This is the first in a roundtable on Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. Suat, Tom, Vom Marlowe, and Kinukitty will be along later in the week with their takes on the series as well. (Update: And you can now read the complete roundtable)
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I loved Sandman back when it came out in the late 80s/early 90s, and I’ve probably read the whole thing through at least a couple of times. However, it’s been a while…partially out of nervousness. I strongly suspected that the epic wouldn’t hold up on rereading.
And…yeah. It doesn’t exactly hold up. I reread the entirety of “Fables and Reflections” and skimmed through a couple of the other books (“A Game of You” and “The Kindly Ones” especially, I think.) Part of it is the art, which bounces around inconsistently and is often just not especially good. There are undoubtedly some very nice walk-ons — Bryan Talbot’s creepy take on the giant, cadaverous Persephone was memorable, and, as Suat recently pointed out, the P. Craig Russell “Ramadan” story is pretty spectacular. But then you’ve got atrocious efforts by folks like Kent Williams.
No wonder he looks startled; he appears to be improbably made out of rock. Maybe he’s related to the Thing?
Aside from the inconsistencies in the art, though, the real problem is that my former enthusiasm for Gaiman’s writing has dimmed a lot. I can still appreciate his cleverness and the care of construction…but after a while, both of those virtues are pushed so enthusiastically and unilaterally that they start to feel oppressive. After a while you start to almost want to plead — please, somebody, anybody, could you just once say something that doesn’t come back a panel, or a page, or several issues down the road with an ironically profound or profoundly ironic twist? Could we have a story end without a smug little O’Henry meets dumbed-down Borges twist? Could everybody just for a fucking second stop talking?
The thing that crystallized my irritation with the series was Nuala. She was a fairy with a glamor that made her appear as a beautiful woman, but in actuality she was kind of a dumpy elvish little thing. The fairy gave her as a gift to Dream for some reason or other (maybe to try to get him to give them the key to hell? I can’t remember exactly.) Anyway, she fell in unrequited love with dream, and ends up nervously and apologetically causing his downfall. She’s a sad, sweet character. I liked her.
But as I was sort of skimming over her story again it occurred to me that, while her unrequited love is certainly poignant, it’s also weirdly unmotivated. That is, we certainly do feel her pain and sadness to some extent…but we never really get much of a sense of her love. What about him appeals to her? Does she think he’s beautiful? Is it his (on again off again) kindness to her? His power? There don’t have to be individual or even clear answers to these questions, obviously, but they’re never even asked, much less answered. For Gaiman, Nuala’s love is an almost magical fact; it drops onto her and possesses her, and that’s all we ever really need to know about it.
And that’s how love functions throughout the story. Gaiman almost never, that I can remember, actually bothers to show love as a functional, or even dysfunctional, relationship between two people. Instead, it’s just another plot device, a story element to push the action…or, more accurately, the words. In “A Game of You” the cuckoo casts a love spell by talking; in “Brief Lives” Desire does more or less the same thing.
That seems to be how Gaiman sees love; a verbal whammy that comes out of nowhere to make a clever point or set up a clever scene, rather than as an actual relationship which is maybe worth exploring in its own right. Destruction accuses Orpheus of loving the idea of Eurydice more than the actual person…but is that really Orpheus’ failing? Or is it Gaiman’s? Certainly, Gaiman never shows the couple in a tender moment — Eurydice gets more time with a Satyr in the narrative than she does with her supposed love. And the big love affair of the book, between Dream and Thessally, occurs almost entirely off-screen..ostensibly because doing it that way is clever and surprising, but maybe actually because Gaiman has no idea how to deal with an actual love affair and is scared shitless to try. Certainly, the hints of the romance we get sound deeply unconvincing — when they’re in love they walk about idyllically among the bowers prattling sweet nothings, making some of Dream’s attendants uncomfortable; when theyr’e out of love it rains a lot because Dream is throwing a tantrum. Gaiman is clear that these are cliches, and he’s making fun of them because they’re cliches…but that doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t seem able to deal with love in anything but cliches.
There’s actually an analogy here with another, more recent tween phenomena: Twilight. In both, there’s a lot of darkness and angst, which gives an exciting frisson of danger even as it distracts from the things that an actual adolescent might really find dangerous or threatening. In Twilight, the danger of vampires and blood and werewolves and melodrama all stands in for, and obscures, the looming, oncoming reality of adult relationships and sexuality. In Sandman, similarly, the pretension and the cleverness and the angsty melodrama seems, at some points, like a magician’s trick; the left hand is bobbing and weaving and throwing out fireworks so that you don’t notice (except with a kind of unacknowledged satisfaction perhaps) that there’s not much at stake in the right.
Though that all sounds kind of harsh, I’m actually not against this kind of tween repression categorically; in the Twilight series ( which I’ve mentioned liking before) I think the sustained effort to avoid looking at the obvious ends up energizing the series; it’s both winning and squicky, a kind of pop sublime. In Sandman I’m not sure it works so well. On the one hand, Gaiman is in some sense obviously a better writer than Stephanie Meyer. Though, as I said, the cleverness is irritating, it is, nonetheless, often actually clever, and he does manage to come up with some genuinely creepy twists (the treacherous stuffed toys in “A Game of You”) as well as some moving ones (Nuala’s story for example, as I mentioned above.) Meyer is not as bad as she’s sometimes claimed to be, but I doubt she could have pulled off either of those things.
On the other hand…Sandman is way more pretentious than Twilight…and the distance between the pretensions and the delivery is sometimes painful. For instance, there’s this panel:
Ah, those harem maidens…so exotic! So poetic! So unaccountably possessed of the sweaty metaphorical unease of a randy 13-year old trying to look impressively sophisticated!
It’s significant too, I think, that the so-thoughtfully entreated king declines the request. In Twilight, the heroine and hero eventually do, in fact, after much deferral (and marriage) have sex. This is in itself problematic; the whole tension of the series rests on the balance between safety and desire which is more or less vitiated when everybody gets what they desire and ends up safe. Gaiman is more canny; Dream, elaborately and with much fanfare, refuses to alter the structure of the series. Rather than change he decides to kill himself. Gaiman makes the “change” in question specifically about responsibility; Dream is not willing to give up his duties as ruler of dream, and so his only way out is death. But one has to wonder — is it really his (quite amorphous) duties that are at stake? Or is it something else? His ex-lover and Nuala more or less engineer his final downfall, his realm is torn apart by the furies, a rampaging feminine archetype — and the way they taunt him at the end is borderline sensual. “We are destroying the dreaming. Can you not feel it?” “Yes I can.” But then interrupts the foreplay, and Dream scurries off into oblivion, leaving one more fraught relationship we don’t get to really explore. Like a cadaverous Peter Pan, he never grows up, never has to stay with Wendy, and never gets out of the dream.
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Update: Suat’s post is now up.
Update: Vom Marlowe and Tom weigh in.
Update: And Kinukitty finishes up.
Good topic for a roundtable– I've wondered if people still read Sandman. I lost some enthusiasm for it once I found Italo Calvino.
I do think you've hit it near the end. Even if you set aside "staying with Wendy," he's an adolescent. He's passive and indecisive, not stoic. His "duties" all get done by other people, too. Very little specific to his character warrants the interest the series has in him.
Of course, the first arc I read was "World's End," so maybe that's why I see him as a minor character in the book.
Whaddaya mean, "near the end." Are you implying that it is not sustained brilliance from the beginning, sir?
I think it's still quite popular. And, yes, Gaiman's clearly very indebted to folks like Calvino and Borges and probably Marquez as well.
Oh, I'm just not brilliant enough to get hooked until the end. How's that?
If Sandman is popular, people rarely seem to talk about it anymore. I don't expect Maus/Watchmen-level discussion, but I can't think of a single critical look back in TCJ or elsewhere. I probably don't hang out where it would be, but I look over all the links on CR & Journalista, which would likely catch such a thing. Anything in print, 10 years out?
Also, was it the last big pre-manga breakout hit?
I'll talk to my ego and see if that's good enough. We'll get back to you.
There was a Gaiman retrospective article in TCJ within recent memory (last four years?) Can't remember who it was by or much about it, except that I remember thinking it was well done.
That's interesting that you haven't seen much on it. It's still very popular and I think pretty important…a precursor of manga's popularity in some ways, as you say. That's probably part of why though…it doesn't fit easily in any of the genres as they've evolved since then. It's kind of a road not taken — unfortunately so, I think. I may have problems with Sandman, but mainstream comics would be a lot, lot better off if it had been the model for future development, rather than Watchmen and Dark Knight and Secret Wars.
"There was a Gaiman retrospective article in TCJ within recent memory (last four years?) Can't remember who it was by or much about it, except that I remember thinking it was well done."
Good thing you said it was well done. I wrote it and will be quoting from the piece as my contribution to this roundtable. The article is about how I reacted to Gaiman, why Sandman mattered so much to me at a certain age (which was many years past high school). But in the course of it I made a couple of more general points that can be lifted out.
When you talk about Gaiman as stage magician … that's something I wanted to talk about more in the article. I think most of his work is based on the idea that anything can be spun around to look like something else. That's key to his life outlook, and it's the key to his storytelling technique. But, in the latter case, the approach comes with a tradeoff. To be spun around in that way the things themselves have to be solid, all of one piece. The analogy I've worked out is coin tricks. The coins don't hop unless each one is a solid little unit; maybe they've been shaved or greased, but they don't fold in the middle.
But, to risk sounding like a really bad screenplay, love does fold in the middle. It's more than one thing, and that's the case with any fact of human life the more you look at it in particular. So we get these generalized treatments of love that you describe. By now I've read a lot of his work, and I'd say he's not good at exploring individual experience; his strength is presenting general experiences thru atmospheric effects and the use of dolls painted to resemble humans.
About the ironic parallels and so on … To tell the truth I missed them. It's embarrassing. I didn't see any irony in Nuala's role until you pointed it out. I didn't even get Dream's refusal to change until I read the intro to The Kindly Ones. Of course The Kindly Ones bored me solid, so I have that as an excuse. But I loved Dream Country, and it wasn't until my literate chum Matthew Surridge pointed it out that I realized all the stories there are about refusal to change, hanging on to old selves. And then I told him he was wrong!
If you're up for it, I'd appreciate a post about some of the ironic echoes and parallels you found in Sandman, cheesy or otherwise. I'd like to get better at seeing such things.
What about Hazel and Foxglove? I think this is the closest we get to a "real" love affair–but maybe it's close enough?
Gaiman's still around as an important figure in comics. Those Absolute Sandman volumes keep coming out at $100 a pop, so somebody must be buying them…and an informal survey of my college students (and grad students) suggests its still quite popular among that set.
There was also a whole issue of the academic journal "Imagetext" (from U of Florida) devoted to Gaiman last year. I read a survey recently that dropped Gaiman from second to third (behind Grant Morrison) as "favorite comics writer"–but that's still pretty high considering the crappy comics he's written lately (his Metamorpho is a new low).
The general decline of Gaiman's comics work since Sandman may contribute to the sense that the world has passed him by, but I'm not sure that's true.
I hear alot of this "Gaiman's too clever" business from those who "used to" dig Sandman but got over it. I'm not so sure…I think it holds up as what it was…One of the best and most intelligent series in mainstream comics in recent memory. It's not Shakespeare, though, and invoking the big WS with such frequency makes it look a bit too pretentious for its own good. Nevertheless, Gaiman wrote a heap of enjoyable stories every month for 6 years or so, which is pretty impressive. I don't think there's been anything as good from the big 2 since (he says uncritically without really thinking about what there has been in the past 10 years).
Sandman's art had some low points, but I liked Mike Dringenberg, Shawn McManus, P. Craig Russell (obviously), and Jill Thompson was pretty good too. For a monthly series with rotating artists, it was much better than the usual crap in this regard. Grading mainstream comics requires a "curve" of sorts…and on that level, I think it's pretty hard to carp with Sandman.
His Miracleman was good too..I reread that recently and it holds up pretty well (almost as a continuation of Sandman). In general, I'd say he's a very good short story writer…Stretching characterization for many issues at a time wasn't really his strong suit, but whenever he wrote a 1 or 2 issue stand alone piece, they tended to work nicely. There were enough of these to make the longer arcs work reasonably well…propped up by the sense of the world they shared with the shorter stories…
Alright, that's enough.
To me that Kent Williams picture looks like Li'l Abner as a Bizarro.
"What about Hazel and Foxglove? I think this is the closest we get to a 'real' love affair–but maybe it's close enough?"
Well … it's something. There's Hazel being kind of cloddish and dopey in one arc and then growing up and trying to deal with a difficult situation in another. Of course what we get is the before/after, not the process, and Foxglove's great change of heart is triggered by a verbal trick, a turn of phrase that obscures a complicated reality: "You followed me to hell and then you say you don't love me," or words to that effect. But somebody can want to save you from suffering without wanting to spend the rest of her life with you. "I love you but I'm not in love with you" is one of the oldest distinctions in relationship history.
So, no, actually I don't buy Hazel and Foxglove as being a picture of two people encountering a bit of complexity in their lives. To me they're more of a example of Gaiman's tendency to treat his characters like stuffed animals, especially if they're cute l'il lesbians.
"I hear alot of this 'Gaiman's too clever' business from those who 'used to' dig Sandman but got over it. I'm not so sure…I think it holds up as what it was…"
I may be different from Noah and Bill on this because of age difference, but my reactions to Sandman were the same my first and second times around. That's right down to which issues and characters I liked/disliked. So I avoid the trap of being a false sophisticate, but maybe my perceptions could stand some overhauling. That's why I hope Noah says more about the ironic parallels business, an aspect of the series that pretty much passed me by.
I will allow that I'm very glad I read the series. I just wish I could have loved all of it.
Tom, what issue of TCJ is that in? Obviously I haven't read it, so homework for me. Also, what happens on Bizarro Sadie Hawkins Day? Divorce?
I distrust my early take on Sandman mostly because I read it just as I got back into comics, and was kind of wowed by everything. Finding Calvino– who, like Gaiman, based much of his work on folk stories and myth, and plays similiar narrative games– has made me reluctant to go back.
I do think Gaiman understands stories & what they do very well. Which may be why he understands people less well. And I like this:
I think most of his work is based on the idea that anything can be spun around to look like something else. That's key to his life outlook, and it's the key to his storytelling technique. … To be spun around in that way the things themselves have to be solid, all of one piece.
I consider Mr. Punch his best work by far, and what does it do if not spin child perceptions around based on the solid things that happened?
Hi Bill. The article was in issue 273, or Jan 2006 if you prefer. It's a long one and the print is small.
Hey Eric. I thought you'd stand up for Gaiman. I don't hate it and, as I said, I'd rather that it was the standard in comics nowadays than the stuff that actually is the standard. But…it irritates me. I reread Watchmen, and I say, this is still the shit. I reread Frank Miller's Wolverine, say, and I think, you know, there are problems here, but it's still awfully fun and worthwhile. I reread Sandman, and there are good bits, but overall…he's too clever for his own good, or, if you prefer, he's more pretentious than he can deliver on (the comparing himself with Shakespeare is a good example.)
Tom, I thought it might be you. You should reprint the whole thing, damn it. Why not?
And I'll think about going through and pulling out some ironies, if I have the time….
I didn't like Mr. Punch much, I have to admit. I did like the Book of Magic a lot though…and now I"m kind of afraid to go back to that as well.
Tom, I'm reading the essay now (great opening image), and the only reason I didn't read it then is that it's with the engrossing Eddie Campbell interview, which I reread every time I pick up the issue. Except now.
Noah, what?! Where are your critical faculties? And isn't Books of Magic basically Harry Potter? Both the kids have glasses.
"Hey Eric. I thought you'd stand up for Gaiman. I don't hate it and, as I said, I'd rather that it was the standard in comics nowadays than the stuff that actually is the standard."
I think there's been a bunch of Vertigo stuff since that is arguably Sandman- esque, from The Dreaming to Fables to Crossing Midnight to Lucifer to the new series The Unwritten to shorter stuff like My Faith in Frankie.
The thing is, the market seems to have responded with a collective yawn. (Aside from possibly Fables and maybe Lucifer?).
Gaiman can get tedious enough when rehashing his stuff (His recent Batman comic was basically just a rewrite of World's End) I don't know that anyone wants an army of Gaiman clones.
The My Faith in Frankie miniseries was pretty cool though, a bit Gaimanish but done as a romantic comedy.
I liked Books of Magic better then than I like Harry Potter now…though what I'd think of Books of Magic now is, as I said, something I'm kind of afraid to find out.
Just thinking about John Constantine as eternal mystical jester for example…dear God. That's not good.
Pallas — yes, Neil Gaiman clones wouldn't necessarily be great. But there have been some alternative titles that sort of followed on Gaiman's opening up of comics to goth girls — Courtney Crumrin for example — which I liked, and which suggested a path to a wider and less insular audience. The big two were never able to figure out how to do a follow-up though…to the extent that the one major modern success they'd had with a female readership didn't even seem to factor into the development of their Minx line.
I think the failure to follow-up Sandman has a lot to do with the market for comics. IIRC, Sandman single issues were a flop in the Direct Market. It wasn't until the book was collected in trades and sold in bookstores that it became a hit. And yet DC still insists on judging the success of every title by its performance in the DM. It's kinda amazing that they occasionally find a sizable female audience.
Though I'll give DC/Vertigo credit for at least taking a chance with stuff like Sandman. Marvel rarely tries anything outside the superhero box.
I had no idea that was the case. It makes sense, though.
If you want current writing on Sandman, Teresa Nielsen Hayden is doing a re-read over at tor.com:
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=49187
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=54869
They seem to be generating a lot of comments, too.
"(His recent Batman comic was basically just a rewrite of World's End"
wtf? I cannot even imagine what that's like. Good reason to check it out, I guess.
Hi, Noah. I don't think tcj has the article on line, so I'd have to type it out. well, I'll check to make sure.
Fables stinks…a Gaiman rip-off, but not clever. Give me clever dammit…It's rare enough.
Sandman sold poorly in DM initially, but took off enough to justify the trades….the rest is funny book history.
I do think Sandman has its faults…but I'm kind of tired of the, "wasn't I foolish when I was young to like this" thing. I mean, sure, we were all foolish when we were young…but Sandman is hardly the biggest of our mistakes.
As I said, I still like a lot of things from back then (Moore, Miller, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Earthsea novels, C.S. Lewis, Peanuts…the list goes on.) Some things, though, just don't seem as good in retrospect (Billy Joel, Sandman.)
Sandman holds up a lot better than Billy Joel, if that's any consolation.
"Just thinking about John Constantine as eternal mystical jester for example…dear God. That's not good."
Eh, that wasn't that bad.
Alan Moore did a story where Swamp Thing is lost in space and making up plant bodies and pretending they are his friends. Constantine manifests out of vegetation and snaps Swamp Thing out of his crazy behavior. Its probably not really Constantine, but a manifestation of Swamp Thing's subconscious, but its a bit ambiguous.
So Neil Gaiman did the same sort of bit, the effect is pretty similar, "Constantine, what the F are you doing here?" "I'm not Constantine"
Book of Magic had some good moments, but there's way too much continuity stuff. It didn't strike me as being very accessible. I got some of the references, Phantom Stranger says he can't enter the Silver city, and its a reference to both Sandman and the Alan Moore Phantom Stranger short story (if I remember correctly). We find out what happened to Hamnet in Fairie, and Death repeats her bit from Sandman about closing down the universe, etc. etc. Too many characters and references.
The Alan Moore blue plant bit was great; weird and spooky, nice play on madness — and the Constantine bit works nicely because, as you say, it is strongly suggested that he's part of Swamp Thing's brain. Constantine figures as a character, not as an eternal archetype. The first is reasonable and handled well…the second is dumb.
I liked Zatana in Books of Magic. Don't know if I'd be as enthusiastic now, though….
I'm terrified of rereading Sandman in case it doesn't hold up.
(I haven't managed the reread yet, since I lost my copies in Ye Great Flood, so I have to sponge off Borders.)
I don't think I like Gaiman's view of love. It's something that I've seen over time, and it is not, well, I don't like it. The best Gaiman in my view is Neverwhere, which everyone else seems to hate. I like it; it's a very good story without too much preening cleverness.
I mean this with the utmost affection for the series, but Gaiman's take on love is basically that of a teenage girl's. So yes, I loved your comparison to Twilight.
I think The Sandman still has a lot of cool stuff in it and I still enjoyed it when I reread it last year. But it did feel like to me that Gaiman was really trying to appeal to young women with his stories. I don't see that as a bad thing. I think it's an excellent thing for teenage girls to be reading.
Everyone else … well, I guess mileage may vary there.
The interview in the Prince of Dreams book has Gaiman saying that he tried to alternate "boy" stories and "girl" stories (he probably didn't use those words…but might have). That is, the first arc was meant to appeal to males, then he tried to appeal to women…and back and forth.
He may be slagged off for this… but it did work remarkably well (in terms of succeeding in appealing to both groups).
It's a bit unfair to compare Gaiman to Calvino…an absolute master…although the reverse might work. The Castle of Crossed Destinies is just precious and pretentious enough to fit into the Sandman series.
Billy Joel still has his place, I say… He was actually kind of clever to stop recording when he did (probably 3 or 4 albums too late). The thought of new Billy Joel material is blood-chilling, but some of the old stuff has a certain charming 70's pop quality. It all went to hell when he really tried to "rock" though. (Most, nay all, of "Storm Front" is an abomination–and I don't mean the Hulk villain)
"The Castle of Crossed Destinies is just precious and pretentious enough to fit into the Sandman series."
Wow, you've really turned.
Of course, I do like both Calvino and Sandman–pretentious isn't always a bad thing as far as I'm concerned (but it is in "Castle"). I just thought it was kind of fun to turn Calvino around like that.
Calvino was a big comics fan, by the way, and "Castle" was initially supposed to be made using comic strips–the switch to Tarot cards was probably a mistake.
Different tastes for different people, I guess. I never really had a problem with Sandman storywise, because it dips and skims over a thousand different patterns and stories over thousands, even millions of years, and the dialogue almost never sounds out of place.
80% of all the books I’ve read (and I had a stint reading 4 books a day every day from third to seventh grade) talk about love, and how love is the answer and how love must conquer all, which is not a problem. But a lot of Gaiman’s characters, especially female characters, present a different ideal: love is important, but sometimes it’s not enough to sacrifice your dignity and independence. Especially if your lover doesn’t treat you like you’re worth it, or if you’ll only get more grief out of the relationship, or if you’re putting yourself down by staying in the relationship. It’s a healthy idea, one you can switch between “love is the answer” on the occasion that it’s necessary.
Romantic love isn’t always the strongest love anyway. Sandman shows familial love and love between friends. It shows the kind of love that doesn’t get high ratings in TV shows or movies because people don’t often think about it. The love of family was pretty strong between the Endless because of Death, or Delirium, or even Desire (because Desire had a creepy obsessive sort of incesty interest in destroying Dream, only to be sad and scared when it finally succeeded).
Love of self was there, too, when Barbie got smart and left Ken, or when Nada refused for the sake of her tribe and her own dignity as a princess to be with Dream.
Love of friends existed with Rose, and the people she cared about from Doll’s House til the Kindly Ones.
Not everyone needs romance in their lives.
Love did get spotlight, in both functional AND dysfunctional relationships, just not the way you think.
Meanwhile, as for Gaiman’s writing, well… whether or not you do think he’s too clever, his writing FLOWS. I mean, really. He can go between poetic and intelligent writing you only see in old literature to vernacular fitting or nearly fitting with the time and place. You can “hear” his writing and it doesn’t sound awkward. And you can recognize the patterns. You say “OH! It’s Marco Polo/The French Revolution/The Emperor of America/Shakespeare” and that’s why it was so iconic, because it connected legends, myths, and history and stories all together in a way that worked. It leaves you feeling addled, but inspired, not because IT’S THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD (when yeah, it isn’t) but because it connects.