Customer Reviews

Death: At Death's Door (Death #1)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Diehard Sandman fans may be annoyed at Thompson's creative re-imagining of Gaiman's world. Though At Death's Door is not exactly heavy on substance, it is filled with plenty of amusement. The story runs parallel to The Sandman: A Season of Mists. While Dream is dealing with his unwanted ownership of Hell, his sister Death discovers that Hell's evicted tenants are now squatting in her modest apartment. Delirium and Despair, the other females of the Endless, show up for basically no reason and help Death deal with the problem, using their imaginations, lots of antics, and plenty of grrrl power.

Thompson has chosen to draw this silly story in the appropriate style of shoujo manga, lending a very different tone to the Sandman universe. Even those moments drawn directly from A Season of Mists have a different character, in keeping with shoujo-style melodrama. There is a lot less brooding and a lot more yelling. Delirium seems to have reverted temporarily to Delight; gone are her hallmark leather-and-fishnet outfits, replaced by a parade of summer and party dresses. Her morose self-absorption has also moved aside for a cheery, outgoing, and thoroughly zany personality. Even Despair seems upbeat.

Fans of The Sandman should find the volume amusing but of little consequence. They will likely notice that scenes from A Season of Mists have been poorly--sometimes painfully--forced into this volume. The story of Dream's dealings with Hell is more like an excuse for At Death's Door than an explanation or background. Fans of manga unfamiliar with The Sandman may be a little confused about some sequences. And if they use this as an entrypoint into the Sandman series, they may be disappointed to find that the "canonical" Endless are harder on the eyes than Thompson's manga versions, and the stories, though containing (often macabre) humor, are frequently grim.

Jill Thompson has applied her unique talents to this behind-the-scenes look at the events of Neil Gaiman's "Season of Mists." The story begins with Destiny's gathering af the Endless and proceeds through the release of the Damned from Hell. Then Thompson's narrative kicks in. Ever wonder what Death was up to when those souls were released? Well, apparently most of them showed up in her realm looking for something to do. Delirium and Despair have to keep the lost souls entertained to keep them from wandering off as Death goes scouting for the stragglers.

The story is pretty light and breezy with Jill Thompsons trademark wit and penchant for Macabre-Cute. The most fascinating parts are the places the story crosses over with the "Season" storyline and Gaiman's original dialogue is used. Comparing the two books side-by-side reveals Thompson's respect for the original while adding a twist to the proceedings.

If you're a Sandman fan I highly recommend this book. However, those who haven't read "Season of Mists" probably won't have a clue as to what's going on. Also, if any people are put off by Manga Style comics (and I know a lot are) this book might be a little much. It is done in a very cartoony, black-and-white, sketch Manga Style (down to the fangs and bloody noses)but comes across as very authentic. Energetic, well paced and fun!

I looked forward to this. But it really didn't live up to expectations. Artistically, to place the Sandman series in a stylized format such as Manga immediately catches you as not being on target. The series itself never used American stylization that you would see from Marvel, Image or DC illustrators, so seeing it in what is the same format with a different cultural bend goes against the rawer illustration that were always used (although Vess can't be considered raw) to depict the saga. And the use of the most childish of the Manga genre with large eyes and title emotions was a poor choice. Something in line with Lone Wolf and Cub wouldn't have been as bad as this.

Now as for the story, Jill Thompson built a solid foundation for the story as to what happened to everyone released from Hell when Lucifer closed up shop (something that I think was quite a smart idea) and she did an excellent job of building her story into that now famous arc. However the details were poor. The story was much longer than necessary. Death was discarded time and time again for the uniteresting goings on in her realm. And it just came off as pure camp. This series is too great to ever treat it campy.

Despair was underutilized and should have beem more of a force in dealing with the multitudes of people that came from her domain. Delirium who was actually the main focal point of the story was not handled as subtely as Gaiman had done. Her outbursts are all outlandish and she lacks that strand of sanity that was brought to the table by Gaiman. In Brief Lives, she has one moment of lucidity that makes you realize that she is only slighty less powerful than Death. And you never look at her the same way again despite her eccentricities. Jill does not underly her with this lucidity and makes the character seem like a crazed Scrappy Doo.

As for Death, she is possibily the best character ever created in any format. So she should not be left to just anyone. Jill is up and down with her, writing her to expectation sometimes and making a mockery of her at others. She would never jump up and down and yell at her brother. Had she ever done so in the series, she may have never become the icon she has become today. If you are a Death fan, this will not go over well with you. Perhaps only Gaiman should be allowed to write her.

I like Sandman a lot, I like Death a lot. I sometimes like manga. However, there's something not quite right about this book. It may be seeing the Endless lose their temper, it may be the many many pages without such a good story, or it may be the use of cheap blinks at sandman fans just to win them over but without really making good use of stuff like, for example, green mouse and telephone icecream. Dream screaming may have done it for me. From that moment on I just didn't take the book or the story too seriously and I ended up having more fun with it. After all, it is what it says it is: A party at Death's door held pretty much by Delirium... What would you expect?
Don't get me wrong, I liked the book. Some of the drawings, especially of Death, are great, and I laughed at the jokes about the perky goth girl. It's just that I think the book isn't really at Sandman level and I expected a bit more from Jill Thompson (though I do give her points for drawing AND writing it) because it sometimes looked like fanfic.
Still, a Sandman fan must. (Though I certainly do not crave for a second part (it says "N° 1" on the cover))

I got this book as a Christmas present, which is just as well as it was on my list of books to buy once I win the lottery.

This is a good book. The art is pleasant to look at, and I like the idea of seeing the events in Sandman: Season of Mists from the point of view of another of the Endless, but there are some major flaws.

First of all, the artistic style isn't consistent. Some panels will be detailed and realistic, with characters drawn in perfect proportion, while others will be distinctly child-like and cutesy. I know that in manga it's traditional to change the style of a panel to suit the emotional mood of the panel, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Sometimes, Death and Delerium will be engaging in silly banter in one style, and then the style switches with the next panel of silly banter, with no apparent break in the mood.

The other quibble, this one a bit more serious, is that not much happens in this book. It's a 192-page book that could have been done with half the pages and only added excitement and interest to the plot. It could best be summed up as "while we see scenes of Season of Mists again, Death, Despair and Delerium phumpher about Death's apartment with a whole bunch of lost souls." You could certainly tell 192 pages of good story from that, but the phumphering takes up too much space and we end up with great art and a tiny, tiny plot.

I've heard that Jill Thompson is planning on doing another volume, this one retelling another chapter of Sandman from the perspective of another of the Endless. Based on this volume, I look forward to the sequel, but I think I'll wait until I've flipped through it before putting it on my Christmas list.

As well-done and entertaining as this little book is, I'm afraid it won't help to knock down walls for American Manga the way some reviewers seem to hope. Don't misunderstand; "Death: At Death's Door" is clever, funny and beautifully drawn. The "1" on the spine seems to indicate there are more books in this series intended, and I for one will get each and every one of them, because if anyone is qualified to continue the tales of the Endless with Neil Gaiman gone, it's Jill Thompson.

The only flaw, the thing that may keep this from being 100 percent accessible to new audiences, comes in the form of the story Thompson has chosen to tell. This story is, in essence, a sidebar to "Sandman: A Season of Mists," and because of that, feels kind of clunky. The scenes that directly parallel the earlier volume don't quite fit in tone with the rest of the book (although Thompson does make an admirable effort at showing some of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans we didn't get to see when we read the story from Dream's perspective). If you haven't read ASOM, chances are this book will be more than a little confusing... like you're reading just the subplot of a much larger work.

Still, Thompson's art style is great and her writing is sharp and funny. The idea of Edgar Allen Poe falling in love with Despair had me rolling. I hope in the future she is allowed to let loose and tell more stories completely on her own instead of relying on a preexisting Gaiman story as her hook.

Jill Thompson has applied her unique talents to this behind-the-scenes look at the events of Neil Gaiman's "Season of Mists." The story begins with Destiny's gathering af the Endless and proceeds through the release of the Damned from Hell. Then Thompson's narrative kicks in. Ever wonder what Death was up to when those souls were released? Well, apparently most of them showed up in her realm looking for something to do. Delirium and Despair have to keep the lost souls entertained to keep them from wandering off as Death goes scouting for the stragglers.

The story is pretty light and breezy with Jill Thompsons trademark wit and penchant for Macabre-Cute. The most fascinating parts are the places the story crosses over with the "Season" storyline and Gaiman's original dialogue is used. Comparing the two books side-by-side reveals Thompson's respect for the original while adding a twist to the proceedings.

If you're a Sandman fan I highly recommend this book. However, those who haven't read "Season of Mists" probably won't have a clue as to what's going on. Also, if any people are put off by Manga Style comics (and I know a lot are) this book might be a little much. It is done in a very cartoony, black-and-white, sketch Manga Style (down to the fangs and bloody noses)but comes across as very authentic. Energetic, well paced and fun!

I got this book as a present and was excited by the concept of Seasons of Mist from Death's perspective. Jill Thompson's drawings of the chibi-Endless are cute and entertaining, but all the attempts at humor in the writing fall flat. Since the story is from Death's perspective, most of the compelling parts of Seasons of Mist as seen by Morpheus are left out, and they aren't replaced with anything compelling. The story is simply a bunch of repetitive fluff with no point except to give Thompson a vague structure in which to show off her art. Death and all the other characters deserve better.

Thompson is sort of a fellow traveler of Neil Gaiman's highly regarded and highly influential "Sandman" series, and she's not at all a bad artist -- though in a slightly annoying and inconsistent manga-esque kind of way. But the trouble is, there's very little in the story here that's original. The plot is really just a retelling of events in Gaiman's _Season of Mists_ (Sandman, vol. 4), most of it from Death's viewpoint. Now, Gaiman's version of Death is completely unlike anyone else's picture of the Grim Reaper. This Death is a rather winsome, always perky, very pretty girl apparently in her early 20s, who always dresses in black (generally jeans and sexy tops, though sometimes mini-dresses or leotards), always sports an ankh (her sigil), and genuinely cares about the people she gathers when they cross from life into her domain. She's as conscientious about her job as her brother, Dream, though in her own, more humane way. For all these reasons, the author made a good choice of protagonist. I only wish she had been able to come up with a new story, as Gaiman himself did in _Death: The High Cost of Living_ and _Death: The Time of Your Life._

Death: At Death's Door is a retelling of the Sandman storyline Season of Mists. But this time the story is told from Dream's sister Death's point of view. Jill Thompson did a great job in the Sandman story The Parliament of Rooks applying a manga-influenced style to a short, two-and-a-half page tale, so I was looking forward to this book. She has again done a great job capturing the style of Japanese manga with her art and storytelling. But unfortunately, this Death's story is just too thin for the 200 pages.

Get this book to complete your Sandman collection and for the great art. But this book is not a good introduction to Sandman nor a good stand-alone book.