| ||||||||||||||||||
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Each Sandman collection is discussed, one at a time, with insightful essays by Hy Bender, and then the Neil Gaiman interviews. There really is a lot of new information. For every issue, almost, there's some neat fact you didn't know before, or a comment from Neil. (For example, it's no coincidence that "Three Septembers and a January" sounds like "Four Weddings and a Funeral", although the comic was released before the movie!) Even if I had known everything in this book already, Neil's interviews are always fun to read.
The book includes an excellent introduction and "Frequently Asked Questions", with questions such as "Why should I read a comic book?" The answer to this question is the perfect thing to show someone who turns their nose up at comics. Yes, comics can be worthy literature, and not only that, they have potential for artistic effects that can't be achieved through film or words alone.
The Sandman Companion is also well illustrated. With the text, there are black-and-white illustrations by Sandman artists, including panels from the comic, trading card art, and proposal sketches--early ideas for what Dream should look like. Then there's a great full-color section with more trading cards, and cool stuff like Sandman statues and posters (Now that I own picures of them, I don't feel so bad about not being able to get my hands on the actual items), foreign-language editions of the comic, and even some of Dave McKean's Vertigo Tarot (Mad Hettie as The High Priestess, Dream as The Hierophant, Delirium as Temperance, Destiny as The Wheel of Fortune, and Death as...well, Death).
This is a very well-done companion book to the Sandman series, readable and constantly interesting. I really recommend it. The hardcover price may be a bit much for the casual fan, but any serious Gaiman fanatic (like me!) should buy this as soon as possible. I'd suggest that after you've finished the Sandman series at least once, read the Companion as you re-read each volume. That's what I'm doing--it's like discovering the series all over again.
Neil Gaiman fought this inexorable tide almost single-handedly throughout his run on the Sandman with thought-provoking, intricately layered tales which simply could not be confined by genre or medium.
The Sandman Companion gives even casual readers a sense of how deep and how complex Gaiman's stories were and provides a fascinating window on the comic business and the creative process to boot.
Author Hy Bender opens with background on how Gaiman got his start and how the Sandman came about, none of which will be very new to those fans who've followed Gaiman's interviews in fanzines.
Then we hit the meat of the book. Bender takes us through every Sandman story, providing a detailed synopsis of the plot, then deconstructing the story with the aid of insightful interviews with Gaiman and others. Even those of us familiar with The Annotated Sandman on the Web will find this fascinating.
The collection wraps up with 3 interviews/essays and a detailed list of credits for the original Sandman comics.
Some have criticized DC for trading on the Sandman allure to make a buck. (Given the puerile garbage they put out for comics today, who could blame them?) The Sandman Companion is no marketing ploy, however. It is a solid addition to the Gaiman canon and will be a welcome gift for fans of the author or his immortal creation.
See all 100 books this book cites
See all 6 books citing this book
|
|
|
|
