But hey! I'm now reading one of the more legendary stories from the amazing Neil Gaiman, also known as the comic book series Sandman. And holy freaking crap it's amazing.
So, to clarify a few things before I start, my father has collected the actual comics as they were printed, so I have to read these at the dining room table on a mat because, hey, they're pretty freaking rare and valuable these days. Also due to the paper texture they feel lovely-- the texture of weathered yet sturdy paper. It's a nice feel.
But yes, I've read the first arc, which introduces one of this world's seven Eternals, beings who are living anthropomorphic embodiment of different aspects to life. The first arc follows Morpheus, more commonly known as Dream. It starts off with him being captured and stripped of his items of power by a human, who meant to summon death.
A human lifetime passes, taking Dream from the 1920's to the 90's before he can escape the magic trap he had be caught in. After taking care of the remaining captor by giving him the "gift" of eternal waking, he departs back for his own realm to start looking for his three lost items-- a pouch, a mask, and a ruby. This takes up the first fourth of the ark-- two of eight issues.
I have to say, the writing is really amazing! As always, Mr. Gaiman has just this certain way with words. Add to that the unique art style this series has, and just-- asjd;lfkja;lweb! It's a keyboard smash of things I can't quite place descriptors to! Hell, even the covers are intricately detailed. I think it's a nice touch that some ethereal beings such as Dream and Lucifer have their own style of text boxes. Dream speaks with a slightly wavering white script in a black and ragged box, whereas Lucifer's are rounded boxes with a very stylized text in them. Extra details like this help the characters to sound certain ways in one's mind. Dream sounds quiet to me, but his voice-- despite being rusting like book pages turning-- holds a deep amount of power to it.
It seems that in this work, like the others, I'm just going to spend most of it in wonder at the weaving of things together and asdfghjkl; this story!
Anyways, Dream has to go on this quest to go get his three items of power back so he can repair his realm/actually do things since his items have a part of his soul/power sealed into them. Two of them are relatively easy, with one of them being on earth and easily retrieved with the help of John Constantine (DC "hero" of sorts-- I don't know much about him but the fragment I saw was really cool!)) and the other being retrieved after a contest in Hell.
Yes, you read that right. Hell. Dream has to go to hell and win a contest against a duke of Hell to get his mask back. It's all types of cool, and Dream has this one line that just causes all the demons of hell to part before him and let him leave. I ain't going to tell you what it is, it's one of those things you really need to read for yourself.
The last item, his Ruby Moonstone, is not that easy. It takes up 3/8 issues to get it and one of them, well.... I wouldn't recommend it for the weak of heart. There's some really messed up shit in there. We're talking more messed up than the Manhunt game series mixed with the manga Parasyte. (A game series about murder for the fun of it and the child poster for Body Horror, respectively.) It's not pretty. I might have nightmares and they'd be the worst kind of nightmares. But still, despite being a barrel of messed up, it's really well written and understandable despite twists and turns.
I ain't going to spoil the climax.
But afterwards, Dream is feeding some birds when his older sister, Death shows up. Yes, Death is a girl. She promptly throws a well-thought out sisterly lecture/tantrum-- more great moments I won't tell you about-- but it ends with Dream finally smiling, having found solace after his woes.
But yes-- this story is amazing so far! Apparently there's seven of these Eternals, and their names all start with D. Dream and Death have been seen, and Destiny and Despair have been mentioned in passing.
I cannot wait to read the second arc.
I keep talking about Dream. Here's an image of the Eternal to help y'all see what I saw, in a sense.
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