[PREV - GUNGA_DIN_SYNDROME]    [TOP]

SERIAL_LIVING


                                                  March    12, 2003
                                                  December 26, 2005


For me, one of the hallmarks of the
early 90s, one of the things that             THERMIDOR
culturally dominated the era,
was the "Sandman" series.            GAIMAN
                                                   MAKER
A lot of my spare mental energy
was going into teasing out where
Neil Gaiman was going with the
series, and tracing the various
literary references that he chose                  12CEASARS
to drop.                                           ORESTEIA
                                                   REVENGE

   The experience of reading
   the Sandman series, one issue
   at a time, differs widely
   from the experience of someone      Unfortunately it may also
   reading the collected works         differ due to some nasty
   some years after they were          printing decisions: the latest
   finished.                           bound volumes are on bright
                                       white paper, apparently using
   A single issue of a                 brighter, more garrish ink
   comic book just doesn't             colors.  The effect is nothing
   take very long to read:             like what was originally intended.
   perhaps a half an hour              It's like trying to watch a
   at most.                            colorized movie.

   Then there's another                    You couldn't have
   month's wait while                      done a better job
   this installment of                     of sabotaging the
   the story echoes                        project if you tried.
   around in your head.
   You might re-read it                        CLEAN_AND_BRIGHT
   once or twice. You
   might re-read previous
   issues.  You might
   discuss the story           In those days, the action was
   with people.                in rec.arts.comics.misc.

   In the case of                 When they sub-divided that group
   Gaiman's "Sandman"             into "marvel" and "dc" factions
   there's also the               I gave up on the rec.arts.comics.*
   option of tracing              hierarchy, myself.
   references,
   reading other                    Even given the need to subdivide
   related material                 a newsgroup because of "high
   (Suetonius, John                 traffic", doing it that way was
   Webster,                         unbelievably stupid.
   Aeschylus,
   Shakespere...).                      Not on the basis of genre,
                                        or artist, or writer but on
      (There was a biographical         the publisher?
      novel about Tom Paine
      that I read around then,               "Isn't that a Da Vinci?"
      too... by Howard Fast
      I think.)                              "Oh, who cares. What I
                                             want to know is who
                                             manufactured the canvas."
   In general, the story takes
   on much more weight because                            It might seem an
   of those enforced pauses.                              odd reason to reject
                                                          a discussion group...
         DEATH_OF_THE_ALBUM
                                                          I think for me it
   When you have the entire work                          rubbed my nose in
   in front of you, nothing                               how stupid most
   prevents you from plowing on                           of the comics fans
   through to the finish.                                 really were.

   Instead of hesitating in a land of                        I was hiding
   glowing promise, you plunge into the                      from this by
   inevitable dissapointments of the                         just reading
   end... and the return to "reality".                       the posts by
                                                             the Sandman
   It's a rare story that fully lives                        fans.
   up to it's initial promise, and I
   think it's fair to say that the                           (And around that
   Sandman series certainly doesn't...                       time Gaiman was
   it sputters and fizzles it's way                          hitting the wall
   through a fairly monotonous, obvious                      in any case...
   finish; aiming for high tragedy and                       there was little
   achieving only a dull lifelessness.                       reason to keep
                                                             thinking about
   In retrospect, I think the Sandman                        his work.)
   is a case (and there have been many)
   of the material outstripping the
   talents of the author.  Gaiman was
   on to something, he'd tapped into
   a rich vein, the muses were indeed
   speaking through him...

   But he was just in over his head,
   he didn't really know what to do
   with it all.

   As "The Kindly Ones" dragged on,
   he must have been afflicted with
   a horrible depression... having
   worked for years on what might
   very well be the best thing he'll
   ever do, there was nothing he could
   do that wouldn't risk ruining the
   entire project.  Stick to the original
   simple tragic finish he had in
   mind, however boring it seemed?
   Switch to some sort of trumped
   up happy ending, copping out like
   nearly every other writer of
   commercial fiction?

   And then, there are The Fans.

   I'm really not given over to obsessiveness
   about comic books-- or at least I haven't
   been since I was a teenager-- but "The
   Sandman" was strong enough to get me going.
   Imagine the effect it must have had on the
   fanboy crowd, used to surving on much thinner
   gruel.

   I gather that Gaiman was being perpetually
   harrassed by his fan-base while he was
   writing. "What was going on on page 8 of issue
   45?  Are you going to bring back that character
   from issue 3?  How are you going to finish the
   series?  What's Death really like?"

      And then he cracked, and let his
      contempt (and frustration) show,
      with the "Nybbas the spider"
      incident.

        If you're not familiar
        with this, I'm not sure I
        can describe it well
        enough to get across the
        the passionate rage at the
        blantant cheat he pulled here.

            In outline:

            He inserted a few panels of what
            appeared to be foreshadowing of
            some sort: scenes of the future.

            Dream dressed in white, instead of black.

            Blood on the throne, "Matthew the Crow"
            nearby.

            A character that was supposed to
            be dead was standing there, behind
            the throne (one of Morpheus's dream
            figures "the Corinthian").

                 Many issues later, this
                 character is re-created:
                 it appeared that Gaiman
                 was working toward that
                 foreshadowed scene.

                    He must've been asked innumerable
                    questions about this "whose blood
                    is that on the throne?"

                        His eventual explanation?
                        He wrote in a new figure we've
                        never seen before "Nybbas the spider".
                        It crawls toward the crow,
                        someone squashes it, it leaves
                        a bloody stain.

                               See, easy! Right?

        A lot of us felt
        throughly betrayed         Sometime later Gaiman attempted
        at that point.             a "retcon", which I take to be
        If he's not going          a form of apology: yes, Nybbas
        to take this               is an extraneous element inserted
        seriously, why             in the story, but that was
        were we wasting            *intentional*, because this is
        our time on it?            after all a story about stories
                                   and storytellers: it's an element
    But what was it                inserted by the New Dream who is
    that we *were*                 waiting in the wings.
    taking seriously?
                                      A nice try, but I've
  We're offended at Gaiman            never forgiven him,
  abusing his position.               myself.
                                                              I sold my copy
  We regarded him as some             I've avoided a          of "Angels and
  sort of custodian of                lot of his later        Visitations"
  the fire.                           projects, e.g           cheap at a used
                                      those bestselling       bookstore.
                                      novels he
                                      co-authored.            So there.




                                                I guess I was willing
                                                to go see "MirrorMask",
                                                so maybe I've forgiven
                                                him a bit.

                                                    The movie doesn't
                                                    do anything to
                                                    cure my impression
                                                    that he's shot his
                                                    bolt.

                                                       Nice visuals by
                                                       Dave McKean, though.



   "The Sandman" was not the first
   series that had this hold over
   me, though it might have been
   the last.

       Other earlier examples,
       Zelazny's works, serialized in
       SF magazines during the 70s.

       "The Sign of the Unicorn".

       And the strangely powerful
       (to me at least)                      DOORWAYS
       "Doorways in the Sand"



--------
[NEXT - MAPPING_THE_LOWLANDS]