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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 3, 2019 15:18:35 GMT -5
I initially had misgivings about the way Death looked. I mean, depicting her as a cute teenage goth chick might've seemed edgy to young readers in 1989, but reading this as a 40-something man in 2019 just induced severe eye-rolling from me... I don't now about edgy, but it definitely was new (before everybody started doing the same thing). Death in super-hero comics had until then mostly been represented as some aloof robed figure, pretty close to the traditional skeleton with a scythe imagery. Neil's Death may have been copied to death (pun unintended) since then, but back then a cheery, caring teenager with a then-modern fashion sense was quite novel. I get the eye-rolling, though... the best way to seem dated is to adopt any trendy fashion. I suppose that for someone who meets Gaiman's Death for the first time, her gothic look might be the equivalent of Superman's mullet!!! |
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Post by badwolf on Dec 3, 2019 16:07:42 GMT -5
The Doll's House is my single favorite arc in the series. The Sandman was originally billed as a horror comic and I recall being slightly disappointed when it took a turn into lighter fantasy. I don't see it as trying to be edgy, for me he was telling stories that were unsettling on a deep level.
When I first read the series I had no idea that any of the Dreaming inhabitants - Cain, Abel, Brute, Glob, etc. - had appeared before.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Dec 3, 2019 17:15:14 GMT -5
I wonder if we could call the years 1986-1996 The Dark Ages for comic books? Maybe the seeds were Frank Miller on Daredevil and the dark Phoenix X-Men story, but starting around 1986 things got dark and 'mature' in the worlds of super people. A term like "The Dark Ages" might be applicable to that era insofar as things got darker thematically in mainstream comics. But personally, I don't consider it a dark age, as far as it being creatively barren or a terrible period for comics. Some of my all-time favourite mini-series and one-shots appeared during that era: The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, The Killing Joke, Marvels, V for Vendetta, Maus, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and The Sandman to name just a few. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 3, 2019 17:30:22 GMT -5
I initially had misgivings about the way Death looked. I mean, depicting her as a cute teenage goth chick might've seemed edgy to young readers in 1989, but reading this as a 40-something man in 2019 just induced severe eye-rolling from me... I don't now about edgy, but it definitely was new (before everybody started doing the same thing). Death in super-hero comics had until then mostly been represented as some aloof robed figure, pretty close to the traditional skeleton with a scythe imagery. Neil's Death may have been copied to death (pun unintended) since then, but back then a cheery, caring teenager with a then-modern fashion sense was quite novel. I get the eye-rolling, though... the best way to seem dated is to adopt any trendy fashion. I suppose that for someone who meets Gaiman's Death for the first time, her gothic look might be the equivalent of Superman's mullet!!! I agree with RR. It's significantly less eye-rolling than, for example, the "hipness" of 60s era Teen Titans. I think I've related before, but I knew Death. Not super well, but I did know her. The visual for Death was created by Mike Dringenberg based on Cinnamon Hadley. My wife and I moved to Salt Lake City in 1990. Through my wife's work she met a couple of people in Salt Lake's Goth scene and ultimately I met Cinnamon a few times. We were certainly not friends, more like friends of acquaintances, but she was a very striking young lady. It's pretty clear from Martian Manhunter's encounter with Morpheus that an persons perception of the Endless is individual and filtered through their culture and experience. So the way the Endless were portrayed in Sandman is really a shorthand that is tied to the 90s for that reason. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 3, 2019 17:31:44 GMT -5
I wonder if we could call the years 1986-1996 The Dark Ages for comic books? Maybe the seeds were Frank Miller on Daredevil and the dark Phoenix X-Men story, but starting around 1986 things got dark and 'mature' in the worlds of super people. I'm a bit skeptical about the 'females like stories where they are orphans that are really princesses' line, but I read books like Heidi, The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, Alice, Jane Eyre and Anne Of Green Gables which all have at least an aspect of that. I don't think Little House On The Prairie or Charlotte's Web did though, and I liked them as much or more. American authors whereas the others all were non-U.S. Hmmm.  |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Dec 3, 2019 19:04:20 GMT -5
I agree with RR. It's significantly less eye-rolling than, for example, the "hipness" of 60s era Teen Titans. Ha! Pretty much anything is less eye-roll inducing that that!  I think I've related before, but I knew Death. Not super well, but I did know her. The visual for Death was created by Mike Dringenberg based on Cinnamon Hadley. My wife and I moved to Salt Lake City in 1990. Through my wife's work she met a couple of people in Salt Lake's Goth scene and ultimately I met Cinnamon a few times. We were certainly not friends, more like friends of acquaintances, but she was a very striking young lady. Wow! I'd not seen you mention this before. That's really interesting. Thanks for sharing, Slam. It's pretty clear from Martian Manhunter's encounter with Morpheus that an persons perception of the Endless is individual and filtered through their culture and experience. So the way the Endless were portrayed in Sandman is really a shorthand that is tied to the 90s for that reason. Oh, absolutely. I made mention of how Dream's appearance changes to suit his environment and the era in which he manifests in my review of "The Doll's House". To be clear though, my eye-rolling at the way Death looked was only my initial reaction to her -- and I think that was more to do with her being a sexy young woman, more than her looking like a goth. I dunno, depicting the grim reaper as a quirky, young sexpot just seemed like a very early '90s, "for mature readers" thing to do. But I guess that like all art, The Sandman is ultimately a product of its time. Also, I do take RR's point about Death being portrayed as a sexy goth chick being much more original and innovative back in the early '90s. But regardless of my initial reaction to her, I came to love Death as a character by the time I'd finished "The Sound of Her Wings". |
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 3, 2019 20:12:04 GMT -5
Came to love death? I thought that was Marvel's territory with Thanos...
I guess the traditional maggots and stinking putrid purpley-yellowey-grey flesh just wasn't going to move the units and merch rights with the young demographic. I hope death comes to me as swimming pool of Beefaroni personally (with layers of Cheez-Its on the way down).
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 3, 2019 22:11:16 GMT -5
Love Sandman so much.
A lot of Sandman miscellany is... pretty bad, but I'd strongly recommend the Sandman Companion by Hy Bender. It's 80% interviews and really shows you where the creative teams heads were at. (Also a pretty quick and fun read.)
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 4, 2019 0:49:45 GMT -5
This version of the Simon & Kirby Sandman was introduced in his own comic, which was killed off quickly. Jed was a young orphan, whose grandfather dies and he goes to live with relatives, who treat him poorly. He crosses paths with Sandman and Brute and Glob and shares their adventures, especially the Christmas story that was to be in the next issue, when the series was cancelled. It eventually saw the light of day in a DC Digest.
This Sandman was left dormant (sorry) until Roy Thomas put him in Wonder Woman and gave him an origin that was absent from the Simon and Kirby series. That was it until post-Crisis, when his name and mantle was taken up by Hector Hall, aka Silver Scarab, of Infinity, Inc. Hector was the son of Hawkman and Hawkgirl and had a romance with Lyta Trevor, aka Fury (originally daughter of Wonder Woman, but retconned into the daughter of the Golden Age Fury, a character created by Roy Thomas and used in Young All-Stars). Hector "dies" in a storyline and his consciousness finds the form of the S&K Sandman and inhabits it, returning him to Lyta. This was his identity when Infinity, Inc was axed. Here, Gaiman dispenses with the rival Sandman, though Hector would be reborn as the new Dr Fate, in the James Robinson JSA revival. Lyta's hero past is all but forgotten in this Sandman series, as Gaiman had other purposes for her. I'm not aware of her use in any other DC books, after Gaiman used her here; but I could have easily missed that (especially in the last decade)
To me, the book starts out very much a horror title, with elements of myth and fantasy. As it progresses, the myth and fantasy elements become central, while the horror recedes. Gaiman has read his fantasy literature and is heavily influenced by writers like Lord Dunsany, while also contemporary writers. He has ties to Clive Barker and his close friend, Kim Newman, similarly mixes horror and fantasy in his work (the Anno Dracula series, the Diogenes Club stories, The Angels of Music, The Quorum, Jago).
The convention of serial killers was really creepy, as was the fate of Jed and other victims we see; but, the Corinthian really creeped me out, between the way he acted in the story and his eyes.
The folk tale transition shows Gaiman delving into myth, which will inform his greatest work (in the minds of the literary set) American Gods, as well as its sequel/companion Anansi Boys.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 4, 2019 1:02:41 GMT -5
I can't recall if we meet Delirium yet ; but, she was based on Tori Amos, another close friend of Gaiman's, who would do a song or two about the world of Sandman. Destiny we will meet later, but he was a pre-existing DC character, from the supernatural books.
I always assumed the two sisters with the spider obsession was an homage to Miss Havisham, in Great Expectations.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 4, 2019 6:06:24 GMT -5
To me, the book starts out very much a horror title, with elements of myth and fantasy. As it progresses, the myth and fantasy elements become central, while the horror recedes. Gaiman has read his fantasy literature and is heavily influenced by writers like Lord Dunsany, while also contemporary writers. He has ties to Clive Barker and his close friend, Kim Newman, similarly mixes horror and fantasy in his work (the Anno Dracula series, the Diogenes Club stories, The Angels of Music, The Quorum, Jago). Yeah, I remember that from the Companion. The first few issues of Sandman were very specifically different sub-genres of horror. The first issues was British Upper Crust Occult Society Horror (This is 80% wrong, but I don't have the book here at home), and then it's Charles DeLint style Urban Horror for the Constantine story... Then straight slasher movie, I guess. Doing some this-thread-inspired googling led me to a fan-film based on the diner sequence, but I dunno if I want to watch it. |
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Post by shaxper on Dec 4, 2019 7:40:19 GMT -5
I love the diner issue, but I guess if you're not a horror fan it might not be as appealing. I found it quite disturbing and one of the most memorable stories of the entire series. It wasn't the gore or the horrific nature of this part that turned me off, it was the fact that it felt a little too "slasher movie" or something. Like Gaiman was trying a little too hard to be edgy, almost just for the sake of it. I dunno, it just felt a little forced to me and not in keeping with the atmosphere of the rest of this opening arc. 24 Hours was one of my selections for favorite horror comic story during the CCF Long Halloween 2014, and yet I love it for much the same reason that you don't...it doesn't fit. Gaiman was still clearly struggling with what the scope and tone of this work would be in that first volume, and 24 Hours was an odd experiment/anomaly that only could have appeared in those first ten issues. He went on to write far more cringe-worthy moments than that, but even the later Calliope story was far more in keeping with the general scope and tone of the series. |
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Post by Confessor on Dec 4, 2019 9:30:07 GMT -5
It wasn't the gore or the horrific nature of this part that turned me off, it was the fact that it felt a little too "slasher movie" or something. Like Gaiman was trying a little too hard to be edgy, almost just for the sake of it. I dunno, it just felt a little forced to me and not in keeping with the atmosphere of the rest of this opening arc. 24 Hours was one of my selections for favorite horror comic story during the CCF Long Halloween 2014, and yet I love it for much the same reason that you don't...it doesn't fit. Gaiman was still clearly struggling with what the scope and tone of this work would be in that first volume, and 24 Hours was an odd experiment/anomaly that only could have appeared in those first ten issues. He went on to write far more cringe-worthy moments than that, but even the later Calliope story was far more in keeping with the general scope and tone of the series. I loved the Calliope story. Yeah, I think this is a case of us regarding the "24 Hours Diner" in the same way, but drawing different conclusions...or, at least, drawing varying levels of enjoyment from it. You're right about it being the kind of stylistic anomaly that could've only appeared eary on in the series, as Gaiman threw different concepts at the wall to see what stuck. But for me, it's precisely that stylistic difference that turned me off of it. To my mind Gaiman got the tone of Sandman pretty much spot on in the first issue, but then he tried tinkering with it in a search for the thematic core of the series, and "24 Hours Diner" was one of his experiments. As I noted in my review, I found it too "slasher movie-like" and I couldn't shake the impression that this was an early '90s "for mature readers" book trying to be mature just for the sake of it. Like, "hey, look what we can do in comics nowadays!" In that respect, this issue seemed very of its time. I probably would've loved it had I read it in 1990, when I was in my late teens, but as a 40-something in 2019 it just left me cold. |
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Post by Confessor on Dec 4, 2019 10:12:54 GMT -5
This version of the Simon & Kirby Sandman was introduced in his own comic, which was killed off quickly. Jed was a young orphan, whose grandfather dies and he goes to live with relatives, who treat him poorly. He crosses paths with Sandman and Brute and Glob and shares their adventures, especially the Christmas story that was to be in the next issue, when the series was cancelled. It eventually saw the light of day in a DC Digest. This Sandman was left dormant (sorry) until Roy Thomas put him in Wonder Woman and gave him an origin that was absent from the Simon and Kirby series. That was it until post-Crisis, when his name and mantle was taken up by Hector Hall, aka Silver Scarab, of Infinity, Inc. Hector was the son of Hawkman and Hawkgirl and had a romance with Lyta Trevor, aka Fury (originally daughter of Wonder Woman, but retconned into the daughter of the Golden Age Fury, a character created by Roy Thomas and used in Young All-Stars). Hector "dies" in a storyline and his consciousness finds the form of the S&K Sandman and inhabits it, returning him to Lyta. This was his identity when Infinity, Inc was axed. Here, Gaiman dispenses with the rival Sandman, though Hector would be reborn as the new Dr Fate, in the James Robinson JSA revival. Lyta's hero past is all but forgotten in this Sandman series, as Gaiman had other purposes for her. I'm not aware of her use in any other DC books, after Gaiman used her here; but I could have easily missed that (especially in the last decade) Good info there, cody. You obviously know your DC C-Listers better than I do.  So, Brute and Glob are not Gaiman creations then? They were present in the Kirby Sandman comic? Interesting. I can't recall if we meet Delirium yet ; but, she was based on Tori Amos, another close friend of Gaiman's, who would do a song or two about the world of Sandman. No, we haven't met Delirium yet, as far as these first two TPBs go, but I have encountered her in what I've read of the series so far. Didn't know about the Tori Amos link though...or that Amos had written songs about Sandman. Destiny we will meet later, but he was a pre-existing DC character, from the supernatural books. Again, good info. I had no idea that she wasn't a Gaiman creation. I always assumed the two sisters with the spider obsession was an homage to Miss Havisham, in Great Expectations. Yes, so did I. |
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Post by Confessor on Dec 4, 2019 10:26:11 GMT -5
]Yeah, I remember that from the Companion. The first few issues of Sandman were very specifically different sub-genres of horror. The first issues was British Upper Crust Occult Society Horror (This is 80% wrong, but I don't have the book here at home), and then it's Charles DeLint style Urban Horror for the Constantine story... Then straight slasher movie, I guess. Oh OK, that's really interesting. I can definitely see that, but I also wonder whether there's a little bit of retroactive rationalsation creeping in? I mean, I can definitely see that this might've been the case, but I still believe there's an awful lot of Gaiman and co just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks in those early issues. As I mentioned to shaxper a little earlier, I think Gaiman pretty much got the feel and mood of Sandman spot on in the very first issue. From there on, over the first 6 or 7 issues, he seems to be tinkering with it -- not just in terms of introducing different genres of horror, as you suggest, but in terms of the overall ambiance of each story and even the personalities of the characters. I think half of the reason that I liked issue #8, "The Sound of Her Wings", so much was because it's the point where Gaiman first takes the promise of issue #1 and really delivers on it in a profound and rather moving way. Still, the information about Gaiman deliberately utilising different sub-genres of horror in the "Preludes & Nocturnes" volume certainly makes me view those stories in a different light. Great info, Repti! |
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