Sandman | |
---|---|
Cover of The Sandman #1 (January 1989). Art by Dave McKean. |
|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Vertigo |
Schedule | Monthly |
Genre | Dark fantasy |
Publication date | January 1989 – March 1996 |
Number of issues | 75 |
Main character(s) | Dream of the Endless |
Creative team | |
Writer(s) | Neil Gaiman |
Artist(s) | Dave McKean Sam Kieth Mike Dringenberg Malcolm Jones III Kelley Jones Jill Thompson Marc Hempel Michael Zulli Charles Vess et al. |
Letterer(s) | Todd Klein |
Colorist(s) | Danny Vozzo |
Creator(s) | Neil Gaiman Mike Dringenberg Sam Kieth |
The Sandman is a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. Beginning with issue #47, it was placed under the imprint Vertigo. It chronicles the adventures of Dream (of the Endless), who rules over the world of dreams. It ran for 75 issues from January 1989 until March 1996. Gaiman's contract stipulated that the series would end when he left it.
The Sandman was one of Vertigo's flagship titles, and is available as a series of ten trade paperbacks. It has also been reprinted in a recolored five-volume Absolute hardcover edition with slipcase. Critically acclaimed, The Sandman is one of the few graphic novels ever to be on the New York Times Best Seller list, along with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. It was one of five graphic novels to make Entertainment Weekly's "100 best reads from 1983 to 2008", ranking at 46.[1] Norman Mailer described the series as "a comic strip for intellectuals."[2]
Contents |
The Sandman grew out of a proposal by Neil Gaiman to revive DC's 1974–1976 series The Sandman, illustrated by Jack Kirby and Ernie Chua and written by Joe Simon and Michael Fleisher. Gaiman had considered including characters from the "Dream Stream" (including the Kirby Sandman, Brute, Glob, and the brothers Cain and Abel) in a scene for the first issue of his 1988 miniseries Black Orchid. While the scene did not make it into later drafts because Roy Thomas was using the characters in Infinity, Inc., Gaiman soon began constructing a treatment for a new series. Gaiman mentioned his treatment in passing to DC editor Karen Berger. While months later Berger offered Gaiman a comic title to work on, he was unsure his Sandman pitch would be accepted. However, weeks later Berger asked Gaiman if he was interested in doing a Sandman series. Gaiman recalled, "I said, 'Um... yes. Yes, definitely. What's the catch?' [Berger said,] 'There's only one. We'd like a new Sandman. Keep the name. But the rest is up to you.'"[3]
Gaiman crafted the new character from an initial image of "a man, young, pale and naked, imprisoned in a tiny cell, waiting until his captors passed away [...] deathly thin, with long dark hair, and strange eyes." Gaiman patterned the character's black attire on a print of a Japanese kimono as well as his own wardrobe. Gaiman wrote an eight-issue outline and gave it to Dave McKean and Leigh Baulch, who drew character sketches. Berger reviewed the sketches (along with some drawn by Gaiman) and suggested Sam Kieth as the series' artist.[4] Mike Dringenberg, Todd Klein, Robbie Busch, and Dave McKean were hired as inker, letterer, colorist, and cover artist, respectively. McKean's approach towards comics covers was unconventional, for he convinced Berger that the series' protagonist did not need to appear on every cover.[5]
The debut issue of The Sandman was on sale in October 1988 and cover-dated January 1989. Gaiman described the early issues as "awkward", for he, as well as Kieth, Dringenberg, and Busch, had never worked on a regular series before. Kieth quit after the fifth issue; he was replaced by Dringenberg as penciler, who was in turn replaced by Malcolm Jones III as inker.[4]
The character then appeared in two of DC's "Suggested for Mature Readers" titles. In Swamp Thing #84, written by Rick Veitch, Dream and Eve allow Matthew Cable to live in the Dreaming, because he died there, resurrecting him as a raven. He then meets John Constantine in Hellblazer #19, written by Jamie Delano, leading into the latter's guest appearance in issue #3.
Issue #4 revisited Hell as depicted by Alan Moore in Swamp Thing, beginning with a guest appearance by Kirby's Etrigan the Demon guarding the gates of Hell. The issue introduces Hell's Hierarchy (as their entry is titled in Who's Who in the DC Universe), headed by Lucifer (who would spin off into his own series in 1999), Beelzebub (later adversary to Kid Eternity), and Azazel, whom Dream defeated later in the run.
In issue #5, Dream visited the Justice League International. Although DC superheroes appeared in the series as late as issue #72, this would not be the norm.
By issue #11, Gaiman began incorporating elements of the Kirby Sandman series, including the changes implemented by Thomas. Simon and Fleisher had treated the character, who resembled a superhero, as the "true" Sandman. Between Thomas[6] and Gaiman, the character's existence was revealed to be a sham created by two nightmares who had escaped to a pocket of the Dreaming, who would later attempt this again on Sanderson Hawkins, sidekick to Wesley Dodds, the Golden Age Sandman (who himself made several appearances in the Gaiman series).[7] Gaiman gave Jed Walker a surname and made him related to several new characters, and treated his relationship with Uncle Barnaby and Aunt Clarice as abusive rather than Cinderella-esque. The Thomas Sandman was Hector Hall, who married the already-pregnant Fury in the Dreaming in Infinity, Inc. #51. It was explained that Dr. Garrett Sanford, the original Brute/Glob Sandman, had gone insane from the loneliness of the Dream Dimension and taken his own life. Brute and Glob put the spirit of Hector Hall, which had been cast out of his own body by the Silver Scarab, into Sanford's body, and it eventually began to resemble Hall's.[8] Fury, in her civilian guise as Lyta Hall after these issues, was the only major superhero recurring character in the series. Even at that, her powers had come to her via the Fury Tisiphone,[9] and the Furies, under the euphemism, "the Kindly Ones" (a translation of "Eumenides", a name they earned during the events of Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy), are major characters in the series.
The series follows a tragic course in which Dream, having learned a great deal from his imprisonment, tries to correct the things he has done wrong in the past. Ultimately, this causes him to mercy kill his own son, which leads to his own death at the hands of the Furies. Dream, having found himself a replacement early on in Daniel Hall, dies in issue #69. The remaining issues deal with Dream's funeral, Hob Gadling choosing to remain immortal in spite of Dream's passing, and two stories from the past. The series wraps with the story of William Shakespeare creating his other commission for Dream, The Tempest, his last work not in collaboration with other writers.
The Sandman became a cult success for DC Comics and attracted an audience unlike that of mainstream comics: half the readership was female, many were in their twenties, and many read no other comics at all. By the time the series concluded in 1996, it was outselling the titles of DC's flagship character Superman. Gaiman had a finite run in mind for the series, and it concluded with issue #75. Gaiman said in 1996, "Could I do another five issues of Sandman? Well, damn right. And would I be able to look at myself in the mirror happily? No. Is it time to stop because I've reached the end, yes, and I think I'd rather leave while I'm in love."[10] By 1994, the book was not quite retaining a monthly schedule, having not released issues dated January, May, or October 1994; February, April, June, or October 1995; or February 1996. The final issue was dated March 1996.
More recently, Dream appeared in a flashback in Green Arrow vol. 3, #9, which takes place at a point during the 70 years of the first issue, as does Sandman Midnight Theatre, a 1995 Gaiman-penned prestige format one-shot in which Dream and Wesley Dodds meet in person some time before Dodds's The Mist storyline.
The Sandman's main character is Dream, the Lord of Dreams (also known, to various characters throughout the series, as Morpheus, Oneiros, the Shaper, the Shaper of Form, Lord of the Dreaming, the Dream King, Dream-Sneak, Dream Cat, Murphy, Kai'ckul, and Lord L'Zoril), who is essentially the anthropomorphic personification of dreams. At the start of the series, Morpheus is captured by an occult ritual and held prisoner for 70 years. Morpheus escapes in the modern day and, after avenging himself upon his captors, sets about rebuilding his kingdom, which has fallen into disrepair in his absence. Gaiman himself has summarized the plot of the series (in the foreword to Endless Nights) as "The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision."
The character's initial haughty and often cruel manner begins to soften after his years of imprisonment at the start of the series, but the challenge of undoing past sins and changing old ways is an enormous one for a being who has been set in his ways for billions of years. In its beginnings, the series is a very dark horror comic. Later, the series evolves into an elaborate fantasy series, incorporating elements of classical and contemporary mythology, ultimately placing its protagonist in the role of a tragic hero.
The storylines primarily take place in the Dreaming, Morpheus's realm, and the waking world, with occasional visits to other domains, such as Hell, Faerie, Asgard, and the domains of the other Endless. Many use the contemporary United States of America and the United Kingdom as a backdrop. The DC Universe was the official setting of the series, but well-known DC characters and places were rarely featured after 1990. A notable exception is Lyta Hall, formerly Fury of the 1980s super-team Infinity, Inc., who figures prominently in the "Kindly Ones" story arc, and her superhuman abilities are not ignored.
Most of the storylines take place in modern times, but many short stories are set in the past, taking advantage of the immortal nature of many of the characters, and deal with historical individuals and events such as in the short story "Men of Good Fortune."
The Sandman was initially published as a monthly serial, in 32-page comic books (with some exceptions to this pattern). As the series quickly increased in popularity, DC Comics began to reprint them in hardcover and trade paperback editions, each representing either a complete novel or a collection of related short stories.
DC first published "The Doll's House" storyline in a collection called simply The Sandman. Shortly thereafter, the first three volumes were published and named independently and also collected in an eponymous boxed set. (Death's debut story, "The Sound of Her Wings" from issue #8, appeared both at the beginning of early editions of The Doll's House and at the end of Preludes and Nocturnes, creating overlap between the first two volumes. This overlap is not present in newer editions.) Further collections would then be released shortly after their completion in serial form.
A total of ten collections contain the full run of the series and have all been kept in print. They are as follows:
In 2010, Vertigo began releasing a new edition of Sandman books, featuring the improved coloring from the Absolute Editions.[11]
Neil Gaiman, on his blog, announced plans for an Absolute Sandman that would compile all 10 volumes.[12] The DC Comics Absolute Edition series are large 8" by 12" prints of a considerably higher quality than the library edition, and include a leather-like cover and a slipcase. Many of the early stories have been extensively retouched and/or recoloured with Gaiman's approval.
In November 2006, the first volume of The Absolute Sandman was published. It collected the first 20 issues (that is, Preludes and Nocturnes, The Doll's House, and Dream Country). The volume also features a copy of the original series outline and other bonus features, such as a new introduction by the president of DC Comics, a new afterword, and a reproduction of the original comic draft and notes for "A Midsummer Night's Dream".[13] In celebration of this reissuing, DC also issued a refurbished edition of the first issue of the series. Volume 2 of The Absolute Sandman was officially released October 31, 2007.[14] The third volume was released on June 11, 2008;[15] and the fourth (and final) volume was released November 5, 2008.[16]
In 1998, the cover images from The Sandman were released as one compiled volume titled Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers. Dave McKean's covers use techniques such as painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, and computer manipulation.
In 1999, some years after Gaiman completed The Sandman, he wrote a lavishly illustrated Sandman novel, Sandman: The Dream Hunters with art by Yoshitaka Amano. Like many of the single-issue stories throughout The Sandman, Morpheus appears in Dream Hunters, but is a supporting character at best. In Gaiman's afterword to the book, it is claimed that the story was a retelling of an existing Japanese legend. However, there is no trace of it in the primary source he cites,[17] and when asked, Gaiman has stated that he made up the "legend" out of whole cloth. The novel was later adapted into a 4-issue miniseries by P. Craig Russell.
As the 10th anniversary arrived, Gaiman wrote several new stories about Morpheus and his siblings, one story for each, which were published in 2003 as the Endless Nights anthology.
Due to critical acclaim and commercial success (at the time of its conclusion, it was DC’s best-selling series), The Sandman spawned a number of spin-off volumes. Subsidiary works include:
The Sandman #19, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", won the World Fantasy Award in 1991 for Best Short Fiction.[21] Also, The Sandman and its spin-offs have won 26 Eisner Awards,[22] including three for Best Continuing Series, one for Best Short Story, four for Best Writer (Neil Gaiman), seven for Best Lettering (Todd Klein), and two for Best Penciller/Inker (one each for Charles Vess and P. Craig Russell). The Sandman: The Dream Hunters was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 2000.[23] Both Endless Nights and The Dream Hunters won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative in 2004 and 2000, respectively.[24] Also in 2004, Season of Mists won the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Scenario.[25] IGN declared The Sandman as the best ever Vertigo comic.[26]
Throughout the late 1990s, a movie adaptation of the comic was periodically planned by Warner Bros., parent company of DC Comics. Roger Avary was originally attached to direct after the success of Pulp Fiction, collaborating with Pirates of the Caribbean screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio in 1996 on a revision of their first script draft, which merged the "Preludes and Nocturnes" storyline with that of "The Doll's House". Avary intended the film to be in part visually inspired by animator Jan Švankmajer's work. Avary was fired after disagreements over the creative direction with executive producer Jon Peters, best known for Batman and Superman Lives. It was due to their meeting on the Sandman movie project that Avary and Gaiman collaborated one year later on the script for Beowulf. The project carried on through several more writers and scripts. A later draft by William Farmer, reviewed on the internet at Ain't It Cool News,[27] was met with scorn from fans. Gaiman called the last screenplay that Warner Bros. would send him "not only the worst Sandman script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read."[28] Gaiman has also said that his dissatisfaction with how his characters were being treated had dissuaded him from writing any more stories involving the Endless, although he has since written Endless Nights. By 2001, the project had become stranded in development hell. In a Q&A panel at Comic-Con 2007, Gaiman remarked, "I'd rather see no Sandman movie made than a bad Sandman movie. But I feel like the time for a Sandman movie is coming soon. We need someone who has the same obsession with the source material as Peter Jackson had with Lord of the Rings or Sam Raimi had with Spider-Man."[29]
Due to the prolonged development period of the film, in 2010 DC Entertainment shifted focus onto developing a television series adaptation. Film director James Mangold pitched a series concept to cable channel HBO, whilst consulting with Gaiman himself on an unofficial basis, but this proved to be unsuccessful. It was reported in September 2010 that Warner Bros. Television were licensing the rights to produce a TV series, and that Supernatural creator Eric Kripke was their preferred candidate to adapt the saga.[30]
|
|