The Sandman Preludes and Nocturnes

1) The comic begins in the year 1916. Roger Burgess, an English magician, is looking for a way to live forever. He comes up with the idea to kidnap Death. He hopes that this will allow him to reach immortality. The “black magic” ritual that included rat claws and angel wings, inevitably backfired. Roger Burgess comes to find out that he captured Death’s brother Dream instead. Burgess decides to keep Dream locked up. Seven decades go by and Dream is still incarcerated, but in 1988, Roger Burgess dies and his son Alex Burgess takes over the responsibility of watching his father’s prisoner. The switching of “wardens” allows Dream a moment to escape, which he does successfully. He decides to punish Alex Burgess with a curse of never-ending nightmares.
Dream, also referred to as Morpheus, has been extremely weakened because of his lengthy incarceration. Attempting to get back to his home realm, Gregory, Cain and Abel’s gargoyle, finds Dream and together they nurse Dream back to health. Dream returns back home only to find everything in ruins. Lucian, the librarian, brings Dream up to speed about the ongoings of his realm since Dream has been away.
After his visit with Lucian, Dream goes out on a mission to obtain his items of power that were taken from him at the time of his capture. Dream has three items-a pouch of sand, a helm and a ruby. His pouch of sand was found with a former girlfriend of John Constantine, an antihero. Dream travels to Hell to retrieve his helm. Here he runs into his lover Nada, but has not yet forgiven her and refuses to free her. The demon, Etrigan, guides Dream to Lucifer where Dream explains that one of the demons in Hell has his helm. After battling Lucifer with a game of wits, Dream wins his helm back. Lucifer is now angered that he lost and swears vengeance upon Dream.
The last item to be recovered is the ruby. Dream finds out that the ruby is in John Dee's possession. John Dee recently escaped from Arkham Asylum and decides to torment customers at a diner by distorting reality to the point that the people became savages, murdering each other and ultimately commiting suicide. Dream arrives on the scene and demands his ruby back but Dee is overpowering. During the tussle, Dee shatters the ruby in hopes that it would kill Dream, but instead it returns the powers back to Dream. Dream decides to show mercy, since it was Dee who technically returned his powers back to him, and returns Dee to Arkham Asylum.
Dream is visited by his sister Death while reflecting upon his recent . Death talks Dream out of his slight depression and persuades him to go out and explore the world.

2) The Sandman Series titled Preludes and Nocturnes is a collection of eight issues. It has been published by DC Comics. Written by Neil Gaiman. Illustrated by Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcom Jones III. Colored by Robbie Busch. Lettered by Todd Klein. Issues one through five were penciled by Sam Klein, whereas issues six through eight were penciled by Mike Dringenberg. Issues one through four were inked by Mike Dringenberg, and issues five through eight were inked by Malcom Jones III.
Gaiman’s most notable works include The Sandman Series (comic book series), Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won many awards such as the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Newbery Medal and Carnegie Medal in Literature. He was the first author to receive both the Newbery Medal and Carnegie Medal in Literature for the same novel, The Graveyard Book. Max Kieth is known for The Maxx and Zero Girl. Mike Dringenberg and Malcom Jones III are both known for Gaiman’s Sandman series. Jones is also known for inking Denys Cowan’s pencils on “The Question.”

All are continuing their work. Gaiman just announced at Comic-Con this year that he is writing a new Sandman series. He is teaming up with artist J.H. Williams III (Promethea, Batwoman) to do an epilogue mini-series setting prior to Sandman #1.

3) Gaiman has chosen to have his comic be more about the art than the text. The picture dominates over the words, which explains why he has such a large group of people that specialize in everything from drawing to inking to colouring. But he treats his text just as important by adding a lettrist to the group of people who help put the entire comic together.
The art is an even blend of cartoon realism, meaning it is as realistic as cartoons can get without crossing over to the completely realistic realm of drafting comics. Some of the creatures like Gregory the gargoyle, is more cartoonized with his disproportionately sized body and cartoon expressions. Yet, the members of the Endless family seem more realistic with their defined detailing, very different from Schulz’s oversimplified cartoon character Charlie Brown from The Peanuts.

4) This comic is not a comic to just breeze through. The art is very detailed and I found myself having to reread some of the text bubbles because I was too caught up with looking at the artwork. There is no one page layout that is used, but rather every page is slightly different. The panel sizes and shapes vary page to page as well as the different sized gutters. I did not find this to be too distracting or difficult to figure out the sequencing of the panels, but I could see how this style could pose problems for other comics.

5) "Could I do another five issues of Sandman? Well, damn right. And would I be able to look at myself in the mirror happily? No. Is it time to stop because I've reached the end, yes, and I think I'd rather leave while I'm in love." -Gaiman, 1996
Sandman is a critically acclaimed masterpiece. It is one of the very few comics to ever make it on the New York Times Bestseller List. It has also been one of the five graphic novels to make Entertainment Weekly’s “100 Best Reads From 1983 to 2008.” When analyzed, this graphic novel series had an audience that was half comprised with females, something that separated it from it’s competition. Many of it’s audience members were also in their twenties who do not read comics generally speaking. Some critics have even reviewed the Sandman series as an “intellectual’s comic” for both adults and youths. Gaiman raised the bar high with his Sandman series. As a direct response to it’s publication, there had been many spin-offs made. Most of them have Neil Gaiman as the writer with numerous artist’s working under his leadership.