Amph Endless discussion (Neil Gaiman's Sandman)

LOL romanticism personified. I didn't think of it that way, but it's true - there was that sequence in Brief Lives where he just stands outside in the rain for ages and ages, just for the drama.

Genders ... Destruction makes sense as a guy, because he's the personification of the GRAR SMASH manly fighter from ages past. Death being female is just really inspired on Gaiman's part, but maybe she's a girl because she's the absolute reversal of the 'tall, skeletal, male Grim Reaper' stereotype? Perhaps the genders were also picked to have 3 male (Destiny, Dream, Destruction) and 3 female (Death, Despair, Delirium) Endless, with Desire being whichever he/she wants.

 

RAIN IS DRAMATIC. I AM BROODING. LOOK AT ME BROOD.

 

Personally, I think Death is female because of her connection to both the beginning and the end of life, and also because it makes for a convenient subversion of the usual skeleton-and-cloak ensemble.

 

Read The Kindly Ones. It's wonderfully written, but ... OMG Morpheus.

Knowing he was going to die - it was very nicely spelled out in the introduction, so if I didn't know before I would've found out then - gave the volume a chilling depth. Death calls him out on it at the end, and she's right: everything that happened is his own doing. He arranged everything, right up to the end. It's a magnificently elaborate form of suicide.

And dramatic, of course - Morpheus has to have as dramatic a death as possible.


Is Thessaly Morpheus' mystery lover he was moping about in Brief Lives? That seems to be the implication, but they seemed to really hate each other every time they were on-page.

 

Like I said - the guy's got awful taste in girlfriends and relationships in general.

Morpheus's fate was what made me most sad when I read The Kindly Ones, but the panel with Goldie crying over Abel's body was a close second. (I would totally adopt a heartbroken baby gargoyle if he needed it.)

 

That he does. Unless he's deliberately going for the relationships with maximum drama potential, in which case he has excellent taste.

For me it was the panel on Death's face as she's about to 'collect' her brother - she knows what she's got to do and she's going to do it, but she's not exactly happy about it. In fact the entire sequence of pages where Death is halfheartedly railing against Dream for getting in that situation is all kinds of sad.

 

So, have you read The Wake yet? I'm not sure what I thought of it. It was too much denouement for my taste (though I liked the Hob story, as always).

 

Haven't - I'm planning on getting it tomorrow. Too much denouement, huh? Worse than the ROTK movie?

Oh and have you read the Death graphic novels? I got the first one the other day and it was amusing.

 

I see what you mean about The Wake. The first two sections were neat - the funeral was both sad and appropriately hazy and dreamlike, and I liked the insight into Dream 2.0. The next two stories ... ehh ... they were good, I don't think Neil Gaiman can write something that's actually bad, but rather unnecessary. Bit like the last twenty minutes of ROTK...

 

D'oh... I forgot about this thread.

I haven't read either of the Death graphic novels, but I did pick up Endless Nights. It's a series of 7 stories, one for each of the Endless. It's an interesting concept, though some of the stories were better than others. I wonder if Gaiman could've left out Destiny, since Destiny's story isn't really a story (nor should it be, I guess... it seems Destiny doesn't do much of anything, he just reads). And I think the artist who did Despair was trying way too hard to be artsy. I really enjoyed Dream's, Desire's, and Destruction's stories, though.

 

Oops, so did I.

Yeah, I didn't think too much of Endless Nights. Death and Dream's sequences were great, but the others ... ehh ... I skipped over most of Despair and Delirium, and I can't even recall what Destiny's was any more so it can't have left that much of an impression. I did like the Daniel cameos though.

The Death novels are great - although possibly I think so because they star Death and Death is great, not because the novels themselves are overwhelmingly fantastic.

 

Hmm, I've heard praise about this series, but I've been burned lately on that front.

As fans of the series, how would you describe it to someone completely ignorant of it?

I've bought about 3 or so GN lately based on the praise of fans and none of them sparked. Very meh.

If you're curious; The Ultimates, Batwoman(not as meh), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

 

It's not a super-hero-type comic. There isn't much in the way of action, at least not fisticuffs-style. The art tends to do its job rather than try to be spectacular - Sandman is about story and characters, not visuals, and the pencils consequently can look a little rough, especially when compared to the polish of the covers (I've heard several people complain about this over the years). These aren't wish-fulfillment power-fantasy stories, and can be rather melancholy. They are imaginative and magical in a way most comic-books aren't, though.

Can I ask what your favourite graphic-novels/ series are? We might be able to suggest something appropriate if we knew what kind of material you have liked in the past.

 

Ah, I cracked Sandman vol 1 and thought, "Wtf, was this drawn in 1971?"

My favs are; The Long Halloween, Green Lantern/The Flash Rebirth, Watchmen, Daredevil-The Man Without Fear, V for Vendetta, Sin City, Dc The New Frontier.

Lot of Superhero stuff I know, but really I just want a strong defined story worth reading, and perhaps a unique vision.
I just hate when it seems like they're phoning it in, or making you think, "Who cares?" while you read it.

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is another I'm curious about taking a look at.

 

I would suggest:

The Immortal Iron Fist, volume 1 by Brubaker, Fraction, and Aja: kung fu adventure stuff, well drawn, you don't really need any prior knowledge of the character.

Marvel Boy by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones: young survivor of a crashed alien starship takes on evil genius; fantastic art, imaginative story.

Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross: set some years in the future of the DC universe, Superman comes out of retirement to reform the Justice League and put the world back into shape; beautiful painted art from Ross, good story, but so famous you've probably read it already.

Avengers Forever by Busiek and Pacheco: a bunch of Avengers from different points in time are thrown together as they are caught in a war between Kang and Immortus; the art is very nice, the story complicated... if you are a long-time Avengers fan, this is great; if not, it's just going to be confusing.

Elektra Assassin by Miller and Sienkiewicz: ex ninja assassin takes on her old boss, who's pretty much the devil; there are no really good guys in this story, so that might be a problem for you, but it is a good story, and Sienkiewicz's art is wild and crazy.

I'm not very up-to-date on my comics, so you might already be familiar with all of these.

 

Sandman is literally the only graphic novel series I've ever read so I can't speak for its uniqueness (I think it is; the idea of a family of beings that are personifications of concepts isn't one that I've run across anywhere else), but it's definitely is a great story. Or rather, it's a great collection of interlinked stories, all connected in imaginative and unexpected ways. If you ignore the art, it's brilliant reading.

 

Alright, I think I'll put vol 1 of that and Swamp thing on the to-do list for when I don't have anything else to buy. Thankee.

 

Bear in mind that most of the great series take time to get going, few are brilliant on the Vol 1 TPB, but come Vol 2 or 3.....

 

So start with 2 or 3 then?

A lot of these series are a bit intimidating, as they're 8-12 volumes long.

 

I started Sandman with Season of Mists, then worked backwards and forwards and got on fine.

Though Sandman isn't told in a strict chronological fashion too.

 

Start from the first volume, but if you are wondering where it's going for the first couple of stories, just stick with it as it all ties in at the end.

 

So... is the CW really going ahead with adapting Sandman as a TV series? Or is it just speculation?

If that comes to fruition, I'll probably slit my wrists. Morpheus would approve.

 

I've heard of that happening but you know as much as I do. I would liek to see a tc series that also spawns a Lucifer series, right off from where he hands over the keys to Hell.

 

C'mon, how exciting could Lucifer's life have been? He played piano on occasion, he made out with half-faced demon thingies, and may or may not have turned into a beach bum.

 

I got my hands on a library copy of The Little Endless Storybook. It was cute, but literally a five-minute read. I'm not sure what I was expecting it to be, I guess.