In 1989 a comic book company known as Vertigo, published the first graphic story of an extended series known as The Sandman. In 1996, the story ended with the death of the main character. Not at all uncommon, but what came to pass between 1989 and 1996 was nothing short of a miracle. The birth, if you will, of a new way of looking at our belief systems and our philosophies. Something that made us question the world around us. Something that we fed on. To the fans of The Sandman, there is no question as to the worth of the literature they were reading, and it IS literature. The characters are unforgettable, the story lines inconcievable, and the different books of the series from A Doll's House to The Kindly Ones have added up into one gigantic dreamlike story that none of us could have ever realized. They are important, I believe. Capable of changing the way people see the world.
It is the story of seven brothers and sisters, the Endless, who are not gods, for gods die when their worshippers are gone, and who control the interworkings of the universe and mankind. They are, in order of age, Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. 300 years ago, Destruction abandoned his realm. The end of the series marks the end of Dream, an quiet and brooding gentleman but rather incapable of displaying most emotion and a man who takes his job very seriously. He can seem cold and unfeeling at the time, but those of us who know Dream know that this isn't so. He is known as the Dream-Shaper, the Dream King, Lord Morpheus, and by a thousand other names from other times and places. This series has earned the respect of such people as Tori Amos and Clive Barker, and of me.
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Back to My Main Page
Sandman Annotations (The Storylines)
Gallery of the Endless
Neil Gaiman's Sandman
Pages of Magic
Great Geocities Sandman Page
The Dreaming: The Neil Gaiman Page
Jim McDonald's Sandman Page
Magian Line: A Neil Gaiman Newsletter
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