for adults that is just so deliciously refreshing.
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In your standard superhero comic, sure your villains are evil, but they still seem to operate by some sort of code. They have limits in their evil. In comics for mature readers, well, the gloves are off. The villains of these tales with befriend a mother of 2 and then shoot her at point-blank range in the face. They’ll plunge the world into madness, triggering nurses to set geriatric hospital wards on fire and businessmen stumbling around animal shelters with a bloody baseball bat. They get into people’s minds and have them chop off their own fingers.
It brings back fond memories of those old EC horror comics I used to read as a 10 year old...
Death, personified as a perky, matter-of-fact Goth, will take a sickly old musician to the new realm of existence but she’ll also rob a mother of her newborn baby in the minute the mom turns her back on the cot to fetch bay’s bottle.
It’s intense stuff. And it’s fantastic.
I particularly like Death, who in Issue 8, ‘The Sound of her Wings’ and her collected miniseries ‘Death: The High Cost of Living’ functions in a guiding role, pulling people/beings out of depression to show them that they have responsibilities and can reinject drive and goals into their lives.
With Death, Gaiman has actually created a character who changes your perceptions of death as a concept. It's totally natural, and a neutral transition process.
Anyway, I finished Volume 1 last night (Preludes and Nocturnes), which collected Issues 1-8 of Neil Gaiman's series. Ah, there’s just something about comics for adults that is just so deliciously refreshing.
In your standard superhero comic, sure your villains are evil, but they still seem to operate by some sort of code. They have limits in their evil. In comics for mature readers, well, the gloves are off. The villains of these tales with befriend a mother of 2 and then shoot her at point-blank range in the face. They’ll plunge the world into madness, triggering nurses to set geriatric hospital wards on fire and businessmen stumbling around animal shelters with a bloody baseball bat. They get into people’s minds and have them chop off their own fingers.
It brings back fond memories of those old EC horror comics I used to read as a 10 year old...
Death, personified as a perky, matter-of-fact Goth, will take a sickly old musician to the new realm of existence but she’ll also rob a mother of her newborn baby in the minute the mom turns her back on the cot to fetch bay’s bottle.
It’s intense stuff. And it’s fantastic.
I particularly like Death, who in Issue 8, ‘The Sound of her Wings’ and her collected miniseries ‘Death: The High Cost of Living’ functions in a guiding role, pulling people/beings out of depression to show them that they have responsibilities and can reinject drive and goals into their lives.
With Death, Gaiman has actually created a character who changes your perceptions of death as a concept. It's totally natural, and a neutral transition process.
Comments
okay this might be a duh q. but is the sandman series good?
At some point, weren't they filming The high Cost of Living? I was sure they were.
According to Wiki, there's an Absolute Sandman trade paperback, collecting the first 20 issues, and it has been recoloured.
Shirlz, Dave McKean only illustrated the creepy Sandman covers. Artists who actually drew the series include Sam Kieth, Malcolm Jones III, Mike Dringenberg
Charles Vess, Kelley Jones, Jill Thompson, etc etc.