You may remember my glowing review of Watchmen several weeks ago. You may remember me saying that I don't usually read graphic novels because I don't usually understand them. You may remember how very very much I loved Watchmen.

Well, a good friend of mine got the same earful of happiness after I read Watchmen, and she, being a comic book buff, promptly gave me recommendations! The Sandman was on the top of her list. And friends... it's awesome. I freely admit that I had trouble following it for the first half, falling prey to my usual nemeses: Not being able to remember which characters were which and not being able to tell what was going on in the frame. But something in it really appealed to me, and in the middle of the book, suddenly it started making sense. A lot of sense.

I love anthropomorphic personifications. Maybe that's a weird sentence, but I do. Once I could really grasp that this is a book about personifications, then I had a handle to hold on to while I figured the rest of the book out. And these personifications are like no others. They're actually SCARY. Most of the time when something is made human, it loses a sense of Otherness and we start to oversympathize. But, while these characters could be sympathized with, (boy could they, I think I'm in love with Dream) they never stopped being something larger than life.

The disjointedness of the plot and art were probably what I had to get used to the most, but I really like them now. There are a lot of sudden transitions and flipping back and forth between scenes. There's a lot of thick black and bold, dark colors. That's the mood of the story, and it's wonderful. Even I, a person of no squeamish tendencies, had one or two gross-out moments (warning for those of more delicate sensibilities,) but it reassures me when a story doesn't shy away from the bad stuff. When the bad guys are bad.

I have three favorite scenes. The first: the duel in Hell. This was when I really scooted up to the edge of my seat and started paying attention. I thought "Hey, I better keep an eye on this Dream guy, he knows his stuff." He had me at "I am h--" ...well, I won't spoil.

The second: Toward the end, when Dream was with Doctor Destiny for the last time. This scene was the one that showed me how incredible Dream really is, how powerful but still with a huge grasp of the way things really are.

The last: The final chapter. Because Death was in it, and she was scary!

So. This was the first volume of eleven. I'm discovering that there's a real intensity that can be achieved in the graphic novel form, like a story distilled into only the most important images and dialogue, and I look forward to reading the rest!

http://fatalisfortuna.blogspot.com/20... ( )

While trying to summon Death, the leader of a mysterious order inadvertently captures Dream, imprisoning him for years. This wreaks havoc on the world as we know it, as Dream's tools are used by humans who have no way of coping with their power, and several people become infected with a "sleepy sickness." All Dream can think about is getting free - and then getting revenge.

The first in the Sandman series is a little uneven, very creepy ("24 Hours" was downright scary), and I liked Dream and some of the other characters introduced. I'm definitely going to read the next book in the series to see how things develop. ( )

Though Gaiman had already made his mark with Black Orchid, Sandman is where he really begins to fall into his style, which sometimes becomes his downfall in its predictability.

Here, he plays for perhaps the first time at mixing mythology, spirituality, and strange real events into a story beyond the ken of other fairytale rewrites and new age mysticism. There is a sense here that the characters and story are still undeveloped in his mind, which provides the reader with some welcome ambiguity, as soon he will nail down the characters into something a bit too precise and not quite realistic enough.

Of course, this merely becomes his frame around which he tells stories from any place or era which more than make up for the lack of conflict in other parts. The final story in this collection is an exploration of the depths of human desire and control, which recalls to us the depravity of The Lord Of The Flies. It should be unsurprising to us that Sandman became a classic by shocking and questioning its readers, and it must sadden us that no more comics have won the World Fantasy Award since. ( )

Not for young readers, to be sure. This was more horrific in places than I could enjoy. I did like the character Morpheus and the imaginative plot. I found it even suspenseful at times. The sibling of The Sandman was pretty great too. Very interesting references and ideas, I'll keep reading the series for awhile yet. ( )

Preludes & Nocturnes is the first volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. While it serves as an adequate introduction to the story of Dream, it does not make for a stellar first impression. While the artwork (produced by three different artists) is beautiful and highly expressive, it is somewhat difficult to follow. The plot, while decent, is slow paced and sometimes encumbered by Gaiman's attempts to shoehorn in familiar comic book characters. Despite the issues I had with this volume, I found it imaginative and engrossing enough to want to continue reading the series. ( )