King of Dreams, Sandman

Sandman.

I honestly had absolutely no interest in American comics until Sandman, they were all just muscle and they had no appeal. But while at Borders Books, in the bargain section, there was an art book. I flipped through it, some styles of the comic appealed to me while I found others to be quite revolting. But then I started reading about the characters and I found them enchanting. Morpheus just was so human despite being the King of Dreams. Death was so sad and yet so happy all at once. And they way all seven of the siblings interacted was so natural, so human, and so like my mothers family. Whenever they gathered together, there was bound to be a fight, much like real siblings. And so I was hooked on the series before I even picked up its actual comic.

But then, it was one of those comics I wanted to actually read in order, and to actually buy. Well, I caved this year and started reading it, with volume 2 from the library. The recap from the last volume was told by Destiny, the oldest of the Endless. And it seemed so very fitting for

his role, it is also I nice way to establish characters. And then the chapter opens up to a very 80’s Dream moping and feeding pigeons. Then an equally 80’s Death shows up to cheer up her younger brother. Death is upbeat, peppy and all around adorable. Through the course of their conversation, she ends up quoting Mary Poppins, and then eventually ends up chucking bread at her brother in rage. It’s hilarious. I mean, Death is usually portrayed as dark, old, and creepy, while this she is the exact opposite and totally punk and very caring. But who really expects Death to chuck a hunk of bread at anyone, much less the King of all Dreaming. Its obvious that they’re close as siblings and that Death is really concerned with her brothers well being.

The art style if the first chapter of that volume is very clean. Th

e characters look appealing, friendly and… strong? I don’t know how to explain it, but I just like it. Though I really dislike how the drawing style is different chapter to chapter. I know that they had a lot of different artists, and that the comic focused more on story and characters than the drawings, but I found the radical changes in style to be very distracting. And then I found myself liking certain chapters only for the art, and forgetting the story. Very rarely was I able to ignore the art in lieu for the story.