Sandman

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Comic
title Sandman
Original title The Sandman
Thesandman-logo.svg
country United States
author Neil Gaiman
Illustrator Dave McKean , Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Kelley Jones , Jill Thompson , Marc Hempel, Michael Zulli, Charles Vess and others
publishing company Vertigo
First publication 1989-1996
expenditure 75

Sandman (OT: The Sandman ) is a comic series by Neil Gaiman , which forms a graphic novel of more than 2000 pages . The series appeared between 1988 and 1996 with DC Comics in New York and from 1993 with DC Imprint Vertigo in 75 monthly episodes, which were later combined into ten volumes with closed contents. Further editions of the series appeared under the titles Absolute Sandman , Annotated Sandman and Sandman Omnibus .

General

The protagonist of Sandman 's Dream ( Dream ), and Morpheus , Oneiros , Dream Weaver (ger .: Dreamweaver), Lord designer (ger .: Lord Shaper) or Lord L'zoril called. As the ruler of The Dreaming, he is the "Lord of what is not, never was and never will be". He and his siblings Destiny ( fate ), Death ( death ), Destruction ( destruction ), Desire ( desire ), Despair ( desperation ) and Delirium ( feverish delusion ) are the seven Eternals (English: The Endless) that came into being with the universe and, unlike gods, do not need believers in order to exist.

In a tangled but intricately stringent story, Gaiman describes the consequences of Dreams being captured by an English occultist at the beginning of the 20th century and his liberation. The plot takes place parallel to the publication of the graphic novels , but also contains numerous flashbacks to antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern times. Gaiman himself summed up the series as follows: "The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision." (German: "The master of dreams learns that you have to change or die, and he makes his decision.")

Typical of the series is that numerous mythological and historical characters are involved in the plot, for example Lucifer , Orpheus , the Eumenids , Odin , Loki and William Shakespeare . There are also some characters from the DC Universe , such as Martian Manhunter . Gaiman repeatedly points to mythological, historical and literary models. For example, the garden where Destiny wanders around is a nod to Jorge Luis Borges 'story, "The Garden of Paths That Branch ", while the contents of the library in Dreams Castle are reminiscent of Borges' short story "The Library of Babel" , which also appeared in the short story volume Fictions , the original work of Magical Realism .

The 75 episodes of the series are also graphically extremely varied, as several artists worked on them in their own style. The graphic style was based on the requirements of the respective story, not on common recognition mechanisms.

Success and publication

Gaiman received numerous awards for the Sandman series, including the Eisner Award several times for outstanding achievements in the comic field. Issue number 19, a paraphrase of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , was the first and so far only comic to win the World Fantasy Award for short stories. Norman Mailer called the Sandman a "comic for intellectuals. And it was about time ”. Sandman is particularly popular in the Anglo-American region and, due to its high sales figures, is one of the few comics that made it into the New York Times' bestseller list .

The success of the series lagged far behind in Germany. The Ehapa Comic Collection stopped publishing the series after around two thirds of the original material had been published, although this was partly in a non-chronological order and spread over a total of nine German volumes. In terms of content, these nine volumes correspond to the first 49 issues as well as the Sandman special "Orpheus" or roughly the first seven American book editions. In addition, the two "Death" miniseries and the "Sandman Mystery Theater" crossover appeared on Feest Comics , on which Neil Gaiman had worked as a co-author.

Speed ​​/ Tilsner-Verlag brought the series to an end with the missing material and republished the first of the two “Death” miniseries. He also published three “Sandman” short comics by Gaiman as part of two specials.

Since the first quarter of 2007, Panini Comics has published a uniform Sandman edition based on the American book editions, with new digital coloring and partly new translation .

Anthologies

The main strand of the Sandman series consists of the following volumes:

Preludes and Nocturnes (Preludes and Nocturnes)
Dream is captured by a magician in the early 20th century. Seventy years later he is able to free himself and take possession of his empire again.
The Doll's House (The Doll's House)
While rebuilding his empire, Dream almost falls victim to an intrigue of his sibling Desire.
Dreamland (Dream Country)
A collection of four short stories, including the short story A midsummer night's dream , which won the World Fantasy Award.
The time of the nebula (Season of Mists)
After Lucifer quits his job, Dream receives the keys to the gates of hell. Now he is in the uncomfortable position of looking for a successor for the fallen angel.
Across the Sea to Heaven (A Game of You)
A young woman's dream world is almost completely destroyed by something that threatens to break through into reality.
Fables and Reflections (Fables and Reflections)
A collection of short stories, all of which have a mythological appeal. In one of the stories Orpheus is introduced, who is here a son of Dream.
Short Lives (Brief Lives)
Dream and his younger sister Delirium go on a search for their missing brother Destruction.
Worlds 'End (Worlds' End)
A collection of short stories with a framework in the style of the Canterbury Tales .
The Benevolent (The Kindly Ones)
The finale of the series. Dream finally has to choose between change and death.
The Awakening (The Wake)
This epilogue ends the series and brings the final storylines to an end.

Accompanying volumes

The main works are accompanied by other books, all of which are also by Gaiman:

The Dream Hunters
A story in the tradition of Japanese sagas, and provided with illustrations by the Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano . Later adapted as a comic with the same title.
Endless Nights
A collection of seven short stories, one about each of the Eternal, central characters in the series. Each story was drawn by a different artist.
Midnight Days
A compilation of earlier works by Neil Gaiman. In one of the stories, Wesley Dodds, the 1930s Sandman from the Sandman Mystery Theater series, meets the trapped Dream from Preludes & Notturni .
The Complete Death
Collect the two mini-series about Dream's sister Death: "The Price of Life" ( Death: The High Cost of Living ) and "The Miracles of Life" (OT: Death: The Time of Your Life ), as well as all short stories about the character.
Sandman: Overture (The Sandman: Overture)
The events just before the preludes and nocturnal that lead to the capture of Dream.

Related books and series

Traumland ( The Dreaming ) is a series set in the Sandman universe, but not about any of the Eternals. It was created by various storytellers and artists. Caitlin R. Kiernan wrote most of the scripts in this series.

Lucifer is a series whose eponymous hero is based on a character from the Sandman stories.

There is also a series of manga- style editions featuring Death that began with Death: At Death's Door . This series was directed by Jill Thompson and was a side story to The Fog Times .

Two prose books about Sandman have been published: Hy Bender's The Sandman Companion is a non-fiction work that provides a lot of information about the series. Its first part discusses the ten Sandman volumes one after the other, analyzes their meaning, explains many of Gaiman's countless quotations, references and motifs, and provides background information on the creation of the Sandman. It also includes a long interview with Gaiman himself.

The covers of the series are collected in the volume Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers 1998. The titles of the individual episodes, designed by Dave McKean , use techniques as diverse as painting , sculpture , photography , drawing and image processing with the computer.

The Sandman Book of Dreams is a collection of short stories , edited by Gaiman and Ed Kramer, that have the Sandman universe on the subject in one way or another. It contains works by Caitlin R. Kiernan, Tad Williams (published in German as Das Schriftstellerkind ), Gene Wolfe , Tori Amos (a long-time friend of Gaiman's) and Colin Greenland, as well as the (short story) debut of Susanna Clarke .

See also

Web links

literature

  • Beatty Scott et al. a., The DC Comics Enzyklopädie, Panini Verlags GmbH, Stuttgart March 2005, 1st edition
  • Irvine Alex et al. a., The Vertigo Enzyklopädie, Panini Verlags GmbH, Stuttgart December 2008, 1st edition

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Awakening , chap. 3, p. 5
  2. ↑ See Introduction to Sandman - Eternal Nights , Neil Gaiman, Panini, 2007
  3. ↑ Comic strip for intellectuals on Independent.co.uk , July 12, 2012.
  4. ↑ in the debut number of the Phantastik magazine Pandora , spring 2007