“The Sandman” comic books series began 24 years ago, way back in 1989, and many of you will remember when that series first hit the shelves of your favorite store. The series continued for seven years, ending in 1996. While that was 17 years ago, it really wasn’t so long ago that you could pick up the most recent issue in your local bookstore.
Back in the heyday of the series, I was a teenager, and I can vividly remember seeing issues of this comic for sale in the Walden Books store in Mobile. Eventually the series (and Walden Books) came to an end, but what hasn’t ended is my long-running desire to read the complete “Sandman” series, which is considered one of the greatest comic book series of all time.
My interest in this classic series received a much-needed jumpstart a year ago, in November 2012, when the Web site, “The Writers Almanac” (writersalmanac.publicradio.org) mentioned “The Sandman” series in one of its daily articles. They made the series sound so great that I even put “Read the complete Neil Gaiman ‘Sandman’ graphic novel series” on my “bucket list.” If you’re not familiar with the series, here’s a little background.
In the late 1980s, Gaiman, a British writer, was selected by DC Comics to revive “The Sandman” comic book series. Before he was done with it, he’d turned it into an award-winning series that was 75 issues long and ran from January 1989 through March 1996. Since then, the complete series has been collected and republished in a 10-volume series of graphic novels called “The Sandman Library.”
In March, I took the first step toward reading the entire series when I finished reading the first volume, “Preludes and Nocturnes.” In May, read the second volume, “The Doll’s House," and in July I read the third volume in the series, “Dream Country.” In September, I finished reading the fourth volume in the series, “Season of Mists” and last week, I finished the fifth volume in the series, “A Game of You.”
Originally published as a trade paperback collection in 1993, “A Game of You” contains issues No. 32-37 in the series, which were published in 1991 and 1992. Of the five volumes that I’ve read so far, I’d say that “A Game of You” was unusual and somewhat bizarre, but that’s not to say that I didn’t like it. I read somewhere that this volume is actually considered the least favorite by most Gaiman fans, but Gaiman considers it his favorite.
With that said, I’ve got five more volumes left to read before I can say that I’ve read the entire run of the series. The other editions of “The Sandman Library” are as follows:
- The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections
- The Sandman, Vol. 8: World’s End
- The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
- The Sandman, Vo. 10: The Wake
In the end, how many of you out there are fans of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” comic book series? How many of you have read the complete series? What did you think about it? Have you read anything else that measures up to it? Let us know in the comments section below.
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