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mask131 · 2 years

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A guide for reading The Sandman: Part 2

So... You have read the full Sandman series. You went from issue 1 to issue 75. From beginning to end. You had all the ten volumes. Congrats!

But I am sorry to tell you, you don’t actually have the full Sandman story. You see, Neil Gaiman wrote and created much more than just the numbered issues. He created a lot of side-stories, side volumes and “specials” whose presence are either exciting and thrilling additions to the Sandman mythos, or key elements needed to understand the plots and happenings of the main story. Don’t get me wrong, if you just read the numbered issues you’ll get the full story without problem. But you’ll still be missing the second part of the complete Sandman world. The “specials”. In French we have a clever word for that: the “hors-séries” (literally means “outside of the series”, it is still part of the world but not inside the numbered series).

Given there is a lot of those specials, I’ll classify them by “publishing order”. You’ll get what I mean.

I) The Sandman library

After being released as a series of numbered issues, The Sandman was collected in the ten volumes I described previously. Out of these volumes, one included actually more than just the numbered issues: volume 6, “Fables and Reflections”, added two Sandman specials.

# “Fear of Falling” was originally a story published as its own for a one-shot issue called “Vertigo Preview” whose function, as the name indicates, was to serve as a big preview for most of the Vertigo titles. As a result, the issue contains previews and half-stories for most of the Vertigo titles: Hellblazer, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, Shade the Changing Man... It also includes previews for two specials I will talk about later, Death: The High Cost of Living, and Sandman Mystery Theater. But these are all just previews. There is only one full, complete story, which is precisely “Fear of Falling”, conceived originally as a way to give a taste of Sandman to newcomers.

# The Song of Orpheus. Originally it was published as its own as “The Sandman Special”, but it was included into this first collection of Sandman issues due to how important the story is : for you see, it gives the complete backstory of Orpheus, who is an important character in The Sandman. And while just a retelling of the myth, it is still very precious to understand the full impact of the character.

II) The 30th anniversary edition

After publishing those ten volumes, DC celebrated the 30th birthday of The Sandman by reprinting them... WITH FOUR BONUS VOLUMES!!!

# The first added Volume, Volume 11, is called “Endless Nights”. This specific volume was originally published as its own under the name “The Sandman: Endless Nights”. Published in 2003, so long after the end of The Sandman, it is a set of seven stories, each centered around a different Endless sibling, and their whole purpose is just to further expand the world of The Sandman, and flesh out more the other Endlesses by showing stories from THEIR perspectives. It is technically an “anthology volume / expansion volume” that is not needed to understand the full story, but makes a nice addition to better understand the scope of the world and the working of the Endless. It does however contains spoilers for “Brief Lives” and further, so... it is at its right place as “Volume 11″.

# The second added Volume is NOT called Volume 12 as you would expect. It is rather called... Volume ∞. Of its full name: The Sandman: Overture. This volume was originally a six-part limited series created by Neil Gaiman in 2013 (so LONG after the end of The Sandman, and well after Endless Nights). This is the latest and final work by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman world so far, and it was designed as a sort of “grand finale”. Some people will tell you “It is the first work in chronological order so you should begin here”. DO NOT DARE! THESE PEOPLE ARE LYING TO YOU! Beginning here is the WORST idea you can have. If you want to begin The Sandman, you begin at issue 1, like Neil Gaiman himself.

For you see, “Overture” is a dual story, two series of events tied together that happen, one after the end of The Sandman (so after issue 75) and the other before the beginning of the Sandman (so before issue 1). Overture is both the prologue to The Sandman AND its epilogue. Beginning and end, alpha and omega... Hence the ∞ symbol. It is without a doubt the best way to end the series.

# The two other volumes are both unumbered and called “The Sandman: The Dream Hunters”. And they both tell the same story. So why are there two volumes? Because one is an illustrated novel, and the other is a full comic book issue.

Originally, Neil Gaiman published “The Dream Hunters” as a novel/novella in 1999 (so three years after the end of The Sandman, but before the publication of Endless Nights). It was a fictional story he invented, based upon and inspired by Japanese folklore and Japanese fairytales. Illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, it takes place in The Sandman world, though it is not part of the main plot and you can actually read the story with no prior knowledge of The Sandman. It became so popular that for the 20th anniversary of The Sandman, in 2008-2009, the novel was adapted into a comic book, a four part mini-series that became its own Sandman volume.

Fun fact: when Neil Gaiman published the story, he wrote in it a fake “origin” claiming he was just adaptating a part of Ozaki’s famous “Old Japanese Fairy Tales”. It was a lie, as Neil Gaiman had entirely invented the story, but it fooled a lot of people who sincerely believed it was some sort of secret or missing story from Ozaki’s book. (He notably had to clear up the matter in “Endless Nights”).

III) The Absolute Sandman

Now you probably think: wow... this is a lot. But I got everything, right? NO YOU FOOL! DC, seeing the enormous success of The Sandman, decided to reprint a new edition of the compilation: The Absolute Sandman, even bigger than the 30th Anniversary edition. Not ten or twelve volumes, but rather six (five numbered volumes plus Overture), containing everything I talked about above (The Sandman Special, Endless Nights, Overture, The Dream Hunters...). Plus more specials not yet included in compilations! Resulting in five volumes + The Absolute Sandman: Overture + one special volume called “The Absolute Death”.

# The Vertigo: Winter’s Edge comics. Vertigo’s Winter Edge was a limited series published from 1998 to 2000 celebrating, every winter, the different lines and series of the Vertigo imprint with special stories. It ran for three issues, and each of them has one story created by Neil Gaiman tied with or part of The Sandman universe. One will maybe ring familiar to the viewers of the show: “A Winter’s Tale”, published in the second issue (1999). This story is actually a description of Death’s backstory, answering many questions about her “life” before the events of The Sandman (and also revealing answers to some questions raised in “Endless Nights”, even though it was published AFTER this story). Parts of it were adapted in the first season of The Sandman tv show.

The other two stories of Winter’s Edge are “The Flowers of Romance”, from Winter Edge 1998 and “How They Met Themselves” from Winter Edge 2000. These stories are fascinating because they actually depict Desire as the protagonist and “hero”. You see, as Gaiman points out, Desire plays an antagonistic role in The Sandman merely because Dream is the protagonist. But here he decided, why not show the reverse, the world where Desire is the protagonist, the “nice” side of Desire: the result are those two stories.

[ The Vertigo: Winter’s Edge issues also contain stories belonging to “The Dreaming”, a spin-off of The Sandman, but given Neil Gaiman was not involved in those I’ll keep it for a later post]

# “The Castle”. This story was originally published in “Vertigo Jam”, which is basically quite similar to “Vertigo Preview” and “Vertigo: Winter Edge”, just a one-shot issue that was an anthology of various stories, each taking place in a different series of the Vertigo imprint.

# The Death mini-series. In 1993, the same year as The Dream Hunters, Neil Gaiman wrote a mini-series with Death as the main protagonist. It was called “Death: The High Cost of Living”. This Death-centered story had three years later a “twin mini-series”: “Death: The Time of Your Life” in 1996 (coupled with the return of Hazel and Foxglove from “A Game of You”). These two were then gathered here as a duo in a special volume of The Absolute Sandman called “The Absolute Death” and centered around, you guessed it, lot of Death material.

# The “educational” Sandman. This “Absolute Death” volume also contains two “PSA material” or “Very Special Episode” issues. One is a story centered around Destruction and called “The Wheel”, which was originally part of a very special DC volume: 9-11: The world’s finest comic book writers and artists tell stories to remember. You can safely guess what the story is about. The second story is not actually a story, but a Death-centered AIDs pamphlet called “Death Talks About Life”. It had been originally coupled with several other issues of DC comics: it was found in the issue 32 of “Shade the Changing Man” (the 1990 series) ; it was also found in the 62nd issue of Hellblazer, and finally in the 46th issue of The Sandman. But it also existed as its own, unique pamphlet distributed in schools to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS.

# Sandman Midnight Theater. The last of the specials created by Neil Gaiman, and one of the last pieces to The Sandman puzzle. Long story short... There were several “Sandman” super-heroes in the DC Universe. In fact, Neil Gaiman began “The Sandman” as his own personal take on the several Sandmen super-heroes of the DC world. The very first of those Sandmen was Wesley Dodds, a Batman-like vigilante of the 30s that was part of the Golden Age of comics. In fact, Wesley Dodds himself appears in the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, and is part of The Sandman universe. After the end of Neil Gaiman’s series, the popularity of Wesley Dodds increased again and so in 1993 was launched a “reboot” of the original adventures of the Sandman, a new series around Dodds called “Sandman Mystery Theater”.

Sandman Midnight Theater is precisely a crossover issue between Sandman Mystery Theater and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

# “The Last Sandman Story”. This is actually not a comic book story. It was a prose story, semi-autobiographical, written by Neil Gaiman for “Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers”, which as the name says compiled all of the covers of Dave McKean (plus I think he also illustrated this specific story?). It a sort of confession story, a text by Neil Gaiman about real-life and his relationship with The Sandman series and the character of Dream. And, as the name says, it was written to be released at the conclusion of the main series, post-issue 75.

There you go! These are all the specials created by Neil Gaiman and that are part of the canon and official Sandman series. Of course there is more bonus to talk about: Neil Gaiman gave a lot of interviews about The Sandman in which he reveals all sorts of details and secrets, and they can be found across various books - the Sandman Companion, the Absolute Sandman editions, the Omnibus Sandman editions, there’s plenty of places to look at.

So... is it done? Is it over?

Yes and no. With this, you have covered everything in The Sandman world made by Neil Gaiman. So this is basically all the “canon”.

But The Sandman created a lot of spin-offs and side-stories that were not created or that are not linked to Neil Gaiman... as with many comic book worlds, it expanded beyond its original creator. So maybe I will cover all the non-Neil Gaiman Sandman stories in a third part. Maybe. If I have time.

#sandman #the sandman #comic books #comic book #comics #reading guide #neil gaiman #specials #dream of the endless #death of the endless #desire of the endless #destruction of the endless

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theaceace · 4 months

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Hob is woken, not by the shrill cacophony of his alarm or the sunlight hitting his face where they'd forgotten to pull the curtains last night, or even the warmth of Morpheus' hands and mouth, but by the sudden dip in the mattress as another person flops onto the bed with them.

Several lifetimes' worth of instincts see him jolting awake in an instant, heart racing and sweat already beading on his back and brow. Hob may not be able to die, but he's been ambushed in his sleep more than enough times to be getting on with, ta very much, and he's not keen to do it again. Suddenly he's twenty-five, and exhausted after days of marching on Troyes, feet sore and heart sorer, waiting on a battle that never came. He's twenty-eight, and the knife that flashes in the darkness misses his throat only because Herry has ears like a bat and enough blind-foolish loyalty to leap on their attacker's back. He's seventy-three, and lying barely-conscious among the dead that need burying or burning, and he knows that he needs to rouse himself even with the arrow still in his chest, or he'll be burnt or buried with them. He's two-hundred and sixty-four, and they've come to the home he'd made for his family, to drag him from the bed he had shared with his wife some thirty years before, and haul him away as a witch.

He's gripped now by the same fear, and it has him up and moving, one hand fumbling at the bedside table for anything with enough heft to dent a skull before he realises that none of his attackers have ever smelt like peaches.

Beside him, Morpheus shifts just enough to free his face from the clutches of his pillow.

“That key was given to you for use in emergencies, my sibling,” he says, voice thick with sleep and the cotton pillowcase.

Desire stretches luxuriously between them and smiles, fox-sharp, at Morpheus. They roll their head to look at him – beneath the perfume and sweat and wet pavement smell of them, Hob catches a sour waft of alcohol.

“Oh but my dear brother, this is an emergency,” they say, and – look, Hob has been drunk enough to recognise the exquisitely deliberate care at the edges of their words. He huffs a little, pushes himself up so that he can slap a hand on the bedside lamp and blink furiously against the sudden light. It takes a few seconds for his vision to clear, and he rubs his hands over his face in a vain effort to convince himself that this is some new nightmare that Daniel is testing out, before he gives in to the inevitable and turns to examine their guest.

"And what could possibly be so pressing at –" Morpheus snatches Desire's wrist up to stare blearily at their watch "– two thirty-seven in the morning? That could not be expressed in a phone call or wait until a reasonable hour?"

"Do you know, brother mine, how many partners I found to dance with? Whose desire for me, once so integral as to be a given, I had to simply guess at? To read in the curve of a smile or the enticing lull of a question? I didn't know them, not a one, and can you guess, sweet Dream, how many of them took me to their beds?"

And Hob has heard quite enough of that. He stretches and tosses back the sheets, while Morpheus shoots him a filthy glower that softens immediately into a plea for respite with his sole visible eye. Desire either doesn't notice this silent communication, or doesn't care.

“None!” They crow gleefully, clasping their hands, and Morpheus scowls as he's jostled in place.

It's not that Hob wants to leave him to fend for himself against his sibling, only that he doesn’t fancy being in the firing line when Morpheus inevitably snaps and thumps Desire with a pillow.

Doing an admirable job of ignoring Morpheus' wounded expression, Hob groans and lurches himself in the vague direction of the kitchen. Might as well put the kettle on for this.

"Jasmine or apple tea, love?" He calls. No sense having any caffeine now. If they're lucky, Desire will wear themself out quickly and they'll be able to go back to sleep before the alarm goes off.

"Apple, if you would," Morpheus replies.

"Ooh, I'll have jasmine if you're making."

"Didn't ask you!" Hob shouts back, already adding a spoon of sugar to the third mug he'd fetched down for them.

“Oh, so forceful! You know, if you ever get tired of my stick-in-the-mud brother here…” Desire trails off meaningfully, and Hob snorts, smiling a little to himself. They know full well it's not going to happen, however much or little they remember about his desires, and even if he were – impossibly – to change his mind about Morpheus, they'd get bored of him soon enough.

He sets all three mugs on a tray, and grabs a pack of chocolate digestives while he's at it. Morpheus would never admit to being fond of them, but he doesn't need to. Hob's watched him absent-mindedly devour most of a packet while he pecks one-handed at the keyboard. Besides, Desire could probably do with something to line their stomach.

“Is being human always this delightfully contradictory? So baffling and solid and… damp?” Desire asks, lifting their head just enough to peer at Hob as he re-enters the room. It's a moot question, of course. They've been human long enough now to know that the answer is, largely, yes.

“Often. But do you know, my sibling, the very best part of being human?” Desire turns lazily to look at Morpheus, smiling wide. Their lipstick today is dark purple, and smudged at the corners of their mouth.

“Mm, do tell. You know how much I crave your… wisdom,” they say, rolling the words indulgently over their tongue. Hob sighs and nudges Morpheus’ book to one side so he can set the tray down on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

“It is that it is no longer against the Old Laws for me to do this,” Morpheus says, planting one foot against their side and shoving hard enough that they topple off the bed with an outraged squawk and undignified thump. There's a blessed moment of stillness, the same kind of breathless anticipation that Hob remembers from the battlefield, before the charge and the mud and the pain. Then they pop back up over the side of the bed with a cry and launch themself at Morpheus. He'd be more worried if he couldn’t hear the laughter in their voice, nor see how their outstretched hands target Morpheus’ ribs and armpits, rather than his eyes.

Hob's sisters have been dead for centuries now, but he remembers this well enough. Maybe if the Endless had ever been anything like children, they might have gotten all of the murderous posturing out of the way before they grew up enough for it to be a problem, he muses. Still. Better late than never.

He takes a sip of his own tea and grabs a biscuit. Lord knows he won't get a look in once Morpheus has finished trying to jam his elbow into Desire's stomach and realises they're there.

“It was never against the Old Laws for you to be a bastard, which is lucky because you always were one!” Desire gasps, writhing away from Morpheus’ pointy limbs. Hob's been at the receiving end of those elbows before, and even when Morpheus is being gentle, they're decently sharp. He wonders idly if either of them'll tire of this before their tea goes cold, and decides not to intervene either way. Serve them both right if they have to drink cold tea.

“You tried to kill me!”

“Don't tell me you're still hung up on that?”

“I am, because you tried to kill me!”

“Well it's not like it worked!”

Not really the point, Hob reckons, but then again he's had plenty of mates that have tried to kill him.

“More by good fortune than good judgment,” Morpheus hisses.

“Oh, so you admit to your poor judgment?”

Hob snorts, and the wounded look Morpheus swings towards him would fell a lesser man. Hob takes another biscuit.

“Ha!” Desire takes advantage of his momentary distraction to lock their arms around his shoulders and blow a loud raspberry against his cheek. Hob doesn’t think he's entirely successful in hiding his smile. Morpheus doesn't even try to hide his look of disgust.

Well, he had to learn the downsides of being an older brother at some point, Hob supposes.

Judging that the worst of the scrapping is over, he perches on the edge of the bed and pats Morpheus’ flank idly. Desire, loose-limbed with alcohol and triumph, flops over him to reach for their tea. Morpheus magnanimously doesn't jab his fingers into their exposed side.

“Thank you, Robert darling,” Desire says, eyes half-lidded as they drink. It comes out far less coquettish than Hob imagines they intended; too genuinely content. Morpheus sighs, and frowns, and doesn't quite do a good enough job of hiding his own ease as he sits up and leans against Hob.

“I suppose you intend to stay the night?” Morpheus asks. There's nothing of the dignified dreamlord about him now, with his hair flattened on one side and just a little lank, and pillow creases on his cheek. He peers at Desire, half of his weight still supported by Hob, who takes another slurp of tea and polishes off the last of his biscuit. It's still unbelievable, sometimes, that he may see his dour and distant old stranger like this. Something tangible, something grounded, something he can hold. Unbelievable, too, after the way they had almost parted, after the way Morpheus had almost –

Well. Doesn't bear thinking about, really.

“Mm, yes, if you'll have me.” Do they have to work to make everything they say sound like a double entendre, Hob wonders, or does it come naturally? He's not entirely sure they even notice they're doing it.

“You're always welcome,” Hob says. “Guest room's all made up, and there's a spare toothbrush under the sink you can have.”

“How very kind. Dream, dear, isn't your man kind?”

“Unreasonably so.”

“Ta, love,” Hob says, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Desire rolls their eyes theatrically, as though that might mask how their expression softens. “Now drink your tea, I'd like to get a few more hours’ sleep before I need to get up.”

Morpheus grumbles but straightens up, plucking his mug from the nightstand and cradling it in one hand while he reaches for a biscuit with the other.

“Should we expect any of our other siblings to join us tonight?” He asks, managing somehow not to spray crumbs everywhere as he does so, which is a bit unfair. Hob has centuries more experience talking through mouthfuls of crumbly biscuits, and he still can't do as good a job of it. “I take it you did not venture out alone this night.”

“No I didn't, but don't worry,” Desire says, tilting their head back as they drain their mug, a neat ring of purple left behind on the ceramic. “My sweet twin is unlikely to make an appearance. I certainly hope, at least – she went home with that little exorcist friend of yours. If she comes here, then something’s gone dreadfully wrong.”

They grin, cat with the cream pleased at the expression on Morpheus’ face, and flick their hand in something like a wave. “Well, goodnight brother! Robert.”

They flounce away towards the spare room, and Hob presses his smile into the curve of Morpheus’ shoulder.

“I hate them,” Morpheus grumbles. Hob kisses the bony jut of skin where his t-shirt has slipped, once, twice.

“No you don't,” he says. Morpheus sighs, sets his mug down, and returns to hold Hob's face still for a proper kiss. Not that Hob would try to get out of it.

“No,” he agrees softly, pulling Hob down with him for a cuddle onto pillows that still smell a little of peaches. “No. I do not.”

#dreamling #dream of the endless #desire of the endless #hob gadling #This was originally going to be part of 'Em's retirement home for wayward Endless'#in which Dream retired and all of the other Endless followed (except destruction who didn't want someone else saddled with the job)#A sort of 5+1 thing with each of the ex-endless siblings interacting with dream and hob #and 1 of the current endless #But unfortunately my brain isn't up to that so you guys get this instead #Anyway I think a lot of problems would have been solved if Dream and Desire had gone through developmental stages like regular siblings #Here we see the 'toddler' phase. Hob is lucky they're not biting each other #Not exactly a writing tag

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