Peter Hogan (2)

For the last three years, an alien has been stranded on Earth, hiding out in Colorado as retired doctor Harry Vanderspeigle. No one pays him any mind until the town doctor is murdered and the mayor asks Dr. Vanderspeigle to come out of retirement until a replacement can arrive. Harry has been bored on Earth, with no way home, so he figures solving a murder mystery might occupy his time.

I really love the TV show Resident Alien, so I was curious to read the source material. I had heard that show more the TV show was lightened up a bit when Alan Tudyk was cast, but I’m not sure that’s the case. I think the TV show is a little darker, and a lot funnier, than this. It also has a more diverse cast of side characters; while the Native characters are here from the start, they’re pretty stereotypical. It’s not a particularly objectionable comic, but the tv show is just so much better that it’s hardly worth reading. I might continue just out of curiosity, but I might not. show less

The second volume of The Dreaming has more of a throughline than the first, which is probably meant to stop it from feeling like a series of weak imitations of the standalone issues of its parent series. That said, it's actually one of the standalones that's the best story in this book, Jeff Nicholson's "Day's Work, Night's Rest," which tells of an office drone who dreams that he's working with Merv Pumpkinhead's construction team in the Dreaming. Merv was my second-favorite character in The show more Sandman, so of course I loved this, despite a bleak ending at odds with the tone of the rest of the story, not to mention the art. How could Merv telling everyone that he runs the Dreaming not be fun?

I also really enjoyed Peter Hogan and Gary Amaro's "Ice," which is a mood piece about a number of different Sandman characters some New Year's Eve/Day: Lucien, Merv, Farrell the God of Transport, Nuala, Cluracan. The Cluracan subplot is baffling, but it's small, and the interplay between Lucien and Nuala, now over Dream and working in a bar on the Earth, is sweet.

Caitlin R. Kiernan, Peter Doherty, and d'Israeli's "Souvenirs" promises to be interesting because it focuses on my favorite Sandman character, Matthew the Raven, teaming him up with the Corinthian, which worked really well in The Kindly Ones. Unfortunately, this story is nonsensical, and then it just stops. Matthew gets some good material, though, such as when someone on the Earth realizes he's a talking raven: "Yeah, Sherlock. I can talk. I'm a talking bird. Now, call him an ambulance or I'm gonna peck your stupid face off." The story gets a direct followup in Caitlin Kiernan and Paul Lee's "An Unkindness of One," which should be even better but is even worse. It puts Matthew back in his human body and Lucien back into a raven one, but then does nothing interesting with either concept, aside from the occasional cool image, and there's a lot about Echo, the villain in "Souvenirs" and I just don't care. How could you mess up what should be the definitive Matthew story this bad?

The book is rounded out by another Peter Hogan story, this time with Chris Weston, "My Year as a Man," which is an okay tale about one of Dream's earlier ravens. Nothing too bad, nothing too great; the best part is the brief appearance of Abel, Lucien, and Matthew in the frame.

Apparently Caitlin Kiernan essentially took over the direction of The Dreaming after this; maybe I should be grateful that the rest of the issues are uncollected even if they are about some great characters, as based on her lackluster six issues here, she just doesn't get what makes the Dreaming interesting.

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

Martian Manhunter meets "Murder She Wrote" in this small-town murder mystery starring a marooned alien whose vague mental powers allow him to appear to be human to most of the people around him. Aloof and posing as a doctor, he's recruited by the local police to help look over the victim's body in a murder and finds himself getting drawn deeper into the community.

Low-key and low-stakes, it's still a pleasant read if a smidge too cozy for me.

Dr Harry Vanderspeigel is not what he seems. He's an alien living in a small town who crash landed and is hoping that some day someone will rescue him, only the local doctor has been murdered and while the local cops think they have the mystery solved the truth is out there. However the locals need a doctor and Dr Vandersepigel seems to fit the bill. As he investigates he finds more about the town and comes to care more about it and the inhabitants.
It was a fun read with interesting show more characters and made me want to revisit the TV series. show less