SANDMAN: BRIEF LIVES.
Reunions and change abound for the Endless

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Jill Thompson, Vince Locke, Dick Giordono
Colorist: Danny Vozzo
Letterer: Todd Klein
Trade Paperback
Published by DC Comics 1994
$19.95

Reviewed by Gregory Dickens

This is the list of departures: her son; her brother; his lover; his father and her husband; her reality; his existence; their short sexual lives; their chauffeur and his employee; his former lover and her coworker; his son; his life; his tranquility; his obligation.

They die. They walk away. They end. Things change.

That's what BRIEF LIVES is about: changes. How we handle them. How we fool ourselves into not seeing them approach. How we convince ourselves we can't bear the consequences. How we continue to mourn the past and disregard the present. Until the present changes and then we mourn that.

BRIEF LIVES is about looking back always. When we desire too much what was and not what is. It's about waste, loss, miss and, as Mervyn the pumpkinhead says, mooning. There's murder, suicide, denial, mutilation, tragedy and sorrow. So why does the ending leave us so optimistic?

"If nothing else Thompson gives us the definitive Delirium"

BRIEF LIVES is a road story, itself an encapsulation of transition. Delirium, the youngest of the Endless, asks her brother Dream to help her track down Destruction, who abandoned his post 300 years before. They use connections to chart a path and follow his acquaintances, all of who are falling prey to fatal accidents created by him to hide his location. In here is the event that leads to Dream's fate and it casts a solemnity for all involved. Much is lost and there is little comfort for even the most unscrupulous of the Endless.

Again we must credit Gaiman in packaging this tale with so many connections. Like a neuron web, the theme of apprehension of transitions affixes the characters, ranging from godlike personifications to travel agency secretaries. But Gaiman has had volumes written about him already. We're here to cast an eye at Jill Thompson's contributions, so let's get to it.

If nothing else (though I'll convince you there is much more) Thompson gives us the definitive Delirium. "She stares at the world with two mismatched eyes: one emerald green, the other pale blue through which silver flecks flicker and swim like a shoal of tiny fish." She makes frogs and animates chocolate people having sex and sculpts with bubbles and tends to flop on the furniture as if she has no spine. She's a mercurial moppet here with rainbow hair and torn fishnet bodysuit and very big jackets and some truly overeager eye shadow.

Before now - way, way back - she was Delight, almost elfin wearing a billowy pink off-the-shoulder number and a white corset. But at some point, Delight apparently learned that things, that simplest and most broad definition, change - and that she couldn't keep everything from dying. Popping out of existence when she gets distracted is one thing, but to ponder the consequence of a thing permanently gone flipped the switch, and the chaos of entropy took hold of her. Hence the tatters.

"Thompson contributes a body language that almost renders word balloons obsolete"

Thompson gives you all this in one panel. One close-up shot of a forlorn Delirium hiding from the rain with a homeless woman who speaks of her lost, dead son. This puts the notion in Delirium's mind (if that word can really apply to her) to find Destruction. And, in every sense of the phrase, she does. Bad things happen around her as the search progresses but she's just not there enough to perceive what havoc her journey's creating.

When she's pulled over by a cop for driving like, well, like Delirium, she makes the mean man go away by convincing him he's lousy with insects. And she leaves him that way. Is that cruel of her? How can it be? She doesn't even think of the consequence. She just acts on whimsy. Hell, she is whimsy. And every stance, pose and movement Thompson uses for her conveys this. There's a great moment early on when Delirium stumbles against a wall decorated with shards of broken glass. Her reality is a reflection of ours after all, and she's no longer the pure Delight of old.

It's even more striking in the tiny moment when she collects herself to scold brother Destiny. She stands tall, her eyes suddenly match, she speaks in a confident manner. She does this to protect Dream (felled when instructed to contact his estranged son for his oracle ability) and as soon as Dream collects himself, she slips back into the ragamuffin veneer and lets him lead the way. It's startling and made so, again, by Thompson's depiction, making her demeanors distinct. The Sandman stories rely heavily on a subtlety unheard of in most mainstream material, and Thompson contributes a body language that almost renders word balloons obsolete.

Distinct also are the scattered uses of material away from traditional line drawing. When Dream enters Delirium's realm, he's tossed into a collage of type, patterns, photos and mediums. Adrift in the tumult are the phrases" fear," "wasn't good enough." and "mediocre." You look at the abstract and you see Delirium delineated as solidly as if it were a statue of her. The reality of the feline Bast is done in scratchboard, the pictures etched out of black background, defining a harsh world separate from the tranquility of her dreams. A nightscape is presented in cool watery pigments, suggesting the chill in the air, and stars grow in number away from the horizon's twilight. Sibling Desire has a Patrick Nagel contour with stronger lines communicating his/her stern, diamond exterior. A strip club, where goddess Ishtar/Belili/Astarte works for meager worship, uses shadow to construct form and space and Danny Vozzo's hues allow more definiton of the forms.

BRIEF LIVES isn't the best Sandman book for beginners. For that, I'd recommend the SEASON OF MISTS trade paperback. But consider this book for sheer emotional wallop, made even stronger once we know the series' conclusion. Gaiman and Thompson deliver the cusp from which the rest of the Sandman stories will flow, and pack it full of a melancholy and imagery that sticks with you. Read it once to be entertained. Read it again to be floored.

Strongly Recommended

Gregory Dickens is a regular contributor to PopImage.

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