Sandman

The Sandman was a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics for 75 issues from 1988 until 1996. It became the flagship of DC's Vertigo imprint, and is kept in print as a series of ten graphic novels. more...

It is widely considered one of the most original, sophisticated and artistically ambitious comic book series of the modern age. By the time of the series's conclusion, it had made significant contributions to the artistic maturity of comic books and become a pop culture phenomenon in its own right.

The protagonist of Sandman is Dream, the immortal anthropomorphic personification of dreams and storytelling. He is known by an array of names, most often Morpheus, but also Oneiros, Lord Shaper, the Prince of Stories, and, rarely, "The Sandman". He is one of a family of seven siblings known as the Endless, each of whom personifies some aspect of reality, such as Death or Desire.

Gaiman has summarized the plot of the series as: "The king of dreams learns one must change or die and then makes his decision." The character's initially haughty, and often cruel, manner begins to soften after his years of imprisonment at the start of the series, but the challenge of undoing past sins and changing old ways is an enormous one for a being who has been set in his ways for billions of years.

Unlike most popular US comic books of its time, The Sandman existed almost completely outside of the superhero genre. The first third of the series somewhat conformed to the horror genre, but it later grew into an elaborate fantasy series, incorporating elements of classical and contemporary mythology. The series is occasionally labeled as "Sophisticated Suspense", a small genre that also includes Swamp Thing (particularly after Alan Moore took over writing it in the 1980s), and Jamie Delano's Hellblazer.

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