THE SANDMAN COMPANION
Gaiman's meisterwerk comes under the eye of literary analysis.

Writer: Hy Bender
Book
Published by DC Vertigo/Titan Books 1999
$19.95/£13.99

Reviewed by Maria Sabatowski

If anything, it's a surprise that this book hasn't been done before. Considering SANDMAN's continually extraordinary sales, and widespread appeal to many people who "don't read comics," it's quite amazing. But worth it; The lapsed time between SANDMAN's actual run and this book's publication help to give a healthy sense of perspective.

Bender is an accomplished writer, most famous for some of the very successful series of "Dummies" Internet books. He's also a fiction writer and, it becomes clear, a big fan of SANDMAN and Neil Gaiman in general. The advantage such a pedigree gives him is one of research, and this work has obviously been somewhat of a labour of love for Bender.

"Even the most ardent SANDMAN completist will find something they didn't know in here"

The book's format is very simple and clear; each of the main chapters deals with one of the SANDMAN collections, in publishing order. The chapters start with a fairly straightforward account of the story events in each collection, followed by an overview of "Things to look for" -- symbology, cross-referencing, literary influence and so on -- then finally an extensive interview with Gaiman himself.

Also scattered around are boxouts and snippets of comments from artists, letterers and colourists who contributed to the series, and a section of colour illustrations showcasing trading card art, foreign edition covers, statuettes and more.

The highlight of the book is the lengthy interview with Gaiman in each chapter; candid and in-depth, even the most ardent SANDMAN completist will find something they didn't know in here. Also worthy are the examinations of symbology and references; again, full of information which only someone who has clearly read and re-read SANDMAN as much as Bender (and with a few dozen reference works on classical mythology to hand, by the looks of it) will have picked up.

There are some instances, both in the interviews and reference sections, which don't quite ring true -- cases of over-examination and, frankly, just reading far too much into a single panel do occur. Thankfully, though, they are few.

"Possibly the best thing about this book is that it could have been simply terrible... Mercifully, we're spared."

The overall impression one gets from this book is how much Bender obviously admires SANDMAN and Gaiman, but (again thankfully) this never tips over into blatant sycophancy. What we are left with is a fair analysis of the work, and a book which will undoubtedly encourage people to re-read SANDMAN (again!), this time with perhaps a greater understanding.

Possibly the best thing about this book is that it could have been simply terrible. We could have been subjected to family tree diagrams, ridiculous minutae detailing a character's breakfast habits, or pop-psychological analyses of various protagonists (something the VAMPIRE COMPANION, a similar book on Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, was assuredly guilty of).

Mercifully, we're spared all of this. Instead we have a broader overview, a lit-crit which doesn't read like a school thesis, and an insight into what makes SANDMAN tick.

Recommended

Maria Sabatowski is a regular contributor to PopImage.

Back

Attitude | ProFile | Industrial
Interviews | Reviews | Pi Comics
Talkback | Archives | Gallery