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Neil Gaiman's work on The Sandman in the early 1990s is well-known. His meandering mythologically inspired epic is highly acclaimed, and has won many awards. Drawing upon a multitude of sources historical and religious, The Sandman wove these elements together into a unique text which had broad market appeal.
Matt Wagner's Sandman Mystery Theatre was published in the 1990s. The subject was very far from The Sandman: Sandman Mystery theatre is film noir not on film. It is a detective story set in the 1930s, focussing on a man who wears a gas mask and solves crimes. Its is gritty, with great dialgue and characteristion, ranging from the suffragette Dian Belmont to the racist cop to the owlish and sensitive hero Wesley Dodds. The subject matter is vicious and sordid: the first arc deals with a man who kidnaps women and tortures them to death: the villain sickens himself when he puts out a victim's eyeball with a burning iron.
The Sandman is a collected work nowadays, consisting of 10 volumes which have been reprinted at least 3 times by my reckoning. Sandman Mystery Theatre, on the other hand, didn't have anywhere near the same level of commercial success. There has been one trade paper back published of the first arc, dealing with the psychotic Tarantula.And that was it, despite the excellent content nd the fact that the series had a decent run.
Someone must have got the idea of having a crossover."Hey, he's the Sandman, and he's the Sandman too...they should meet!"
Normally I'd be very skeptical of such a thing. What next, Transmetropolitan and Lucifer? Spider Jerusalem gives the Morningstar the finger and tries to shoot him with his bowel disruptor, and is instead consumed in flames and his soul annulled. Game over.
Instead we have a very fine story dealing with the Sandman's adventure in London. Both Wagner and Gaiman contribute to the script and the two mesh well together. We have Dodd's detective work and passion for Dian Belmont, detailed by Wagner. We also have the quirky cast of characters and all of their eccentric English foibles, at a cocktail party and magic show for the morally uninhibited fleshed out in an amusing fashion by Gaiman.
The art is excellent too. The artist's name escapes me right now, but the art is gloomy (it works well given the day and age - London was shrouded in fog back then as a result of perpetual coal fires) and is painted.
And Dream of the Endless? He makes a limited cameo role, and acts as a caged deus ex machina, disturbing Wesley's dreams. He is also somehow responsible for the ending, which I won't spoil, but its not clear exactly how.
(There is a follow-up to their meeting in the last volume of the Sandman tpbs, called the Wake: Wesley Dodds, now aged in his 80s, speaks briefly at Dream's funeral.)
I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes their detective stories stirred up by off-beat humour. I can't flaw it at all, as you'd expect for a collaboration by two of comics' best writers. 9 out of 10.
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I bought that special thinking it was the beggining of the series and it turned out it's set around issue 35 or something. Still, it was a good introduction to the book and it convinced me to buy the first arc.
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I liked the Jack Kirby series. Red and yellow tights are the bomb,yo!
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Got me a bunch of issues SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATER last year and liked it -- looking to get a copy of Midnight Theater now!
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Quote:
I liked the Jack Kirby series. Red and yellow tights are the bomb,yo!
You kow, I hated that series even as a kid. I got a perverse pleasure in seeing Gaiman deconstruct it in an early arc of Sandman as a total sham by Glob and Brute (Brute as it turns out was faking being stupid).
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Indeed, the Doll's House... The second TPB, and the first TPB I ever read.
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I own the first four TPBs of Gaiman's Sandman and am hoping to scoop up the others. Have never heard much of Sandman Mystery Theater, though. How many TPBs have been released and is the title itself still in production?
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Quote:
I own the first four TPBs of Gaiman's Sandman and am hoping to scoop up the others. Have never heard much of Sandman Mystery Theater, though. How many TPBs have been released and is the title itself still in production?
There is only the one tpb - SMT: The Tarantula, which covers the first arc. I understand the series was cancelled around issue 60 or so, but I'm guessing on the exact number.
As for the Sandman tpbs, they get a lot better as they go along, IMHO. Season of Mists is one of the better earlier ones. And don't, whatevr you do, read The Sandman Prsents: The Furies (my next review - an excellent comic) until you've read all 10 Sandman tpbs, because otherwise you'll spoil the end for yourself.
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I am The Gay, you don't wanna play me.
Muscle control, no way you can shake me.
I am heavy debt, there's no way you can pay me.
Anal pain, and I know you can't take me.
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living in 1962 15000+ posts
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Wagner's SMT is a really great pulp style comic. Especially the Guy Davis drawn issues.
Sandman Midnight Theatre perfectly captured the essence of both titles. Wagner and Gaiman meshed seamlessly. The page were Wesley Dodds comes face to face with Morpheus is fantastic.
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I've been delaying replying to this, because I was searching for my copy of 'Midnight Days' which contains The Sandman Midnight Theatre story, along with a some other uncollected Gaiman work.
It's probably in a box somewhere in my parent's loft - a terrible place - which means that it won't be resurfacing any time soon. It also means that I have a very sketchy memory of the story, although I do recall enjoying it.
The Sandman Mystery Theatre ended on issue 70. I picked up the last couple of story arcs and even then it was a quality title. I was prepared to stick with it.
One of the final issues had a great line of dialogue, uttered by one of the hard-boiled detectives as he began work on another case:
"Sometimes I think the whole world exists just to piss me off and disgust me."
It's one of my regrets that I didn't get into Sandman Mystery Theatre earlier - I know I could track down the individual issues, but I live in the hope that one day it will come out in TPB or maybe Vertigo could put the whole lot onto a CD ROM.
On the subject of 'MidnightTheatre', I think this subtle approach is what crossovers should sometimes aspire to. It often seems that the more restraint Gaiman shows in his writing, the more skilful his storytelling becomes . I like the way that when the two Sandmen meet, the event seems both incidental and terribly important at the same time.
I'm desperately racking my brains for other things to say about 'Midnight Theatre', but I really do need to read it again.
I do recall in the introduction to Midnight Days, Gaiman mentioning how much fun he had writing the words to a song titled 'My Cabana in Havana' which plays at some point during the story.
Gaiman rhymes Havana with banana.
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Hehe... banana...
What else is in Midnight Days? I think I've seen it...
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Off the top of my head - there's a Swamp Thing story, Gaiman's Hellblazer story 'Hold Me'. There's also a weird strip featuring this sentient rag doll who can change shape and who is ideologically rooted in the peace and love philosophy of the 1960s - I guess he's an obscure DC character. That story also stars Chester the hippie who made occasional appearances in Alan Moore's run on the Swamp Thing.
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I already have the Hellblazer story and the SMT special... hurm, I don't know if I should get it.
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DC is planning on releasing Sandman: Mystery Theatre trades starting this year. I don't remember a specific date, but I do recall reading about the anouncement after one of the Cons last year.
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I think you made that up.
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Quote:
DC is planning on releasing Sandman: Mystery Theatre trades starting this year. I don't remember a specific date, but I do recall reading about the anouncement after one of the Cons last year.
I hope you didn't make that up! I'd buy 'em!
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It often seems that the more restraint Gaiman shows in his writing, the more skilful his storytelling becomes .
This is so true. When he's subtle, he's brilliant. That's my problem with his novels: I think they're crap because they're so in your face.
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Ok, there's an oh-so-brief mention of new trades in this Newsarama article recapping the Vertigo panel at last year's San Diego Comic-Con.
Also, here's the relevant passage in an interview that Karen Berger gave The Pulse last March:
Quote:
"Another series that didn't find the audience it should have was Sandman Mystery Theatre," continued Berger. "That was a phenomenally well done book by Matt Wagner, Steve Seagle and Guy Davis. It was a book ahead of its time ... especially when you consider how many crime fiction and noir stories are now doing so well. We were doing Sandman Mystery Theatre at a time when no one in comics was doing this. Now it's all the rage with 100 Bullets or Powers. We're putting the first TPB back in print later this year. I'm very optimistic that it will find a new audience now, and if it does, we'll collect more of the series. In fact we did the same thing with Animal Man and it got huge orders. We'll be finishing the collections of that series later this year also. We also recently did a collection of Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's Shade the Changing Man, which got a great response."
Last edited by Registered Member #552; 2004-01-02 6:50 AM.
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as if someone could not have paid those sites to make that up. 
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The Once, and Future Cunt 15000+ posts
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Quote:
Neil Gaiman's work on The Sandman in the early 1990s is well-known. His meandering mythologically inspired epic is highly acclaimed, and has won many awards. Drawing upon a multitude of sources historical and religious, The Sandman wove these elements together into a unique text which had broad market appeal.
Matt Wagner's Sandman Mystery Theatre was published in the 1990s. The subject was very far from The Sandman: Sandman Mystery theatre is film noir not on film. It is a detective story set in the 1930s, focussing on a man who wears a gas mask and solves crimes. Its is gritty, with great dialgue and characteristion, ranging from the suffragette Dian Belmont to the racist cop to the owlish and sensitive hero Wesley Dodds. The subject matter is vicious and sordid: the first arc deals with a man who kidnaps women and tortures them to death: the villain sickens himself when he puts out a victim's eyeball with a burning iron.
The Sandman is a collected work nowadays, consisting of 10 volumes which have been reprinted at least 3 times by my reckoning. Sandman Mystery Theatre, on the other hand, didn't have anywhere near the same level of commercial success. There has been one trade paper back published of the first arc, dealing with the psychotic Tarantula.And that was it, despite the excellent content nd the fact that the series had a decent run.
Someone must have got the idea of having a crossover."Hey, he's the Sandman, and he's the Sandman too...they should meet!"
Normally I'd be very skeptical of such a thing. What next, Transmetropolitan and Lucifer? Spider Jerusalem gives the Morningstar the finger and tries to shoot him with his bowel disruptor, and is instead consumed in flames and his soul annulled. Game over.
Instead we have a very fine story dealing with the Sandman's adventure in London. Both Wagner and Gaiman contribute to the script and the two mesh well together. We have Dodd's detective work and passion for Dian Belmont, detailed by Wagner. We also have the quirky cast of characters and all of their eccentric English foibles, at a cocktail party and magic show for the morally uninhibited fleshed out in an amusing fashion by Gaiman.
The art is excellent too. The artist's name escapes me right now, but the art is gloomy (it works well given the day and age - London was shrouded in fog back then as a result of perpetual coal fires) and is painted.
And Dream of the Endless? He makes a limited cameo role, and acts as a caged deus ex machina, disturbing Wesley's dreams. He is also somehow responsible for the ending, which I won't spoil, but its not clear exactly how.
(There is a follow-up to their meeting in the last volume of the Sandman tpbs, called the Wake: Wesley Dodds, now aged in his 80s, speaks briefly at Dream's funeral.)
I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes their detective stories stirred up by off-beat humour. I can't flaw it at all, as you'd expect for a collaboration by two of comics' best writers. 9 out of 10.
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Quote:
What next, Transmetropolitan and Lucifer? Spider Jerusalem gives the Morningstar the finger and tries to shoot him with his bowel disruptor, and is instead consumed in flames and his soul annulled. Game over.
Re-reading this, I think we could run with this. Perhaps a romatic interest between Mazikeen and Spider?
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Quote:
Dave said:
Re-reading this, I think we could run with this. Perhaps a romatic interest between Mazikeen and Spider?
This, I feel, is the stuff that excellent comics are made of. Now, if only we could get Carey and Ellis to co-author (a feat night impossible, I realize)...
Man, that'd rule!
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Quote:
Chewy Walrus said:
Quote:
Dave said:
Re-reading this, I think we could run with this. Perhaps a romatic interest between Mazikeen and Spider?
This, I feel, is the stuff that excellent comics are made of. Now, if only we could get Carey and Ellis to co-author (a feat night impossible, I realize)...
Man, that'd rule!
Hmm. I thought I was being funny.
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That's why we don't pay you to think, Dave.
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Quote:
I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
That's why we don't pay you to think, Dave.
Ditto.
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