I recently finished the 9th volume of Sandman. For those of you with a good memory, I mentioned the Sandman series in my blog post defending the medium of comic books. I wanted to come back to it now because Volume 9 was without a doubt one of the greatest reading experiences I've had.
The series follows the adventures of Dream, one of the endless along with Despair, Destiny, Death, Delirium (formerly Delight), Destruction and Desire (yes, the D thing is on purpose). Each controls the realm that they are named after. So, when you dream, you visit the realm Dream, known as The Dreaming. There isn't really a central plot to all of the volumes, simply a collection of stories related to the character of Dream. As a result, the stories tend to be rather abstract, sometimes heavily featuring Dream and sometimes pushing him off to the side. All through it though, Neil Gaiman has created significant attachment to this character of Dream. That, I think, really is Neil Gaiman's genius. He is able to tell a great story because he is able to create amazing characters. The interesting thing is that he never really explains in depth his characters. He leaves a lot of his character mysterious, which really makes them that much more engaging and interesting. Humans in general don't really like everything to be spelled out for them, on a deep level. Thinking and analyzing satisfy us and so the most engaging books are those that make us think are the ones that last. Need proof, just look at Hamlet.
I'm not going to lie, you've gotten me eager to read some comics this summer, more so rhan Mr. Ahmed ver has (he's an avid comic book reader).
ReplyDeleteDo you "publish" your blog when it gives you the option after finishing? I ask because I think your work on music and comics could attract a legitimate following. By legitimate following, I mean at least 20+ folks outside our class that would look forward to reading your stuff, which in my opinion, is pretty cool.