Death and Dreaming

Neil Gaiman; Death: The High Cost of Living (Vertigo/DC Comics; 1994; ISBN 978-1-56389-133-5; cover by Dave McKean).

Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Volume 01: Preludes & Nocturnes (Vertigo/DC Comics; 2010; ISBN 978-1-4012-2575-9; cover by Dave McKean).

Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Volume 02: The Doll's House (Vertigo/DC Comics; 2010; ISBN 978-1-4012-2799-9; cover by Dave McKean).

Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Volume 03: Dream Country (Vertigo/DC Comics; 2010; ISBN 978-1-4012-2935-1; cover by Dave McKean).

Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Volume 04: Season of Mists (Vertigo/DC Comics; 2011; ISBN 978-1-4012-3042-5; cover by Dave McKean).

I had read (and partly-read) a couple of books talking about Neil Gaiman and skipped through large chunks of each when it came to his work in "graphic novels"; I never really picked up on comic books as a kid, never haunted the shops for the latest issue of The Fantastic Four or The Amazing Spiderman. Books were where it was at for me.

On the other hand, I've always been a fan of the "Sunday funny papers" in the form of Prince Valient or Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and the like, so maybe it was a problem of where to start for the digest style lines. Each line from Marvel or DC, or even the independents, grow and grow and develop a massive backstory. Where to start? What in jokes would you not get?

The Sandman series is based off of long-dormant character that DC owned, but Gaiman took it and gave it his own spin. With the publication of these new editions, "fully recolored", I figured it was time to give them a try.

The results have been mixed. The two volumes that each contained an overall arc: The Doll's House and Dream Country were better than the initial volume (which threw me out of the story, for example, when established costumed superheroes showed up).

Conclusion? Mixed. The stories get better and better, as Gaiman moves away from the established DC background and does his own thing. But, as I read them, I still think that I'd rather read them as stories, not graphic stories. Perhaps all those years of not reading comic books installed permanently a need to build my own images?

Addendum: Since reading the previous items, I have also read The Sandman Volume 05: A Game of You; The Sandman Volume 06: Fables & Reflections; The Sandman Volume 07: Brief Lives; The Sandman Volume 08: Worlds' End.