Like most of you who have had no lives and who spent far too much time in solitude or hanging out with dorks because you yourself were a dork, I have spent much time in the company of comics. Comics have been a great substitute for friends and girls, as I’m sure many of you know. As I got older though I tried to abandon my past and read more fancy things like Dostoevsky and Henry David Thoreau, you know to look cool when you’re sitting alone at Denny’s or at the Laundromat – by yourself.

Now I realize of course that comics are not just for lonely boys and girls who dream of being super-villains (hunted, despised) so that they can crush all those that oppose them by creating a race of atomic super-men, showing the Vorld you can be its master and all that. At least The Sandman isn’t anyway.

imageThe Sandman is a story about Dream, or Morpheus, or The Sandman, what ever you chose to call him. He is the lord of the dream world; he is one of the eternal, not a god (for gods die when they cease to be believed in). He was here in the beginning and will be here in the end to put all the chairs up and turn the lights out, sweep up ‘The Futures’ cigarette butts etc. there are also six others who are eternal: death, desire, delirium…. and the others.

The particular book under scrutiny is called Dream Country. It is a collection of four smaller stories in which Morpheus plays a minor role or, as in the last story, no role at all. The third story won some sort of fancy short-story award (they actually changed the rules of the contest so that no comic could ever win again, the cock-monkeys).

The first story, called Calliope, is by far my favorite. Maybe because its about a writer who can’t write (like me, why else do you think I’m writing this article that won’t get posted in my lifetime, for my health?). Richard Madoc is this writers name (or dick) and he has written a fairly successful little book called The Cabaret Of Dr. Caligari, I think it might be about dancers, or dancing doctors maybe. He is 9 months over due on his freakin deadline. So what does he do? What any writer worth his weight in pig slop would do, he trades this gross ball of hair that’s been in some girls stomach for a muse. You know, one of the daughters of Chronos? Hello? Well anyway muses inspire people, hence the words: music, amusing, and other various muse words. This particular muse is named Calliope, she is the youngest and hottest of the nine muse sisters, also she was that Homer guys’ muse (see The Iliad). Apparently this old guy has her locked in some room and all he wants is this ball of hair for her. The old guy captured her while she was taking a bath in this lake thing, if you care. So Richard gets the muse and takes her home and rapes her, I almost want to say, “like ya do”, but I won’t. So pretty soon he’s mister fancy pants and is writing fancy books about fancy things. All seems well. What he doesn’t know is that Calliope has this friend named Morpheus. Well, to tell you the truth they had a falling out a few thousand years ago but he seems to be in a good mood and decides to use some persuasive tactics on poor old Richard. I’ll just say it works and leave it at that. So that’s my favorite in this little book. The artwork is cool and not too fancy, I hate fancy, there are lots of scary shadows and things.

imageThe next story is called A Dream Of A Thousand Cats. This whole story is from a cat’s perspective, not like that series of detective novels, but like the musical. There is this wandering cat that goes around talking (like the Jesus cat) about stuff. Apparently this cat had had some kittens and the evil humans put her kids in a plastic bag and threw ‘em in the water. That’s just plain mean man. So the cat’s all depressed and starts praying to the CatGod or something. The cat has a dream. She dreams that she is walking through all of these crazy places, finally she reaches the dream lord himself, who is also in cat form, except he’s all black and scary, he shows this cat the way the world was long ago, a world where cats were huge and ate humans, after they played with them of course.

One day in this crazy upside down cat-world this human rose up and said “Dream! Dreams shape the world. Dreams shape the world anew, every night.” He had a theory, if enough of the people dreamed that humans were the dominant species it would change reality, not just this moment, but change the way it had been from the very beginning, not like time travel but kind of. Back to the cat, she goes around spreading this story, telling cats to dream things back to the way it should be. Then its over and a little kitten is sleeping and the owner says, “I wonder what little whatsitzname is dreamin about”. I like this story I guess, but I don’t like cats, especially scary black cats, also I would like to kill all cats so that they don’t dream themselves into a superior state. What? You think you’re better then me? What?

imageNow here is the Fanciest story mister. A Midsummer Nights Dream, this is the one that won the award and all of that. It’s about a bargain that The Sandman has struck with Will Shakespeare. You see they met in this tavern in another Sandman comic and old Will was having some troubles writing, so The Dream Lord makes a deal, for a few plays that he is to write he can have all the skill and stories he can deal with (which is about 3 dozen or so if you care, you uncouth bastards). Morpheus seems to have lots of little arrangements like this, for instance there is this guy he meets in this tavern every hundred years on the same day. I guess when you live forever you have to have stuff to do, after all video games have only been around for the past 20 years, before that they had to watch midgets wrestle for fun and we know how boring that can get, day in and day out watching the greased up midgets throw each other about…

What?

This is the first play that Will has written for Morpheus. If you haven’t figured out what play it is then please stop visiting this website. Dream tells Will to do the play on this field in the middle of nowhere. What he doesn’t know is that he will be performing the play for the denizens of the land of faerie, King Auberon and Queen Titania themselves, all dressed up for the event. Also there are other scary weird characters like Robin Goodfellow who is this hobgoblin guy. The interesting thing is of course that these guys are watching the human actors portray them, and a few get a little upset but nothing big. Robin Goodfellow decides that he should play himself though so he puts the actor to sleep that is portraying him. The story is good, I guess. There is Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, perhaps I should point out the similarity between the two words: Hamnet; Hamlet. Hamnet is very depressed about his life. He feels like old Will doesn’t care about him anymore. He is such a girl.

The last story is probably the weirdest and saddest, that why I’m not going to review it. I’ll leave you kids some thing to look forward to.

Now, how do I feel about this book. I like it a lot by itself but in the context of The Sandman universe it is not quite as good to me mainly because there doesn’t appear to be as much mystery as in some of the other stories, but it’s still much better than some of those other crappy comics out there.

If you like mythology and if you’re a depressed teenager then you will love this book, especially if you listen to The Cure. So read it and shut your face. What?

-Dr. Babykicker

Shameless Plug:
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Buy.com

Sandman Reources:
Neil Gaiman Official Site
Sandman Annotations