Comics as Contemporary Literature- Neil Gaiman "The Sandman"- Drama told through Mythology

 xI've grown a love for mythology since coming to college. The lore that it presented in the stories seem like a soap opera to me. All the tales of betrayal and some gods trying to kill demigods. All of it excited me and made me welcome to know more. What I didn't originally know was that Neil Gaiman had already written things for this.

Neil Gaiman's literature, "The Sandman", is about a character that rules the dream world and his known as the title as The Sandman (alias being Morpheus). He is trying to rebuild his kingdom after being imprisoned for 70 years by a ritual cult and is trying to change his actions after what he did before. He's known as a tragic hero, someone who had not done wrong and you start to see their morality decline and understand his or her motivation to do so. In the Batman movie, "The Dark Knight", the character Harvey Dent could be considered a tragic hero since he started as a defender of justice to a fallen broken man. While the story starts off as a dark setting in later books it's more of a fantasy genre with myological beings introduced into the mix. It's art style is surreal and it's narrative goes from one character to another, even introducing characters that won't stay long for the story.

I'll be honest, my first time reading "The Sandman" I started on volume 9, "the Kindly Ones". I didn't know what to expect in reading it since it was my first time reading one of Neil Gaiman's work. I was confused (probably because I started in the middle of the arc instead of the beginning) but I wanted to know more about the characters, more about the world that the Dream Kingdom took place in. After reading the book, I actually started in the beginning to know what the hell was going on. I was shocked to know how little mythology was included in the first novel since it was a prominent thing in the ninth volume. The myological aspect didn't start till the fourth volume with the giving the figure Lucifer more background rather than just someone Morpheus pissed off.  When I first saw the art style, I wasn't all that interested since it was too abstract to my taste, but with the narrative and mythological references you'll grow to love it like I have. What I didn't know originally was that a character from the DC universe, Lyta (Alias: Fury) was incorporated into the universe and that some of the actions effected their replicative books and even tied into the Doctor Fate series. There are no points where I feel disappointed in the narrative and feel that the lore has some ties into everyday life that people endure (another reasoning that most of the setting takes place in the modern world).

Neil Gaiman "The Sandman" has amazing flow and pacing. The art is mystical and abstract and it plays in favor with the setting. I would say that I enjoyed his work and hope to find more mythological aspects in other works he's done.