The Sandman: Book of Dreams

The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman began its run in DC comics in 1989 and continued through 1996, and the series was later compiled into ten volumes. This review covers Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes, and Volume 2: The Doll’s House. I had no previous knowledge of The Sandman before this reading; I had heard of the series in reference to Neil Gaiman, but I didn’t know anything about it and only assumed that the main character must have something to do with controlling people’s dreams. Well, I wasn’t wrong! But there’s obviously more to it than that.

The series follows Dream, aka Morpheus, as one of seven “Endless” anthropomorphic beings representing different concepts. In the first two volumes, we meet Dream, Death, Desire, and Despair. A human man performs a ritual meant to summon and trap Death so that the man could become immortal, but he ends up trapping Dream instead. The man holds Dream hostage in a continued attempt to trap Death, but he never succeeds. When Dream finally escapes his decades-long imprisonment, he has a huge mess to clean up since his realm is in chaos. Thus, the first volume is about Dream recovering his objects of power that were stolen during his imprisonment, and the second volume sees him chasing down some entities that escaped his realm during that time as well.

Dream/Morpheus is an interesting character because he’s not really good or evil. He creates both nightmares and sweet dreams, and follows a sort of justice in the balance people have between dreams and nightmares. For instance, if an entity from the dreamworld traps a human into perpetual nightmares or traps them in the dreamworld itself, Dream frees them from their suffering as soon as he is made aware of it. But he also doesn’t particularly sympathize with humans when it comes time to die, as Death (his sister) is inevitable and necessary. He is capable of love, as we see in “Tales in the Sand” in Volume Two, where he fell in love with a woman named Nada about ten thousand years ago. That issue was easily my favorite of what I’ve read so far, as it’s such an interesting story despite its sadness. (It’s probably also my favorite because it’s the least horror issue.)

The artwork in this series is truly great, although also literally horrific. I’m not personally a horror person, so the graphic depictions of demons and mutilated bodies, etc., are almost enough to keep me away from the entire series. I personally think the artwork on the covers and the issue title pages is the most disturbing, perhaps because it’s usually a more realistic drawing style. If you’re the least bit squeamish, this series is probably not for you, and that’s ok. My favorite use of space in the artwork was a few sequences that spun the art around in a circle or sideways when someone was falling asleep/entering the dreamworld. Having such a stark representation of a different plane of existence is very clever and entertaining. The use of coloring to highlight important details was also very nice. And some of the entities and Endless beings have their own unique lettering, which helps form their characters. 

My first reading of this book series was inspired by the new Netflix show coming out on August 5, with Neil Gaiman himself as creator and writer. I’m a little nervous about how deeply horror it may or may not be, but I’m willing to give it a shot. The 11-episode first season stars Tom Sturridge as Dream, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, among a large cast that looks to be great. Since the character The Corinthian is in this first season, it makes me think that it will cover both Volumes One and Two. We’ll find out in one month!