Sandman

Sandman is a truly epic work, headed by Neil Gaiman and slavishly attended to by a team of shifting illustrators, comprising an unfortunately finite series of brilliant narrative. Monomythical in nature, Sandman follows the extra-corporeal adventures of Morpheus of The Endless, the administrator of Dream and gradual friend of the mortal realm.

The artwork in the series initial thrust is difficult to digest - which has led me, in the past, to rigorously caution newcomers to it all that "it gets better, I swear". The vaguely revamped version in Sandman Ultimate has only managed to slightly address this situation - though 'older' fans like myself seem to prefer the 'classic' look of the old and eye-searing initial volumes.

The themes that are woven throughout the series as a whole are sweeping in breadth and literally fantastic in nature - combining myths and legends from all corners of the earth and all eras of history, deftly metastasizing the disparate threads into a cohesive whole with the titular character firmly at the enter.

Morpheus finds himself tackling many things - the predations of humans, the intrigues of his fellow immortals and the gods that entertain their attentions, becoming the de facto owner of Hell, and eventually the struggle for his very existence as a being capable of change and perhaps even death (Death, meanwhile, being literally related by blood as Dream's sister).

The whole series is a sort of roller coaster ride that feels as much a tour of human mythological history as it does a clear narrative about a character who learns and lives despite being an immortal fixture in the fabric of our psychological universe.

This was (and is) easily one of the most important series I have read as both an artist and an individual, and has greatly informed the way I enjoy weaving together disparate characters and events in narratives - as well as