Terry LaBan

The Dreaming was the second of the three ongoings to spin out of The Sandman (the others being Sandman Mystery Theatre and Lucifer).  Unlike the other two, it's largely uncollected; there are only two trades, which collect a scattered seventeen issues of the sixty-issue series.  Maybe this is because it had a sort of anthology format, moving between different characters and concepts from the Dreaming, the realm ruled over by Gaiman's character-- there's not really an ongoing character show more narrative.

This first volume collects three different stories, the first of which is Terry LaBan and Peter Snejbjerg's "The Goldie Factor."  This concerns a couple of my favorite characters from the Dreaming, Cain and Abel, the brothers were one is an eternal murderer and the other is an eternal victim.  They set off after Abel's pet gargoyle, Goldie, who is being misled by "the Great Tempto," the snake from the Garden of Eden.  Gaiman's Eve, Matthew the Raven, and Lucien also appear.  It's a decent quest story, mostly worth it for the way that LaBan nails the personalities of all the different Sandman characters; I like the interplay between the feuding brothers especially.  On the other hand, LaBan and Snejbjerg's Dreaming feels too much like a pedestrian fantasy world, not a place you might inadvertently wander into on the fringes of consciousness.

The second story is Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse's "The Lost Boy," is about an architect from 1956 who wanders into 1996 and finds a world he doesn't understand.  Unfortunately, the man-out-of-time story has been done better than here, and though I think the architect is supposed to be a likeable average guy, he's more just boring.  This undercuts an ending which I think would have been sweet had it been written better.  The best part of this over-long story (it is by no means a four-issue concept) is the return of Mad Hettie, the vagrant who popped up from time to time in both The Sandman and Death.  I honestly never paid a lot of attention to her before, but amidst these dull characters, she delights with her matter-of-fact weirdness, as she speaks plainly about mystical happenings to humans and fairies alike.  I really liked Steve Parkhouse's artwork, though.

Last is Alisa Kwitney and Michael Zulli's short "His Brother's Keeper," which follows up on a mention of Cain and Abel's brother Seth from "The Goldie Factor," but then tells a story that has nothing to do with that concept at all.  Baffling and dull.

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Spin-Offs: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

The Dreaming: Beyond the Shores of Night collects The Dreaming nos. 1-8 from 1996-1997, with the stories “The Goldie Factor,” “The Lost Boy,” and “His Brother’s Keeper.” They were written by Terry LaBan, Peter Hogan, and Alisa Kwitney with art by Peter Snejbjerg, Steve Parkhouse, Michael Zulli, and Dick Giordano. Dave McKean provided the covers while Neil Gaiman acted as a consultant. The stories are set within the Dreaming, the realm of Morpheus the Lord of Dream from show more Gaiman’s Sandman comic series.

In “The Goldie Factor,” Abel’s golden gargoyle wanders off after seeing the abuse Cain constantly inflicts upon Abel. The two brothers go searching for Goldie and find the meaning of origin stories. “The Lost Boy” focuses on a man who finds himself transported forty years into the future and must figure out his place in the world. It also features Johanna Constantine, Made Hettie, Destiny, and Cain from The Sandman. Finally, “His Brother’s Keeper” further explores the relationship between Cain and Abel as well as their extended family: mother Eve, brother Seth, and sister Aclima.

Interesting as these stories are, both Gaiman’s Endless Nights anthology and DC’s reboot of The Dreaming under their 2018 Sandman Universe banner ignored all of the events and characters from this version of the title. As satisfying as series contributor Caitlin R. Kiernan found the work, she felt it suffered from the expectation that it live up to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman rather than exist as its own, loosely-related work. For fans of Gaiman’s The Sandman, this still has plenty to offer even if later stories removed it from canon. show less

A simple little mashup of folklore and DC Universe lore, this story is accessible and fun even to those who don't follow Green Lantern (I, a Gotham girl to the core, do not.) Its real appeal lies in the glorious pictures by my favorite fantasy artist, Rebecca Guay. 64 glorious full-color pages of her work are a delight and a treat, and create the magic that makes this book work.

Three story arcs collected in one volume. The Goldie Factor in which Abel's gargoyle is lead astray by the Serpent who is trying to undo the Fall and then discovers her identity and destiny; The Lost Boy in which an encounter with the Fay and with Mad Hetty causes a man to lose his way in time but participate in the fate of the US as a nation; and His Brother's Keeper, in which Seth learns more about his brothers. Each is interesting in its own way.