Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part XVI: The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives

Comic trade paperback, 102 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 2001)
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2012

The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Penciller: Bryan Talbot
Inker: Steve Leialoha

Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Willie Schubert

My long, ambling journey through all things Sandman continues with The Dead Boy Detectives, which brings back two character who previously appeared in Season of Mists (and in only one issue, I think): Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine. Edwin was murdered at boarding school in 1916 and went to Hell, but escaped during Season of Mists. Charles, attending the same boarding school in 1991, was murdered during the same storyline. Due to the general chaos, both of them escaped Death and were not forced to go to the afterlife.

By the time of this story, they've set up as detectives. Why not? I'm sure there are worse ideas for Sandman spin-offs out there. And it's written by Ed Brubaker, who did an excellent off-beat take on the police procedural in Gotham Central, giving me confidence that he could do a mystery here.

Unfortunately, the book itself is not as fun as the premise "teenage ghost detectives" would imply. The mystery is as about as simplistic as simplistic could be; the characters spend the whole book being blatantly mislead, which is just frustrating to the reader. Who wants to read about a pair of detectives who are complete idiots? And like too many stories set in The Sandman universe, it revolves around the realm's ill-defined mysticism a little too much. Ghosts have the power to make miniature ghost versions of themselves, apparently. Why?

Worse, the characters are just dull. I couldn't ever remember which one was which, and given that one of them comes from 75 years before the other, that's a problem. At the very least Edwin could have been given comedy about being out of the loop from 1916 to 1991 (the story takes place in 2001). But we don't even get that. They're just interchangeable enthusiastic kids with creepy eyes.

Good premise, but nothing interesting after that point.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part III: The Absolute Sandman, Volume Three

Comic hardcover, 616 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 1991-2000)
Borrowed from the library
Read September 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume Three

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Jill Thompson, Vince Locke, Bryan Talbot, Mark Buckingham, P. Craig Russell, Michael Zulli, John Watkiss, Dick Giordano, Michael Allred, Shea Anton Pensa, Alec Stevens, Gary Amaro, Kent Williams, Tony Harris, Steve Leialoha
Colorists: Dave Vozzo, Lovern Kindzierski, Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh
Letterer: Todd Klein

As I'd mentioned earlier, I was somewhat lukewarm towards the earlier volumes of The Absolute Sandman. There was certainly an amazing mythology at work, but I found it hard to be interested in Dream as a character; often, I was more invested in the random people who got caught up in his adventures. (Curiously, all of these substitute protagonists seem to usually be women. I wonder if there's anything in that.) But the substory Brief Lives, collected here, changed all that. This story features Dream and his sister Delirium searching for their lost brother Destruction-- and in the process of that, Dream finally has to come to terms with his relationship with his son. It's half a road-trip comedy, half a meditation on knowing when to move on, and half a very dark fairy tale. It's definitely the funniest of the Sandman storylines... but it's also the most touching. I enjoyed every aspect of this one a lot, from Delirium's inane attempts to try to drive a mortal car, to Dream and Destruction's conversation on reuniting, from the first appearance of Merv, the pumpkinheaded janitor of the Dreaming, to the moment where Dream finally goes and sees Orpheus. Most of all, it's great to finally get a sense of Dream as a person. (Inasmuch as an anthropomorphic personification of an abstract universal concept can be one, I suppose.)

What struck me as I was reading it is that The Sandman really is a literary comic book. I mean, there have been plenty of literary graphic novels produced-- non-superhero fare that is done in one sitting. But The Sandman unlike most "highbrow" sequential art pieces, is completely and utterly a comic book: an ongoing, indefinite story. In total, the series comprises some 75 issues, and stories and characters and ideas weave in and out of these issues the same way they might in a Superman or Spider-Man ongoing. Gaiman really utilizes the potential of the comic ongoing to its maximum here, and that is the reason I like The Sandman as much as I do. It might have taken until Brief Lives for me to like The Sandman, but Brief Lives would never have worked without all the preceding issues to lead up to it. Gaiman has utterly mastered one of my favorite aspects of the medium here, and I find that delightful.

A brief word about the other storyline collected in this volume, Worlds' End. This is a collection of one-issue stories set in the world of The Sandman, but unlike many of the other ones, they're connected with a frame narrative. They're also the weakest; most of these did nothing at all for me. Strangely dull for Gaiman.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part II: The Absolute Sandman, Volume Two

Comic hardcover, 616 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 1990-98)
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume Two

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Sean McManus, Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss, Matt Wagner, Stan Woch, Coleen Doran, Duncan Eagleson, John Bolton, Malcolm Jones III, George Pratt, Dick Giordano, P. Craig Russell, Vince Locke
Colorists: Dave Vozzo, Steve Oliff
Letterer: Todd Klein

There's two big storylines collected in this volume of The Absolute Sandman. The first is Seasons of Mists, which opens with a meeting between Dream and the rest of the Endless. They suggest that Dream was a bit of a jerk for exiling his lover to Hell ten thousand years ago (described in a side story in Volume One), and that he should get her back. Apparently that's all it takes to change someone's mind, because Dream launches himself into Hell to reclaim her soul. Why? No one knows. Upon getting there, he finds out that Lucifer has opened the Gates of Hell and let everyone go because he's tired of the whole thing, and Lucifer hands the place over to Dream and promptly absconds, leaving Dream with the question of what to do with Hell. Various claimants come to petition Dream, and I was initially excited-- who Dream chose would give me some insight into his character surely, or even just watching him deliberate would-- but the whole storyline just stops with a literal divine intervention. Seeing Gaiman's depictions of the various claimants is fun, though; I think my favorites were Thor and the Lord of Order. His Loki is pretty underwhelming for the ultimate trickster, though. The best part of the storyline, however, is the side story about the boy left behind at a boarding school when all the souls are released from Hell.

The second story, A Game of You, is much better for the reason that it doesn't focus on Dream at all, but rather Barbie, a human who previously appeared in Volume One. Her dreams are starting to spill over into the real world and into the lives of those who share her apartment building. We see almost everything from the perspective of Barbie, her transvestite friend Wanda, the lesbian couple Hazel and Foxglove (one of whom is pregnant!), and a witch named Thessaly. Barbie soon becomes lost in her dreams, which are a little girl's depiction of a fantasy land, with herself as the princess, surrounded by a cast of goofy animal characters. Watching these characters try to make sense of the weird world they've been projected into, as well as their own personal lives, is great, and I was totally on board with every moment of it. The ending is a bit underwhelming, however, as Dream just shows up all of a sudden and takes care of everything. But other than that (and the epilogue), this was my favorite Sandman storyline yet.

There's also a quality side story about Emperor Norton I of the United States, which I just loved. A fun look at a fun historical personage.

My reviews of the first two volumes of The Absolute Sandman might make it seem like I'm down on the series, and I'm not-- I think the writing is usually sharp, most of the characters are fully-fledged people, the tone and atmosphere are great, the Dreaming is a fantastic mythology, and Matthew the Raven is pretty much awesome. But it's hard to get too enthused about a series whose protagonist leaves you so little to connect to, even at supposedly defining moments.