The Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition

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However, I didn’t expect what I got in the sense of storyline. Don’t get me wrong. It was a great story, just not the one that I expected taking in account that it was a prequel to the main series. Like most Sandman stories, lots of concepts and ideas are thrown around, and the power of dreams proves to be pretty powerful. A star goes mad and Dream comes a-callin'. Along the way, he encounters a lot of old characters, along with some previously unseen ones. Curious about who spawned The Endless? Wonder no more!

In this volume not much actually happens, but Dream meets several characters who drift in and out of the whole series, including his father and mother, and sisters and brothers Death, Desire, Delirium (formerly, Delight), Destiny, Despair, Destruction. There're Mortals, Dreams/Nightmares, The Endless and other creatures. In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is a work of fantasy, with a deep streak of horror running through it, though in this first volume it mostly just looks like fantasy. The artwork is done by JH Williams III, and he quite simply puts a world (or three) right in your lap and draws it like he's been there, astonishing, the perfect man to collaborate the creative genius that is The Sandman. Morpheus must undertake a pressing journey to save reality and the ending of the tale is where the Sandman series starts. More than that I shall not say since this one is a must read for anyone who appreciates the brilliant talents displayed in this book. So why did I want to talk to him at all, you ask? Well, in the comics desert wasteland that was the 1990s, his comic The Sandman was a bright spot in a rather dull universe. It was one of my favorite comics of that decade.

Success!

What I think, while not necessary, it could be cool, it was to dedicate at least one issue of the six, forming the overture, to have the humans (at least the most relevan tones) here showing how their lives lead to the points where we find them in the main series. Sandman Overture" is a story of a beginning and of an end. Time plays a circular game, like the worm Ourobouros: We come from Nothing and head toward Nothing. We fill the emptiness with dreams and desires, and they in turn shape the world we live in. Sometimes, oftentimes, the dreams become nightmares. "Overture" is the tale of the events that took place before the first album in the original series : "Preludes and Nocturnes". And for one story to start, another story has to end first ... Time must flow ... Darkness must be banished ... He ends up in this weird area where all the forms of Sandman are. It's a bit like one of those Doctor Who specials where we get to see all the various Doctor Who incarnations at once. Actually, quite a bit of this felt like an ambitious Doctor Who episode. Lots of timey-wimey stuff and the decay of the universe is a common theme in Doctor Who - and Neil Gaiman has written for Doctor Who in the past. Read Sam Quixote's fine and appropriately exuberant review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Overture tells the tale of the great cosmic event that weakened Dream of the Endless enough so that he was susceptible to capture by simple hedge magic in Sleep of the Just. When Morpheus made his original appearance in the first issue of Sandman, Gaiman alluded to some fantastical conflict that left the Lord of Dreams weakened and vulnerable. The series never explained what that conflict entailed, only that it left him weak and vulnerable. In The Sandman: Overture , Gaiman elected to explore the events which led up to the original series. My first reaction to hearing that Sandman would have a prequel was that it was unnecessary. I felt like the original run had been a complete story, and that there was no need to dip into that well again. I was wrong there. Giving it more thought, we had sort of been teased that something major had happened just before Dream was captured, and it was never explained in any sense. This is that explanation, and it fits in just as it should. In the epilogue, Desire reveals to Despair that the successful rescue of the universe was the result of Desire's third attempt to assist Dream. The first two attempts were thwarted by Dream's refusal to accept help, and Desire was able to start over by using Father Time's saeculum, symbolized in the story by a warped timepiece hidden in Mad Hettie's memories. The Sandman: Overture is the prelude to the entire Sandman saga. Ever wonder why some two-bit magician snared Dream in the 20's? This book takes the long way around but explains things pretty well. A meeting is held on a distant planet. Aspects of Dream from various sentient species are present and have been awaiting his arrival to investigate. After consulting the oldest Aspect of Dream and another figure known as "Glory of the First Circle" he learns that the cause of the wrongness is the insanity of a star which will spread until the universe itself is destroyed. Glory claims that Dream is at fault for the insanity.On an alien world, an aspect of Dream senses that something is very wrong, and dies in flames. In London 1915, while intending to deal with the troublesome nightmare The Corinthian, Morpheus is alerted to the same wrongness and is summoned to an alien world to investigate. Dream of the Endless is our guide, and in the Dreaming there is no limit to where or when he can go. Galaxies dance around in their multitudes like stars around Earth's night skies. Glittering impossible cities play host to the stars themselves, and stars are more than balls of fire, they have souls and mental issues. When one of these stars goes crazy the whole universe is on the brink of extinction. Lord Morpheus sets out to heal the rift in Reality or die trying, because somehow, somewhere he was the one that started it all. Overture (2014) was issued eighteen years after the final volume, The Wake, was published—more than twice the time it took to produce the entire original series. Perhaps Neil Gaiman waited a little too long. Well I'm lost for words, The Sandman Overture is quite simply an extraordinary piece of work, one of Neil Gaimans finest, I've absolutely no doubt.

The extras are substantial, interviews with the artist, the guy who does the words, covers, colours and some more quite fantastic art.This TPB is the Deluxe Edition, in hardcover format, including an extensive “behind-the-scenes” section and a gallery of sketches. We also see how The Corinthian (Dream’s murderous nightmare) goes rogue and must be hunted down, which we see in The Doll’s House, and The Three make an appearance hinting at events that occur way down the line in, I think, The Wake (the final volume in the series). We also see how the structure of The Dreaming is created and the origin of Morpheus’ war helm. They’re little things but they underline why a prequel like Overture was such a good idea. So, you won’t know why Delirium passed through such transformation. You won’t know the precise reasons why Destruction left his realm. You won’t know what “endless” was the Second Despair after replacing the First Despair… So maybe it wasn’t the story that I was expecting, but it was a story that I am nevertheless thankful of having the priviledge of enjoying it.

J.H. Williams' art is absolutely stunning. At times, the illustrations will make your head spin - quite literally, if you're not willing to turn the book around a few times to follow some of the more serpentine configurations. A few fold outs invite the reader into the book - as immersive an experience as you are likely to have reading a graphic work. And Dave Stewart's colors are a roiling phantasmagorical dream in vivid color. The difference between this work and so many other graphic novels is that the illustrations and color here were designed. Not just drawn and inked, but designed, carefully. There is a craft happening here that is a ritualistic invocation of the imagination. It is a solemn, nearly worshipful thing to read this work, and utterly immersive. The main series left many questions unanswered and having an “untold” story set before the events of the main series, I think that was the perfect place to answer them. Sandman: Overture may go down as one of the best-drawn chapters in Sandman’s already legendary run.” —Newsarama

I think this is easily the work of love that the series always wanted to be, not that it wasn't already a gorgeous work of art. It's this one that slams it's fist into our guts and blows our minds. Did you ever want to see Dream save the universe or talk with his momma and poppa? lol this was a totally awesome comic, from start to finish, and what a great payoff! To think I might feel a bit of pity for Desire! To think I might actually feel horror and sorrow for the monster that Death, poor, beautiful Death, was becoming. After the monthly series concluded with issue 75, Vertigo was in deep denial that Morpheus was dead and gone... sort of dead and gone. So, they released 'The Dreaming', a monthly Sandman spinoff, and several 'Sandman Presents', none of them written by Gaiman. He DID write the two 'Death' mini-series, but they appeared while 'The Sandman' was still going. Then Vertigo launched two more Sandman-based monthly series: 'Lucifer', based on the events that took place in 'Season of Mists', when Lucifer quit Hell and moved 'topside' to open a fancy nightclub, recently adapted as a shitty TV show; and 'House of Mystery', based on Gaiman's version of the classic series, relocated to The Dreaming. The Sandman: Overture was a six-issue miniseries that served as a prequel to the classic series. Written by Neil Gaiman with art by J.H. Williams III, the series was published to coincide with The Sandman's 25th anniversary. Preludes and Nocturnes • The Doll's House • Dream Country • Season of Mists • A Game of You • Fables and Reflections • Brief Lives • Worlds' End • The Kindly Ones • The Wake Impressive work by Michael Zulli and Teddy Kristiansen, respectively, from 'The Sandman's stellar second half. Kristiansen was filling in for the regular artist of the penultimate, climactic 13-issue story-arc, Marc Hempel, but he nailed this powerful meeting between Morpheus and 'The Kindly Ones':