The stuff of dreams

When comics buffs list titles with genuine literary merit, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman features near the top of every single one, and with good reason. Across its 70-plus issues, The Sandman expanded our ideas of what the graphic medium could achieve, with its dizzying mixture of high and pop culture references, its distinctive visual grammar and its dogged refusal to dumb down or let its protagonist (Dream of the Endless, also known as Morpheus, Shaper and some other colourful names) indulge in superhero shenanigans. That a series full of personified metaphysical entities could become as popular as this one did was news for comics writers and artists. The Sandman , over and above its literary influence, empowered them to go forth and dream big.

At the beginning of the first issue, Dream was captured by a magician called Burgess. There he remained for seven decades, weakened and plotting his revenge. Gaiman had hinted at a long-drawn conflict that had robbed the dream lord of his strength. The Sandman: Overture is the 160-page story of that war and the cost of Dream’s eventual victory.

From the outset, it is clear that Gaiman and artist JH Williams III are pulling no punches whatsoever. The very first sequence shows an aspect of Dream (the Dream of “a race of huge carnivorous plants, with limited mobility, but beautiful minds”) being burnt alive. There are a number of obviously flashy ways in which you can do this as a comics artist, but Williams’s execution veers more towards the painterly than anything else.

The panel progression is stately, the divisions are idiosyncratic and Gaiman, back in the saddle with his favourite creation, hits top gear from the word go. The flower-Dream is described as “someone with a white flower on a tall stem with dark resplendent leaves”. And as the dreaming plant Quorian sees the flower-Dream burning, here’s how Gaiman presents the scene to us: “And the silent screams of the burning plant go through Quorian like a gnawing worm and make him tremble. He has never seen fire, only been told of it in tales transmitted by root and pollen and scent.”

This is reminiscent of Shaper’s shape-shifting ways in iconic Sandman stories like A Dream of a Thousand Cats, where he appears as a gigantic cat (the Dream-cat has a prominent role here too, by the way), or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where he confronts a young William Shakespeare in medieval finery. Dream is, after all, how you dream him as.

The death of one of his aspects also gives Gaiman the perfect means to bring forth something that he has long desired: a conversation between Morpheus and Morpheus. The gist of the matter is, when the Dream of any planet dies, it causes a rupture in the space-time fabric and the various Dreams of the Endless gather in the Conclave of Confused Pronouns. By the end of it all, Morpheus proves to be insufferable, even to himself. He wonders: “Am I always like this? Self-satisfied. Irritating. Self-possessed and unwilling to concede center stage to anyone but myself.” An ancient Egyptian aspect replies: “I believe so. Yes. In my experience.”

This gathering of Dreams allows Williams (and colourist Dave Stewart) to well and truly flex his muscles. In a panoramic four-page fold-in landscape, we see the many aspects of Dream across time and space, united in their bewilderment at being united thus. It is the kind of artwork that ought to be framed in drawing rooms, displayed in museums or painted on ceilings. Williams was the artist on Promethea , an almost fatally ambitious series, even by Alan Moore’s standards. The artwork there, although magnificent and formally accomplished, didn’t quite have the range of styles or the playfulness of Overture .

When Dream investigates the murder shown in the opening scene, he is forced to meet the First Circle, a higher grade of elementals including his father, Time himself. As Dream speaks to his less-than-impressed father, we see an old man holding a withered flower turning into a young boy chomping on a fruit… and back to old again. All around him, the boundaries of reality seem oddly permeable. The idea of Time living a simultaneous, all-inclusive reality is introduced almost entirely through the art, and that by itself is a staggering achievement.

A quick word about the deluxe edition of The Sandman: Overture (the mini-series was initially published in six comic-book instalments). This is a tall, exceptionally well-produced hardback that includes over a dozen additional covers (and other sketches) drawn by Williams and Dave McKean, famous for making the original Sandman covers of the 1980s and 1990s. There are several other meaningful extras: a portion of the script with Gaiman’s priceless liner notes is a delight to read. Williams has a particularly interesting interview wherein he reveals some of the inspirations behind the Overture artwork (Jim Steranko, MC Escher).

The Sandman: Overture has some elements of both a prequel and a sequel. To diehard fans, it is the triumphant return they hungered for all these years. To new readers, it is a spectacular introduction to the Endless. And yes, the deluxe edition is worth the ₹1500 price tag.

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