Revisit: The Sandman: Fables and Reflections
Fables and Reflections has no right to be as good as it is.
I remembered it being somewhat of an afterthought, a mishmash collection of single-issue stories that didn’t really belong anywhere else (some of them came before A Game of You, some of them immediately after. One even follows the next storyline).
The first time I read it, I actually read it after Brief Lives. I felt like they were fun little stories but ultimately useless. They added some texture to The Sandman but didn’t advance the plot.
I don’t know what was different this time — maybe it’s maturity or reading it in the “right” order — but now I think Fables and Reflections is probably the closest to expressing the bigger concept of The Sandman, which is that it is, in the end, a story about stories.
Fables and Reflections is nothing if not full of stories about stories – the stories we tell ourselves, the world. The stories we tell to revise the past or the future. It’s about how stories – about how dreams – shape the world.
The collection begins and ends with leaders and their cities. “Three Septembers and a January” is as much as about Emperor Norton I as it is about San Francisco (which is honestly the only place someone could declare himself emperor of the United States and get away with it). It’s a beautiful tribute to someone who’s not much more than a humorous footnote in history. “Ramadan” is about Caliph Haroun al-Raschid and the fantastic Baghdad. Al-Raschid’s choice to turn his city over to Dream to preserve it is still haunting and powerful (and sadly, it’s probably moreso today than it was in 1993).
The stories in between are a wild ride of new characters and old, historical and mythological figures. I don’t think we ever got to see enough of Johanna Constantine in The Sandman and Jill Thompson’s depiction of the “Lil Endless” in “The Parliament of Rooks” is so wonderfully ridiculous. There are so much in these stories that is delightful and surprising I don’t know how I ever thought this book was mostly a throwaway.
The only story that doesn’t work for me is “The Song of Orpheus.” I like Bryan Talbot as an artist but his work feels to modern for the setting of the ancient Greece of myth. While I’m happy to accept Orpheus as the son of Dream, I don’t feel like Neil Gaiman adds much of anything to the myth. I know why Gaiman told this story – it is important and necessary in the larger story of The Sandman — but it doesn’t go anywhere. (And as far as Greek myths go, I would’ve rather seen the story of Alcyone retold.)
But really, that’s a tiny complaint. Reading Fables and Reflections reminds me of why I spent many years obsessed with Neil Gaiman (and even now, admittedly, I still have my weaker moments). He’s an incredible storyteller. I don’t want to call these “comic books” or “graphic novels” or anything else. They are just wonderful stories.
What?
Junko Mizuno is doing work for Marvel?
The Sandman post may be pushed to later in the evening tomorrow (er, today). I’ll see what I get done before I have to go to work, but I get the feeling that the way this week has been going, it won’t quite be finished. There will be one, however. I promise.
Revisit: The Sandman: A Game of You
Poor unloved A Game of You.
Well, at least that was always the consensus (of, perhaps, a vocal group of men on the Internet). Before rereading it, it was my impression I didn’t really like this volume of The Sandman all that much.
Maybe it’s just that I’m older now. Maybe my sensibilities have changed. But despite its flaws, I really like now. It’s the more straightforward and simple than Season of Mists so I can understand why people were thrown off by it (and I think that’s why I was too) but it’s a lovely story that resonates with me for reasons I can’t quite articulate.
My main complaint with A Game of You is that I don’t find Barbie all that interesting. I know that was kind of the point when we met her in A Doll’s House, in a way, that she’s this normal woman who has a rich fantasy land in her dreams, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I care about her. I like her more now but she’s still a weak point for me in the book. I like her journey but I don’t really like her.
But there’s enough going on around her that Barbie’s character isn’t the absolute focus. We have an amazing assemblage of women – we have lesbian couple Hazel and Foxglove, the transsexual Wanda, and the ancient witch Thessaly.
Oh, Thessaly. I said that even if Neil Gaiman didn’t intend her to be, Rose Walker was pretty much pandering to a female audience. And without a doubt, Thessaly is too. Certainly, it’s great fun for this kind of geeky, meek-looking woman to turn out to be powerful and ruthless. But for every girl reading The Sandman who felt like the world viewed them much like Foxglove viewed Thessaly (”Like a bimbo, but with brains instead of looks”), this was awesome revenge. Gaiman knows how to play to his audience.
Overall, I think the book is more a way for Gaiman to discuss some thoughts on fantasy and further develop his ideas about women’s stories and men’s stories. There weren’t too many new ideas in there for me this time around (I was an English major) but I still like the discussion of how boys want to be superheroes and girls want to be princesses. I think it’s something that isn’t verbalized enough.
(I am angry that Gaiman never told the story of Alianora and Dream.)
And the most controversial comic book store scene … yes, comic book stores are like that. Or rather, they can be like that. (Gaiman made some comments where he said he thinks those sorts of stores are now in the minority, which makes me think he really only goes to big-city stores.) Just so we’re clear.
A Game of You is maybe a little messy, maybe too unambiguous in the points its trying to make, but it’s the one that’s surprised me the most so far this time around. Along with Dream Country, it would be one of the first I’d recommend to new readers (with some explanation of who is who and such), especially females ones.
Fan art!
Although, I suppose it doesn’t quite count if it’s from my good friend Timothy Lantz, but I am charmed all the same.
MoCCA Mini-Comic Roundup
I realize that I am quite behind on this, but that’s how it goes. And actually, I only finished reading everything today (some of that was that I didn’t realize I hadn’t read everything). But here we go, in no particular order.
Voids 1-3 - Shayna Marchese
This is a lovely black and white series about leaving behind crappy jobs and crappy boyfriends for a new start. The territory is not new, but Marchese’s tone is meditative and her bold lines and dramatic layouts give it a fresh feel. I’m going to watch for more of her work in the future.
The Sidestory of Mei Lan - Jeanette An
I’m guessing this connects to something else, but An’s cartoon-inspired are is fast and hilarious. It’s short but fun.
Pirates Take Manhattan - Bill Roundy
Obviously, some 24-hour comics are executed with a plan - or at least a plot - and end up being somewhat coherent. This, on the other hand, is none of those things and is all the more hilarious because of it. There are trolls, pirates, ninjas, robots, monkeys, golden apples, disco dancing and goats. What more do you want?
(Bill Roundy was also one of the nicest people at MoCCA - cheerful despite the heat [which isn't to say everyone else was mean, of course, but just tired]. He signed my book and gave me a sticker. Very charming.)
With Love - Yali Lin
Lin’s shoujo-inspired art is lovely and carries these five quiet tales about love. This is a simple book but heartfelt and probably one of my favorite things I bought at MoCCA.
Yume & Ever - Alitha E. Martinez
This is awesome. Martinez takes her background in mainstream superhero comics and does something amazing with it, crafting a silent and action-packed example of sequential storytelling. The plot is a little hard to piece together at this point, but the title characters end up as the only survivors from a super-team after a devastating attack on New York City. I need more of this. I’m excited to see where this goes.
There You Were - Diana Tamblyn
This is a calm little comic about the inner life of an over-looked office worker and about the connections between people. The comic mostly focuses on the faces of the characters and Tamblyn’s expressions are lovely.
The Trouble Is #1 - Shelli Paroline and Wednesday
I like the edgy, animation-inspired art of this quite a bit. The story seems to have potential, but just from this one issue, it’s hard for me to tell if it’s going anywhere. I’ll probably seek it out, though.
Dolltopia 1-2, Passing Notes - Abby Denson
Dolltopia is cute and fun, as fashion dolls and action figures escape their manufactured lives to live underground. Her simple art is expressive and bold. I liked Passing Notes, about two gay teenagers in a band, a bit more though, and I’ll have to pick up the rest of it.
Satisfactory Comics #7 - Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe
A 24-hour comic (well, 30, but who’s counting) that works better as an experiment than it does as entertainment. Certainly, I admire the craft here, but it’s (understandably) uneven at best. I can tell it was fun for Cates and Wenthe, however, and it’s enjoyable because of that.
Tear-Stained Makeup #1 - Marcos Perez
I’m not completely sure where this is going — it does leave readers hanging — but Perez’s art is pleasingly rough and he has a flare for dialogue. I’m intrigued.
Not exactly a mini-comic, but …
“Morph” story poster - Mark Gonyea
Well, you can go look at it. It’s cool. Gonyea was selling his story posters for $5 a piece and I think everyone at MoCCA should’ve bought one. They were a steal.
Revisit: The Sandman: Season of Mists
The Sandman just keeps getting more and more ambitious. As grand as I think Season of Mists is (I always remembered it to be one of my favorites) it fell a little short for me this time around. The set pieces and characters that appear seem to be more the point than the actual story.
We meet the rest of the Endless (minus Destruction) and Dream is goaded into saving Nada from Hell. I think Death’s statement of “That’s a really shitty thing to do” is a vast understatement.
Once in Hell, Dream finds it empty, and Lucifer (and I suppose, Gaiman) makes grand speeches before abandoning his post. I think there are some good points here, but it does feel a little clunky. Comic books – even highly literate ones – are about the combination of words and images and there’s just too many words and too little action.
As other pantheons pursue the Key to Hell, we get to meet a bunch of old god and goddess and entities. All of this is fun and feels pretty well educated. It expands on the seeds of story Gaiman began to build in earlier volumes. The story itself is more dramatic than action-packed, and the resolution is basically a deus ex machina (although in a somewhat self-aware way – it doesn’t quite build to an outcome the way I expected). While there was no really another way for it to end, the build-up does sort of fizzle out.
Thus far, I think artistically, this is the most uneven of the Sandman volumes. A half-dozen artists worked on these eight issues and there are some definite color issues in my version. I can only hope they will be improved in the Absolute version (which I still can’t afford, of course).
Beneath it all, the interpersonal drama is entertaining. It’s great to see the Endless interact – Gaiman famously said when asked if he regarded the Endless to be a “dysfunctional family” than he’d never seen a “functional family.” As archetypes, they’re a lot of fun. The various gods from various cultures are treated playfully and Gaiman gives you credit for being smart.
(I love Chapter 4 with Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine. Gaiman writes about childhood like no one else can, capturing how overwhelming and scary it can be.)
I don’t think Seasons of Mist quite lives up to the “big” story it wanted to be, but it’s epic and entertaining nonetheless. While Dream Country is where The Sandman found its voice, Seasons of Mist is where it found its pacing. It could be a medium to tell big, unwieldy stories than dragged in every culture it could. I think, as a smart teenager, that’s what I loved the most about The Sandman. I think that’s still what I love the most about it.
(And I may have used Hob’s toast a few times while signing yearbooks in high school.)
Review: Ayre Force
Everyone wants to be an action hero. We sit in traffic wishing we were chasing after the bad guys in a fast car or daydream about sneaking away from the enemy while we stare at computer screens all day.
Everyone has these fantasies. Apparently even people who start successful media and gambling companies.
Ayre Force puts Calvin Ayre, the founder of Bodog Entertainment, into the role of leader of a special ops team — who are, unsurprisingly, also members of the Bodog Entertainment group. They are pitted in a life and death battle against evil pharmaceutical tycoon Janus Winter and his genetically modified children.
To say this is a vanity project may be an understatement — obviously, it’s designed as a promotional product for Bodog and those the company represents (there are helpful biographies in the back about who everyone is in real life). It felt like an extended advertisement in a magazine to me and not really something I’d buy on its own (I received a copy of this to review).
But once I got past that, this is pretty much fun. This isn’t a work of high art, but it’s as entertaining, if not more so, than any typical action movie. While plenty of other stories have dealt with the duality of being a secret agent, the idea that people who are “famous” also working as special ops is a neat one and works well here. Why not pick people who already know how to fight and are sneaky?
Shawn Martinbourough’s art is slick and commercial and suits the project well. It’s a little generic but screams “comic book” and his fight scenes are surprisingly kinetic. Writers Adam Slutsky and Joseph Phillip Illidge are basically creating a silly action movie but the writing didn’t make me feel stupid. The contributions of color artists Andrew Dalhouse and Felix Serrano actually bring quite a bit to the book, filling scenes with hot reds and oranges for battles and cool blues and greens for more dramatic parts.
Messages against animal exploitation and dangers of genetic engineering do give the book a more “high-minded” purpose. Combined with the fact that proceeds are going to the Calvin Ayre Foundation, this at least strives to be a little bit more than a goofy comic.
Still, the appeal of this is limited. If you’re a fan of these poker players, mixed martial arts fighters or musicians, maybe this is worth reading (Bif Naked was the only one of the bunch I’d heard of, so I will allow that most of the fun of this was lost on me). For most everyone else, though, Ayre Force is probably nothing more than an amusing but ignorable novelty.
MoCCA Art Festival
Right now, it’s all kind of a blur. I was in New York for less than 24 hours, feeling rather tired, it was hot (as everyone has mentioned) and I was basically being fueled by coffee.
But it was a ton of fun, despite all of that. MoCCA puts on a wonderful show.
I loved that everyone was handed a Forbidden Planet bag as they walked in the door. One of the oft-heard complaints at Small Press Expo is that there were no bags. When you start accumulating mini-comics and books, you need a bag.
They are different shows and certainly there’s a lot of crossover, but MoCCA is clearly much more of a New York show than SPX. The exhibitors there seemed to have a bit more range, seemed to be a little more ambitious. What I’ve read so far of what I bought confirms this. The difference is subtle but it’s there.
The day was capped with a visit to the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Musuem. And then exhaustion.
I’m happy I went. It was quite a whirlwind but a delightful one nonetheless. This is one of the vaguest, most nondescript accounts of MoCCA I’m sure you’ve read. More will come back to me as I go through what I bought (I basically just walked up to tables, picked something up and paid for it. I was nearly at the point where I didn’t remember who I’d bought from and who I hadn’t).
But yes, I would go again. I hope next year it won’t be the hottest day ever.
All kinds of excuses …
No, seriously, due to a wild storm system, most of the apartment is without power. I work tomorrow, will be at MoCCA art fest through Sunday (then work) and the XO is really hard to type on (it was designed for children, after all) and the uh, “borrowed” wifi connection is slow.
All of this is to say there will be no Revisit of The Sandman tomorrow. My notes aren’t in a Google document and I don’t think I have the patience to recreate the whole thing tonight or tomorrow.
I think I’ll just skip this week and get back on track next week. Expect an awesome report on MoCCA on Monday.
Wizard World Philly report
It’s always great to go to a new city and only see the inside of a convention center.
Wizard World Philly was fun, although not for the reasons they intended it to be. Mostly, I enjoyed hanging out with Tim. The actual show itself wasn’t of much interest to me.
I know great deals are to be had, but with the Internet, tracking down that specific T-shirt of whatever obscure character or buying a light-up samurai sword is pretty easy. I don’t really have the patience to hunt through boxes of single-issues of comics — but then, I’m a pretty bad collector as things go.
Those Robert Tonner dolls are undeniably gorgeous. I’ve been told that they are and I always thought they looked wonderful in the photos. But they’re incredible in person. They’re the sort of dolls that make me think “$100? That’s a great deal for that!” Sadly, the Harley Quinn doll didn’t get to come home with me because good deal or no, I didn’t have $100 to spend. It did make me happy to see that plenty of people were buying them, though.
The wrestlers that I saw at the autograph alley looked pretty bored.
I was fairly disappointed with Artists Alley. I understand that Wizard World is not Small Press Expo, but the overabundance people selling drawings and painting of superheroes was tiresome. I suppose that’s what most people were there to buy, but it was boring to me. There were a few people doing their own thing — such as Tim’s neighbor, Melissa Diaz (and I’m delighted for no particular reason to see she’s a MICA grad) — but they were rare.
I was also shocked and disappointed to see that no one was crowding around David Petersen’s table, but I suppose that this wasn’t really the crowd for Mouse Guard.
Mostly, I sat with Tim at his table. Women really like his art and in the time I was there, the majority of the people who bought his prints were women. One seemed pretty starstruck by him and his work and that was fun.
A lovely black woman took him to task — in a playful way — for his work featuring mostly white women. Tim said he’s wanted to have more diverse models but it’s hard since he lives out in the middle of nowhere and people usually don’t want to come out to him. The woman liked Tim’s style, but she said it wasn’t something she’d feel comfortable hanging up in her house, but she’d be happy to if something like “Titania” featured a black model.
(A lot of Tim’s work has been for book covers where the art directors are looking for specific things, which does account for some of the models he’s used.)
Being a skinny white girl (who is featured in a few of Tim’s works. You can find them. They’re there), it’s not something I’ve thought too much about with his work, so it was interesting to hear her perspective. I think we all want media to reflect who we are and how we perceive ourselves and when it doesn’t, it can be alienating.
The crowd was mostly young white men with a few families and young women scattered in. I remember the crowd at Baltimore Comic Con last year being more diverse, but Wizard seems to have little shame about appealing to a particular demographic. Still, I think 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago, there weren’t have been that many women there. Tim said he even has noticed a change in the few years he’s been going to shows.
I probably wouldn’t go to another Wizard World con and I only went to this because Tim was there, but it was still a good time.
Next week, due to insanity, I will be at the MoCCA Art Festival, which is probably the dark mirror image of Wizard World. I look forward to it.