Sandman Vol 1 – Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
Monday, October 5, 2009 7:07 PM /
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To those who have not been captured by Gaiman’s spell yet, take a plunge years back and read the Sandman series, his first ever comic debut.
Sandman starts with a group of ancient warlocks coveting to capture Death for the purpose of eliminating the curse of mortality, but instead captured Death’s younger brother, Dream or Morpheus or/and his many other so called aliases. A mysterious disease has suddenly swept the world when people begin to have sleeping disorders: some never woke up lost in their dreams, while some went anorexic plagued by nightmares. How Dream managed to escape and retrieve his possessions (a shabby looking pouch which contains sleeping dusts, a mosquito-like helmet – really, really ugly – which for no reason I do not know its purpose aside from concealing his worn down pasty face, and his ancient ruby which mostly contains his power) is a long journey he must take to save mankind (he is brave, and also arrogant and vengeful and sometimes merciless but I kind of like him as the story unfolds) from being trapped in the nightmare of his dreamworld.
You will get to know a lot of characters – and the story usually starts from their own point of view; how Gaiman invents and names them I do not now. He is a very talented storyteller. My fave chapters are A Hope In Hell and The Sound Of Her Wings.
A Hope In Hell is an entertaining episode about our hero, the king of dreams, venturing hell for his lost helmet. Here he comes across the gates of Hell, accompanied by one of its guardians, past the valley of suicides, encountering many a demons and monsters – most of them new, and finds out that Hell is now ruled by a triumvirate: the forsaken Lucifer Morningstar together with the king of flies and Darkness. To reclaim his helmet, Dream must engage in a primitive match of verbal-slash-mental brawl among one of the demons. Hope alone is what Dream possesses aside from a pouch of sleeping dust to recover his lost helmet and to get out of hell safely, and what Lucifer holds to destroy him.
The Sound Of Her Wings, the last chapter of Part 1, opens with a scene about Dream sulking on a park. He ponders about the lack of contentment after his journey. Death, his spunky, kick-ass Goth sister eventually found him. Then she takes him on her round of duties, as she collects the souls of the newly dead. Mortals fear Death. They fear the sunless lands to which she guides them. They feebly attempt to placate her. They do not love her. As Dream comes to appreciate what his sister does, he is comforted. He fills his heart with the sound of her wings.
I really like the cover, surreal and morbid; the artwork is like a typical comic book, though added with a little bit of grunge. Anyway, this tale is a killer with vengeance at its core personified by Dream. Read this before the king of dreams haunts you in your sleep. Because you’ll never know if you’re gonna wake up again.Labels: children books, comics, fantasy, feature, ken chua, neil gaiman, reading, review
0 Couldn't Keep His Mouth Shut
Ken Chua would no longer go underground unless the notorious Martial Law II is declared. He is partly convinced that all his pent-up thoughts are spilled in this account. 
