In 1989, a 26-year-old British writer named Neil Gaiman started publishing a monthly comic titledThe Sandman, in which he radically reimagined an old DC comics character. Over the next seven years, he wrote the story of Dream of the Endless, in the process creating a literary comic series that demonstrated his ability to bend genre and break all the unwritten rules. The Sandman became a cultural phenomenon, established Gaiman’s reputation as a writer, and remains one of the most notable works of literature of our time.
The Endless and the ensemble
For someone who has read and re-read the 76-issue comic series, as well as its spin-offs and extras, it’s not easy to summarise it. The Sandman is a massive structure that is held together by the story arcs of the seven Endless, who are siblings, of whom Dream is one.
They are anthropomorphic manifestations of the seven principles that govern the vital functions of every life in the universe: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium (who was once Delight). They are, each of them, distinct. Each has their own realm, over which they preside, and their sigil or symbol, through which they contact one another. They also happen to be a highly dysfunctional family.
Their lives – particularly Dream’s – frame the stories, but then the series goes off in all kinds of directions. Gaiman’s highly allusive storytelling style includes much more into his own world-building; it references myths from multiple cultures, religious figures, literature, pop culture, and an ensemble cast of everyday characters through history, some fictionalised, others entirely fictional.
In The Sound of Her Wings, for example, we see Death, Dream’s older sister. She’s picturised as a wise and attractive Goth girl with eye of horus eyeliner and an ankh pendant, and here she’s gushing about Mary Poppins to her brother. In A Dream of a Thousand Cats we meet a pet kitten who attends a cat-meeting in her dreams, where she learns that cats were once the masters of human beings.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream stars William Shakespeare, who has been dealt divine inspiration as the reward for striking a Faustian bargain. His Faerie play is performed in public… to an audience consisting of Faerie folk.
There is Rose Walker, a mortal who has the power to destroy Dream’s realm, and Hob Gadling, a mortal who becomes immortal. There is Thessaly the ancient Greek witch, and Lucien, Dream’s librarian of all books ever conceived, including unwritten ones. There is Augustus Caesar, the Muse Calliope, and Harun ar-Rashid, the Caliph of Baghdad. These characters and more weave in and out of the larger narrative, some recurring and playing significant roles in Dream’s fate (such as The Erinyes), and some appearing only for the duration of their one story.
The prequel
One of the reasons Gaiman is simultaneously able tell these stories along with the larger story of Dream’s evolution and eventual “death” is that The Endless are not just cosmic forces, but have individual quirks and frailties. They are as flawed as the lives they regulate.
Although Dream creates nightmares which act as a mirror for humanity, it is actually the Endless who serve that function – showing readers the best and worst of themselves. As a result of this, and because the Endless are as old as the universe, The Sandman is a series that is obsessed with history.
While the core series explores this obsession in a million different ways, it leaves several unanswered questions about the history of the Endless. The prequel, The Sandman Overture, a six-part series that Gaiman started releasing in 2013, answers many of these questions.
Going inward
The stories in the prequel are told in the same style as the older series – many micro-narratives that straddle different points in time and space, manage to make sense, and, in many cases, move the larger story forward.
The personal and universal implications of Dream’s story are explored with two major reveals. The first one is the identity of the parents of the Endless (which, by the way, go a long way in explaining the family dysfunction).
The second one is the nature of the event that left Dream exhausted and vulnerable at the beginning of Fables and Nocturnes, the first Sandman issue from 1989. In it, we had first met Dream, who was captured and imprisoned for over seventy years by a group of occultists. This had set in motion the rest of the Sandman’s wider story arc. In Overture, we finally learn the backstory of what impelled Dream to slowly become a more compassionate character.
The art, by J.H. Williams III, is complex and delightful, offering up many gorgeous double spreads. Many times, as in with the meeting of Dream and his father, the art gives clues that the text won’t spare.
As for the story itself, Gaiman writes as though he never stopped telling this one. There are mirrors of the things to come: a dream vortex, two separate imprisonments, and a certain wilful Cat. And there are glimpses of things still unanswered – the transformation of Delight into Delirium, and, with the ultimate chapter still pending, the denouement of the big event that forms the crux of this story.
Although the final chapter of Overture is yet to be released, the issues have already thrown up some stellar images. One of these concerns the conversation between all the different aspects of Dream. It is the most inward-looking sequence in a story arc that cranks up the symbolism inherent in the series to another level. Dream, like Walt Whitman, “contains multitudes”.
And the self-realisation that readers encounter throughout the original The Sandman actually begins at this point. As his multiple selves argue amongst one another, Morpheus/Dream asks, “Am I always like this? Self-satisfied. Irritating. Self-possessed, and unwilling to concede centrestage to anyone but myself.” “Yes, in my experience,” he answers himself.
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DC advertisement for The Sandman, 1988.
The Endless and the ensemble
For someone who has read and re-read the 76-issue comic series, as well as its spin-offs and extras, it’s not easy to summarise it. The Sandman is a massive structure that is held together by the story arcs of the seven Endless, who are siblings, of whom Dream is one.
They are anthropomorphic manifestations of the seven principles that govern the vital functions of every life in the universe: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium (who was once Delight). They are, each of them, distinct. Each has their own realm, over which they preside, and their sigil or symbol, through which they contact one another. They also happen to be a highly dysfunctional family.
Their lives – particularly Dream’s – frame the stories, but then the series goes off in all kinds of directions. Gaiman’s highly allusive storytelling style includes much more into his own world-building; it references myths from multiple cultures, religious figures, literature, pop culture, and an ensemble cast of everyday characters through history, some fictionalised, others entirely fictional.
Dream and Death, from The Sound of Her Wings, Sandman #8, part of Preludes and Nocturnes, written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III, coloured by Robbie Busch and lettered by Todd Klein.
In The Sound of Her Wings, for example, we see Death, Dream’s older sister. She’s picturised as a wise and attractive Goth girl with eye of horus eyeliner and an ankh pendant, and here she’s gushing about Mary Poppins to her brother. In A Dream of a Thousand Cats we meet a pet kitten who attends a cat-meeting in her dreams, where she learns that cats were once the masters of human beings.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream stars William Shakespeare, who has been dealt divine inspiration as the reward for striking a Faustian bargain. His Faerie play is performed in public… to an audience consisting of Faerie folk.
Caliph Harun ar-Rashid shows Dream Baghdad, from Ramadan, Sandman #50, written by Neil Gaiman, drawn by P. Craig Russell, coloured by Lovern Kinzierski and Digital Chameleon.
There is Rose Walker, a mortal who has the power to destroy Dream’s realm, and Hob Gadling, a mortal who becomes immortal. There is Thessaly the ancient Greek witch, and Lucien, Dream’s librarian of all books ever conceived, including unwritten ones. There is Augustus Caesar, the Muse Calliope, and Harun ar-Rashid, the Caliph of Baghdad. These characters and more weave in and out of the larger narrative, some recurring and playing significant roles in Dream’s fate (such as The Erinyes), and some appearing only for the duration of their one story.
The prequel
One of the reasons Gaiman is simultaneously able tell these stories along with the larger story of Dream’s evolution and eventual “death” is that The Endless are not just cosmic forces, but have individual quirks and frailties. They are as flawed as the lives they regulate.
The Endless, in the Endless Nights poster drawn and painted by Frank Quitely.
Although Dream creates nightmares which act as a mirror for humanity, it is actually the Endless who serve that function – showing readers the best and worst of themselves. As a result of this, and because the Endless are as old as the universe, The Sandman is a series that is obsessed with history.
While the core series explores this obsession in a million different ways, it leaves several unanswered questions about the history of the Endless. The prequel, The Sandman Overture, a six-part series that Gaiman started releasing in 2013, answers many of these questions.
Going inward
The stories in the prequel are told in the same style as the older series – many micro-narratives that straddle different points in time and space, manage to make sense, and, in many cases, move the larger story forward.
The personal and universal implications of Dream’s story are explored with two major reveals. The first one is the identity of the parents of the Endless (which, by the way, go a long way in explaining the family dysfunction).
The second one is the nature of the event that left Dream exhausted and vulnerable at the beginning of Fables and Nocturnes, the first Sandman issue from 1989. In it, we had first met Dream, who was captured and imprisoned for over seventy years by a group of occultists. This had set in motion the rest of the Sandman’s wider story arc. In Overture, we finally learn the backstory of what impelled Dream to slowly become a more compassionate character.
The art, by J.H. Williams III, is complex and delightful, offering up many gorgeous double spreads. Many times, as in with the meeting of Dream and his father, the art gives clues that the text won’t spare.
As for the story itself, Gaiman writes as though he never stopped telling this one. There are mirrors of the things to come: a dream vortex, two separate imprisonments, and a certain wilful Cat. And there are glimpses of things still unanswered – the transformation of Delight into Delirium, and, with the ultimate chapter still pending, the denouement of the big event that forms the crux of this story.
Although the final chapter of Overture is yet to be released, the issues have already thrown up some stellar images. One of these concerns the conversation between all the different aspects of Dream. It is the most inward-looking sequence in a story arc that cranks up the symbolism inherent in the series to another level. Dream, like Walt Whitman, “contains multitudes”.
And the self-realisation that readers encounter throughout the original The Sandman actually begins at this point. As his multiple selves argue amongst one another, Morpheus/Dream asks, “Am I always like this? Self-satisfied. Irritating. Self-possessed, and unwilling to concede centrestage to anyone but myself.” “Yes, in my experience,” he answers himself.