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Neil Gaiman's Sandman and How Everyone Is Right About It

I've been reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman for a while now, and I've got some feelings about it. Good feelings. Overwhelmingly positive feelings. Feelings SO positive that I will categorically state that it is the greatest contribution to comics ever QUIET ALL OF YOU.

REMEMBER THAT TIME HE VISITED HELL so great.

Sandman hits on almost everything I like, tone-wise. It's this mix of darkness, but not darkness for darkness's sake, and literary references and myth and seeing the story through the eyes of someone near-omnipotent, but also flawed: who's above human experience, but also enmeshed in it. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.


I'm on vol. 5 of the really pretty recolored versions that came out in 2011, so I've got a ways to go, which is good because I NEVER WANT IT TO END NEVER EVER.

Said recoloring. Mmm so much better now.

I mean. I could do without the Hazel/Foxglove storyline, which you'd think I'd be into, because lesbians before lesbians were cool (hahaha lesbians were never cool) but it just bums me out and brings it too much into present day for me. Which is The Subtle Knife all over again.

Remember how Philip Pullman the Prejudiced wrote the totes enthralling Golden Compass that was in another universe with daemons as our externalized souls and ARMORED BEARS? Remember that? And then he fucked it all up in the second book by bringing in our boringass world. Boo.

Anyway. Sandman! I love the whole mythology surrounding his family. He's Dream! His sister's Death! And there's Desire and Despair and Destiny...and others I've forgotten the name of. Huzzah!


Sandman so clearly stands above the rest of all comics that I'm not sure it should be classed with them. Gaiman is usually so hit or miss with me, but this medium is 100% perfect for him. MAY ALL HIS FUTURE WORKS BE COMIC BOOK IN NATURE. (except for Doctor Who episodes -- he's good at those too)

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