Mystery-Saint vs. The Sandman

Mystery-Saint vs. The Sandman

Whoa. Somehow I escaped all the Sandman action when it was current. I came late to the Graphic Novel game. The first one that really nailed me to the wall was Alan Moore's tasteful Melodrama "From Hell".

Well over the last few months I have gotten hooked on The Sandman. From the first time in the comic book we see our Hero who has been invoked and trapped inside a magickal crystal by an Aleister Crowley style diabolist; I am hooked. The Sandman (or Morpheus; The Dream King) is like the ultimate thin drawn lost rock and roller, burning his candle at both ends to keep the world of Dream, which we mortals just take for granted, rocking around the clock. He's like the guy Robert Smith stole his look from; but the guy who actually knew how to work the symbols and scry in the glass, as opposed to just putting on his eye make-up on in the glass.

I read the different volumes out of order, based on what was available.

Along the Sandman journey I saw scenes of Horror and Romance, Tragedy and Comedy. I met other characters; Matthew the talking Raven, Thesallie the Witch, Dream's other siblings (Destiny, Destruction, Desire, Delirium, Despair and Death, who is the cute Punk Rock Girl of Your Dreams). There are many plots and subplots and much reference to occult mythology and fairy tales and practices of the cunning folk and even a little bit of Quantum Theory spookiness in the form of a little Science dropped by young Delirium on Dream about the nature of the Observer and how he alters the Observed in this mutable universe.

The art is beautiful throughout but I most liked the minimalist Murakami-esque super flat style of Volume 9: The Kindly Ones. The Bonus Volume Endless Nights has jaw dropping art as well.

Neil Gaiman's writing is clear and effective, even poetic at times. He has a natural musicality and better humour than most comic book writers. He doesn't dive as deeply into esoterica as Alan Moore but still seems to to know his way around around a grimoire or two. Reading this comic book coincided with my discovery of the band The Knife and I can't think of a better soundtrack album to this than "Silent Shout".

You won't be wasting time getting to know The Dream King, The Sandman, Lord Shaper, the one for whom everything is mutable except the rigid parameters of the Self, this is his journey to becoming unstuck, or what the Buddhists would call reaching Enlightenment and it may juyt the thing to get your consciousness unstuck as well.