Props Given, Let's take a look:
1. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman - 1318 points (42 first place votes)
John B : Overrated, dull and uninspired, Gaiman's work stood out due to it's timing, it was the only semi-passable read during a dark period in the comic industry that was saturated with "stunt" events (death of superman, nightfall,emerald twilight, etc) leaving it one of the few books loosely connected to the DC universe that had a vague semblance of substance in it's stories. I read the first five trades and it was fine but honestly it wasn't memorable, it didn't leave any lasting impression on me ( good or bad ) and I could honestly care less if Neil Gaiman and all of his works were erased from existence.now that I mention it... I will now use my editorial VETO and name this the 99 greatest runs of all time and declare the Claremont Byrne run No: 1 erasing Sandman from my blog like it never existed.
The Sandman #1-75
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman opened up fairly oddly, as the book was meant to tied into the DC Universe, which was a bit awkward at the beginning, but Gaiman’s excellent writing made the book still work, enough so that DC began to let him have more freedom with his work, and then the book got amazing.
(No it didn't,but it was consistent. It started as mindless shit and remained shit until the end)
One of the first notable issues was Sandman #8, which introduced the star of the series, Morpheus (known as “Dream” of the Endless)’s sister, Death. Death became one of the most popular characters DC had. In fact, when DC had a poll for which characters should get their own mini-series, Death was the winner (or second, I forget - or was she second amongst the people who did not already have a mini-series planned? What was it?).
Essentially, having Morpheus be the king of dreams allowed Gaiman to tell whatever stories he wanted to, with a specific bent towards stories involving mythology and folklore. It was a fantasy lover’s dream. Not only did he come up with clever story ideas, what was remarkable about Gaiman was that his stories also were extremely character-driven. Gaiman would introduce new characters constantly, and within an issue, you felt like you knew the character your whole life.
Gaiman also picked up some established DC characters, in a little metafictive bit, had the established characters exist in Dream’s world. Like Cain and Abel and Lucien. Matthew the Raven came from Swamp Thing. Dream’s brother Destiny was an established DC character.
Prominent NEW characters included the immortal Hob Gobling, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, the witch (and former girlfriend of Morpheus) Thessaly, the evil Corinthian, plus Gaiman’s personal take on Lucifer, which was picked up by Mike Carey in his classic Lucifer run.
It’s truly amazing how many amazing characters Gaiman had in this series. Wow.
One of the most notable issue was #19 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which won the World Fantasy Award in 1991 for Best Short Fiction (being a bit lame, they decided to change the rules the next day to make comics ineligible - what the heck?!).
(they probably got around to reading the works of Gaiman, and recognized that he was producing the literary equivalent of bile and decided never to allow another "comic book" writer receive the award. serves them right, they should have read Sandman first before nominating it)
Sandman won a tremendous eighteen Eisner Awards, including three Eisners for Best Ongoing Series and four Eisners for Gaiman as Best Writer.
Dave McKean did the amazing covers for the series, but the interiors were by many different artists.
Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Kelley Jones, Jill Thompson, Marc Hempel, Michael Zulli and Charles Vess all did notable issues, but there were many more great artists on the series.
P. Craig Russell drew an impressive 50th issue of the series…
The story ended with a new Dream taking over, and the celebration of Morpheus. Superman and Batman even guest-starred to pay their tributes.
( good riddance )
No comments:
Post a Comment