Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999) Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano I was feeling glum last night, so I reread Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano’s The Dream Hunters. This is a comic book for people who say they don’t like comic books, and if you haven’t read it before, you can click through and read my […]

Jack of Fables Vol 2: Jack of Hearts (2007) Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, Steve Leialoha I preordered Jack of Hearts months ago, because I am a huge fan of Fables. And I was disappointed when there was a delay in publication. Unfortunately, this volume didn’t really live up to my expectations. When the […]

Fables 9: Sons of Empire (2007) Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Michael Allred, and Andrew Pepoy If you haven’t been reading Bill Willingham’s “Fables” then you have been missing out. In Sons of Empires we spend more time with Pinocchio and Geppetto and learn how they plan to carry the war into the Mundane […]

Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape (2007) Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, Andrew Pepoy I was slow to pick up this collection–and just as slow to start reading it–because Jack is one of my least favorite Fables characters. He’s a jerk. Why would I want to read an entire book about him? Well, […]

Lucifer Vol 1: Devil in the Gateway (2001) Mike Carey, Scott Hampton, Chris Weston I’d considered picking up Lucifer since I finished reading The Sandman. I liked the characters of Lucifer and what Neil Gaiman did with him, but I’d hesitated picking up the Lucifer, since it wasn’t written by Neil Gaiman, and I’ve been […]

Fables: Vol 8 Wolves (2006) Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha It actually took me awhile to realize that this was Volume 8, rather than another stand alone book. It should have been obvious–after all, it’s been 6 months, so it’s time for another collection, but everything I saw simply said Wolves and not Volume […]

Fables: 1001 Night of Snowfall (2006) Bill Willingham If you haven’t read Bill Willingham’s Fables series, then you have really been missing out. Fables tells of the characters–Fables–who have escaped the lands of fairy tales after they were drive out by the adversary, and are now living in New York, hiding their true nature from […]

Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days) (2006) Bill Willingham Volume 7 of Fables struck me as somehow different from previous volumes. Although there is a complete story arc about the Sinbad and the Arabian Fables coming to Fabletown, that story seemed almost secondary to several different different threads that were dropped or mentioned in passing. It […]

Hellblazer: Original Sins (1987) Jamie Delano So. Well. I first came across Constantine in the Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, when Constantine helps Morpheus get his bag of sand back. He was a strange character, and I wasn’t sure about him. But I was curious. Then we watched “Constantine” which was an okay action movie, although […]

Fables Vol 6: Homelands (2005) Bill Willingham I broke one of my cardinal rules with Fables, which is don’t get involved in an ongoing series. Of course, I didn’t realize I was breaking my rules at the time, but I could have stopped earlier in the series, and waited. But I didn’t. Because the story […]

The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999) Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano The Dream Hunters is my favorite Sandman story. It’s not a comic proper, but is instead an illustrated story. And the illustrations are gorgeous. I tend to do little more than glance at illustrations, but the art here is impossible to ignore. Based on […]

Fables Vol 5: The Mean Seasons (2005) Bill Willingham Fabletown has mostly recovered from the invasion of the wooden soldiers sent by the adversary, and so the mayoral election can now be held. Prince Charming has been making promises that things are going to be different if he wins–promises to the fables who live on […]

Fables Vol 4: March of the Wooden Soldiers (2003) Bill Willingham I’m reading this series slowly (or at least attempting to), because it’s not completed, and Book Six is not scheduled to come out until January 2006. I really like the Fables series, and March of the Wooden Soldiers is good, although not quite as […]

The Sandman Vol 10: The Wake (1996) Neil Gaiman The final book in The Sandman collection, volume 10, The Wake tells of the funeral of Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, and of how Dream rebuilds his realm, and meets the rest of his family. I particularly like seeing how Matthew comes to terms with Dream’s […]

The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones (1996) Neil Gaiman This is my least favorite book in the Sandman series. Part of it has to do with the fact that it’s a sad storyline. Normally in a book you have the good and bad parts together, however in the Sandman, there were eight books leading […]

The Sandman Vol 8: World’s End (1994) Neil Gaiman This is my second favorite book in the Sandman series. Like my favorite, Fables and Reflections, it’s a collection of short stories. A disparate group of people are caught in storms and end up at World’s End: A Free House. As they all wait for the […]

The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives (1994) Neil Gaiman In Brief Lives Delirium decides that she wants to search for her brother Destruction, who abandoned his job 300 years earlier. She goes first to Desire and Despair, both of whom tell her to abandon her idea of finding Destruction. After all, he had reasons why […]

The Sandman Vol 6: Fables & Reflections (1993) Neil Gaiman This may be my favorite Sandman collection. There are several different tales told, some in the past, some in the far past, and all excellent. It starts with “Fear of Falling,” a story of a man who is afraid to succeed. It’s a short story […]

Death: The High Cost of Living (1994) Neil Gaiman It’s hardly a surprise that Neil Gaiman would write a comic about Death. In Sandman she was usually far more likable than her brother, Dream, the hero of the series. In one of the early Sandman episodes we learn that once a century, Death takes corporeal […]

The Sandman Vol 5: A Game of You (1992) Neil Gaiman Barbie, who we first met in The Doll’s House, has moved to New York City after her break-up with Ken. She hasn’t dreamed for two years, when she was pulled into the dream vortex created by Rose Walker, but Barbie’s Dreamworld is not content […]

The Sandman Vol 4: Season of Mists (1991) Neil Gaiman Season of Mists is the story of Dream’s journey to Hell to free Nada, after he is confronted by the fact that he unjustly sent her there ten thousand years before. All the stories in Seasons of Mists are part of a single tale, of […]

The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country (1990) Neil Gaiman Dream Country is the third book in the Sandman series. In this collection of short stories, Dream is peripheral character for the most part, though in “Facade” Death appears instead. I’m particularly fond of “A Dream of a Thousand Cats.” We have two cats, and I’m […]

The Sandman Vol 2: The Doll’s House (1990) Neil Gaiman There is a vortex in the Dreaming, that Dream must control before it destroys the Dreaming. He must also find four of the major arcana that have wandered from the Dreaming: Brute and Glob, the Corinthian, and Fiddler’s Green. Meanwhile, Rose Walker searches for her […]

The Sandman Vol 1: Preludes and Nocturnes (1989) Neil Gaiman The first volume in the Sandman series, Preludes and Nocturnes tells of Dreams capture by Roderick Burgess, his eventual escape, and his recovery of his bag of sand, his mask, and his ruby. This collection especially makes me feel as if there’s stuff I’m missing, […]

Fables Vol 3: Storybook Love (2004) Bill Willingham So apparently I lied. I must pay at least some attention to the artwork in graphic novels, because I really hate the way that Bigby looks in the middle stories here. The way he looks as a wolf is great. I quite like it. But as a […]