IN DREAMS I WALK WITH YOU: 

Fantasy, Folklore and Dark Humor in Neil Gaiman's _Sandman_ series 

The _Sandman_ series, written by Neil Gaiman  and illustrated by a
number of different artistic teams,  is immediately distinguishable from
most American comic books.  It contains recognizable  visual  elements
such as character depiction,  panel shapes,  and multi-media artwork,  but
is also notable because of the complex and allusion-filled narrative.
Gaiman peppered the series with references to Shakespeare, classical myth,
and historical fact in narratives dealing with subjects such as urban
decay, British private schools, the occult,  murder and insanity, among
others. Gaiman's target audience needs a passing acquaintance with
everything from Greek mythology to   literature ranging from Shakespeare
to Harlan Ellison and back again (or at least to have the means to look up
the allusions).  However,  it is Gaiman's main set of characters in the
Sandman series, known as the Endless,  who most prominently emphasize and
embody Gaiman's preoccupations with fantasy, folklore and dark humor. 

In the series,  the main character, Dream, like his mythic
counterpart, is known by many names--the Sandman, Morpheus, King of
Dreams, Kai'ckul, Oneiros, and many more,  depending on what creature from
what culture is referring to him.  Dream has six siblings--Destiny,
Destruction, Death,  Despair,  Desire, and Delirium--who comprise a
parentless family called the Endless.  While they are not Gods, they rule
over corresponding aspects of human life.  Dream, and the six other
members of the Endless, unlike superheroes,  do not attempt to save
humanity, either from itself or some other threat.  They are also
generally unconcerned with superheroic antics.  

The Endless immediately raise issues of fantasy  because of the
very nature of what they are and what they do.  They are also notable
because they do not behave like most comic book protagonists. Gaiman's
focus is not on what the Endless represent in American culture, and his
purpose is not to interrogate American culture's fascination with
superheroism.  Rather, his goal seems to have been to create a series of
comic books containing elements of various genres and high art forms. The
series showcases techniques seen in high art such as finished pencil,
photography, and literary narratives in Gaiman's chosen format--comic
books--which also happens to be the one of the last formats most Americans
associate with high art.

As Dream and his actions are usually the primary focal point in
the series,  it makes sense that the narrative would work to subvert
conventional expectations of both time and paneling.  Sandman's effect
upon
the reader mirrors dreaming.  In dreams, after all, time is fluid and
things can simultaneously be both what they are and what they are not.
Because of the element of dreams and fantasy,  _Sandman_ is less concerned
with the linear continuity of images than most comic books, because more
emphasis is given to the images as individual images as well as images
within a narrative system.  

A significant amount of the attention lavished on _Sandman_ by the
critics points to various artistic techniques found in the series. Many
articles discuss how the images could as easily be displayed in museums
and what it means for high art techniques to be found within the
culturally debased comic book format. _Sandman_ was one of the first
American mass-market comic books to combine high art media with text in a
sequential order.  Dave McKean's multi-media found-object work, located on
the covers of the issues, illuminate the narrative in ways that drawn
images alone can not.  Also, McKean's mixed-media work is very
eye-catching, especially to the non-comics-reading adult whose familiarity
with comic books may--at best--be passing glances at covers while coaxing
their child out of the comic book specialty shop. 

_Sandman_ was held up by critics and fans alike as an example of a
comic book that was not childish   or directed at an audience made up of
children.  Many turned to the artwork as the primary example of
sophistication in the text.  Many others pointed to the narrative, reading
it as an especially clever revisionist text.  In many ways, _Sandman_ can
also be read as fascinated with the ways in which  individual human lives
intersect with myth and fantasy.  Fantasy is a general term for any type
of fictional work that is not primarily devoted to realistic
representation,  and often describes imagined worlds in which magical
powers and other impossibilities are accepted.  

Gaiman himself prefers to leave his definition of fantasy
notoriously vague.  He stated in a July 1994 Comics Journal interview (#
169) that he is "the kind of person who likes to define fantasy as any
kind
of fiction."  Of course, when many Americans think of fantasy, they most
commonly associate it with imaginary creatures such as faeries and elves.  

Gaiman expects this, and in a nod of sorts to more traditional
fantasy works, he includes an elf named Nuala.  In the collection _Season
of Mists_, Nuala is given as a gift from Titania and Auberon, the rulers
of
a realm called Faerie.  Titania and Oberon, of course, are Shakespearean
characters, and appear in Gaiman's revisionist version of "A Midsummer
Night's Dream".  Nuala orginally appears at the Dreaming as a young human
robed in fancy clothing.  Dream learns that she is a gift he cannot refuse
without greatly offending Titania and Auberon.  He reveals her 
to be a significantly less fanciful elf-creature, by disabling her ability
to appear as something she is not.    It is Dream who strips away Nuala's
artifice, insisting that she adhere to reality within his realm--which is
a realm made up of fantasy and dreams.  

However, for all of the power Gaiman grants the Endless, simply
being a member of the Endless does not prevent one from falling prey to
human vices and emotions such as pride  and desire.  Dream suffers though
a number of failed romantic relationships, and strained familial
relationships. There is a rift between the older members of the Endless
and the younger.  Desire carries a continual quest to upset and unsettle
Dream, going as far as fathering a child by a minor character named Unity
Kincaid.  Kincaid was one of many victims of a sleeping sickness brought
on by Dream's seventy-year imprisonment at the hands of mortals who were
trying to summon his older sister--Death. 

Delirium, the youngest of the Endless, is often talked down to by
most of her siblings simply because she is the least linear of all of
them.  Paradoxically, in _Brief Lives_, she is the only one of the Endless
who actively goes searching for Destruction, who had abandoned his realm
300 years earlier due to rapid technological developments, which he
thought were making his job obsolete. 

The members of the Endless also have the ability to project images
of themselves into other peoples minds, something that seems ghost-like
and certainly within the realm of fantasy. An example appears in _Brief
Lives_ when Dream and Delirium are in search of Ishtar, Destruction's
former
lover.  They go to a striptease club where Ishtar, pressed for worship, is
now working as an exotic dancer.  Dream, tall and gaunt, Delirium, short
and wildly colorful, and Matthew, Dreams familiar (a raven who was once a
man) approach the door of Suffragette City, the strip club.  The bouncer
refuses to admit them.  

Dream points out that they "are three adult males attired in
accordance with local standards and you are only too pleased to invite us
into your establishment."   The next panel shows three male figures, clad
in baseball caps and workshirts, walking into the bar.  However,  the
reader can still identify Delirium though her distinctive speech balloon
as she says, "I did that.  What you just did.  I did that in the
beginning."
She could mean the beginning of the narrative, which is, of course, the
beginning of _Brief Lives_, or she could mean in the beginning when she
changed from Delight to Delirium, or something else entirely.  It would
come as no surprise to the reader to discover that Delirium is referring
to something completely unconnected to the text, or, she could be
self-referentially referring to all three.  The reader has come to expect
Delirium to be non-linear and coded with multiple meanings.

Gaiman also shows the Endless making side wagers with each other
over the outcome of human lives.  In the issue "Three Septembers and a
January," contained in the seventh book, _Fables and Reflections_, Despair
calls Dream to the room of one Joshua Abraham Norton, a failed businessman
contemplating suicide.  It is September 1859, and Despair challenges
Dream: "Can you really keep him from my realm, from all our realms, before
our oldest sister comes for him?"  Dream, goaded by Despairs taunts that
dreams are nothing, gives Norton a dream--to be the first Emporer of the
United States. 

Among his subjects, and one of the many to pay the fifty-cent
Imperial tax, is Samuel Clemens.  It is Norton who gives Clemens--Mark
Twain--the encouragement to write about the jumping frog--Twain's 1865
short story The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County--stating that
readers like things that take their mind off of daily routine and into
day-dreams and fantasy.  Before he dies a natural death twenty-one years
after Despairs taunts, Norton becomes an embodiment of folklore.  In one
sequence he is accosted by tourists from the Northeast who have put him
down on their itinerary as one more tourist sight to see.

Folklore is a modern term for the body of traditional customs,
superstitions, stories, dances, and songs that have been maintained by a
community   by processes of repetition other than the written word.
Gaiman relies on a use of folklore--Norton's fame speads primarily by word
of mouth.  In a way, Death and Dream (and, to a lesser degree, the rest of
the Endless) embody folklore as well, from the stories of Mister Sandman
passed from mother to child   to the various interpretations and images of
Death.

An example of Gaiman's use of folklore is the "Tales in the Sand"
sequence, from _The Doll's House_ collection.  Two figures are shown
walking
across the desert from a distance, having already walked two days to reach
the place. One figure is a tribal elder taking a younger male on a rite of
passage.  The panels read "There are tales told many times.  Some tales
that you tell children, stories that tell them the history of the tribe,
what is good to eat, what is not. Cautionary tales."  This particular
tale,
which Gaiman takes pains  to point out, is one of love and pride, told to
male children as a rite of passage.

The tale is that there once was a young queen named Nada, who
ruled wisely over a city made of glass and was loved by her subjects--who
were, the elder tells the younger, their tribe's ancestors.  Her subjects
were concerned that Nada was not married, and she said that she would
marry when the right man appeared.

Sure enough, one appeared, but quickly vanished.  Nada searched
for him, and then ate fireberries, which were reported to take one to the
side of their true love if ingested.  She discovered that the stranger she
had fallen in love with was Kai'chul, the Sandman, the Lord of Dreams.
Nada instantly coughed up the fireberries and returned home. Kai'chul came
to Nada, stating that no woman had loved him enough to seek him out.  He
swore his love for her, at which point Nada fled, knowing that the Endless
and mortals should not be together.  He pursued and she yielded.

In the morning, when the sun rose and found Nada and the Dream
King together, it knew that something that was not meant to be had
happened,  and destroyed Nada's village as a result.  Nada told Dream that
they could never be together, and threw herself off  the cliff.  Dream
stopped her spirit on its way to Death's realm. He made to propose again
and she told him not to--for if he asked again and she refused he would
damn her--and, his pride wounded, he asked.  This is where the tale ends,
and the initiate protests, insisting that it is not a real story because
it lacks an ending. 

Gaiman goes to great lengths to emphasize that this version of the
tale of Nada and Dream is the men's tale.  In this fictional tribe, the
tale of Nada and Dream is a strictly verbal tale, but Gaiman commits it to
the written word.  Not only that, but this male version is evidently not
the only version of the tale.  Apparently, a similar tale is told to the
young women of the tribe, but the circumstances and details--one
guesses--are very different.  That story is told in women's language. 

Of course the women's version is not re-told through Gaiman or the
tribal males, who do not know the women's tale, because they do not and
can not know women's language.

The initiate is both right and wrong in his assertion that the
story 

does not have an ending, for that version of the tale does indeed end
there.  That version, which ends after Dream has asked the third time and
waits for a response, is the version that  is told, has been told, and
will continue to 
be told, Gaiman implies, to the male initiates of this tribe. However, for
the reader of the series, the story of Nada and Dream is continued in
later books--she is imprisoned in Hell for ten thousand years before Dream
sees the error of his ways and goes to Demonkind in order to free Nada,
whose soul is then reincarnated.

Of course, it was Death herself who convinced Dream that he had
done wrong by Nada, and needed to right the situation.  Their exchange is
almost comical, a back-and-forth banter in the beginning of the collection
_Season of Mists_.  Destiny has called the family together for a
conference,
but does not reveal why.  As usual, Desire taunts Dream about his failed
love affairs, and Dream leaves the gathering.  Death follows him.  As
usual, Dream speaks over-eloquently, insisting that he would have made
Nada a goddess.  Death retorts, in her casual speech, that "it is bad news
for us to get involved with them. You know that."  As Dream sets out to
free Nada, having realized that he was unjust in condemning her to Hell,
Death calls after his fading figure: "Hey Dream! Don't do anything
stupid!"

Dark humor deals with disturbing or sinister subjects treated or
discussed in a manner intended to induce laughter. For instance, the
slightly slovenly   Death takes her job seriously, but also stops to feed
pigeons with her younger brother in between guiding the newly deceased
into her realm.  Death is also shown wearing exercise clothing--complete
with sneakers and black legwarmers,--while she works overtime   when the
Gates of Hell open after Lucifer gives up control of Hell.  All of the
dead contained in Hell rise and begin to walk the earth, and Death has to
go round them all up again, hence the workout wear.

When Dream and Calliope's son Orpheus turns to Death for
assistance, he walks into her realm.  He discovers that it not only
appears like a small apartment furnished with a  well-loved   ratty
armchair and a goldfish bowl, but is cluttered with fishnet stockings and
jeans draped casually over the furniture.  When Death arrives, she tells
Orpheus that it's just that way because that's how she prefers it, and
then changes it into 
an  ornate hall of mirrors for his benefit. Destiny, the most serious of
the Endless, often chastizes Death for wearing inappropriate clothing to
family gatherings.  Death's faded black jeans and tank tops don't sit well
with Destiny, and he urges her to change into Victorian era mourning
clothes.  Death initially protests, saying, "You know how much I hate that
stuff!  Next thing youll be moaning for me to get a scythe!" but always
heeds his wishes, mostly because she can just as easily change back the
instant the meeting has concluded.

Linear continuity is not a primary  concern of Gaiman's and would
not work in accord with the fluid, shifting narrative that often reads
like a dream, where things change for no particular reason. Dreams have
their own grammar and own set of meanings. This changing is simply
accepted and does not seem ridiculous in the context of the dream.  

For example, Delirium's appearance is consistent only in
inconsistency.  Her wildly colored hair appears long in one panel, short
and one shade in the next, and a few panels later her hair has begun to
grow back but in a different color.  Her eyes do not match; one is blue,
the other green.   Her clothes are constantly changing, from a torn
fishnet bodysuit in one panel to a cocktail dress in the next. These
changes are obviously meant to reflect her unstable mental state, but do
not keep the reader chronologically oriented. Delirium changes simply
because she can, or because she can not truly prevent herself from
changing.  

In conclusion, as a series, Sandman broke expected convention and
proved that genre-mixing need not be negative or poorly done.  Sandman
also proved that an adult comic book readership was not simply a
demographic fluke that appeared after the graphic novel boom  in the mid
to late 1980s.  Gaiman's characters, The Endless, display his
preoccupations with fantasy, folklore and dark humor, and do so in a way
that feels essentially human to the reader.  Dream, Death, and the rest of
the Endless go about their respective business, but not without gently
urging the reader to reconsider their roles--after reading the series, one
will never think of dreams--or death--quite the same way again.