Revisiting The Sandman

(Hi to everyone who is getting here via Neil Gaiman’s journal. I am happy to have you here.)

In 1994, growing up in the suburbs, if you were a girl who liked comics, there weren’t too many options. I was quickly outgrowing Elfquest and I was no where near cool enough for Love and Rockets. I still liked the superhero stuff, but I was getting bored. Strangers in Paradise was just getting started and anyway, I had no way of knowing about it (this was pre-Internet). There was no Y: The Last Man, the was no Persepolis.

Basically, being a teenage girl (not to mention one of a certain sensibility) in the ’90s who liked comics, it was pretty much inevitable I was going to read The Sandman.

Nearly 20 years after it first began (and more than 10 after it was completed), the reputation of The Sandman as being a comic girls like continues to be pervasive, to the point there’s a growing chorus of women who are saying “I don’t actually like The Sandman.” And I can understand that: After all, in the decade and a half since I first started reading it, there are many more comics out there that easily appeal to women. It’s no longer quite the go-to “my girlfriend will like this” series it once was.

It’s been years since I’ve read the whole thing (at least five for most of it, possibly 10 for some of it). So, is The Sandman still good? Does it hold up? Do I still like it?

I’m pretty sure I know the answers to all of these questions. Mostly, I just want an excuse to read the whole thing again.

So: One of the 10 collections a week until I’m done, starting tomorrow, to see if The Sandman is what I remember it to be.

Update: Here’s all of them, conveniently linked below. The cover images are from the editions I have and are obviously not current.

Preludes and Nocturnes
The Doll’s House
Dream Country
The Season of Mists
A Game of You
Fables and Reflections
Brief Lives
World’s End
The Kindly Ones
The Wake
In conclusion