Neil Gaiman's Sandman was and still is a phenomenon in the comic book industry. It caught the public's attention in a way that few comics had ever done in the past.
It was a mass-circulation comic book that came to the attention of "serious" readers. You know, the type you always see in the movies sitting in the comfy chair, bookshelves surrounding them, maybe a pipe or glass of brandy next to them.
Once the public got on the bandwagon, it was all chips and salsa for The Sandman after that. New York Times lists, bestseller lists, Barnes and Nobles placing the books in the Literature section and not with the regular Comics.
And the highbrows who got interested. Students and teachers from all categories have written analyses and formed discussion groups about Gaiman and The Sandman. So Joe Sanders decided to gather some of these articles and criticism and bring them to us, the reader, in plain, simple terms - I guess so us regular comic book people can understand them.
Yes, that was sarcastic. I sometimes think the more 'intellectual' of our species still thinks those of us who read the spandex books can't follow 'smart talk'. But I will say that Sanders has done a pretty good job with this task. Yes, the essays are all pretty easy to follow, giving insight and looking at some of the deeper meanings of Gaiman's work.
The essays range from criticism to thankfulness. Taking a look at the character in the more-or-less order of their publication, the first section of individual essays takes particular episodes and story arcs, and looks at them, such as "Midsummer Nights Dream," and "The Endless Ones."
The second half of the book examines Gaiman's stories next to his others and compares them to other works dealing with myth, truth, lies and dreams - as well as how our modern society might look at them. It also tries to look at how his stories compare with horror or our culture and how it looks at various ethnic, gender and sexual stereotypes.
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