It introduces the world, the characters, there’s a nice little plot. I read this first graphic novel and liked it well enough. I didn’t feel that way about Sandman immediately. The truth is, Shakespeare wishes he wrote something this good.īut let’s back up a bit. It’s just that back then, Shakespeare was the best thing I’d ever read. I’d give it to people and say, “You have to read this! It’s like Shakespeare!” I remember thinking, “Can you do this? Can you have Odin and angels and faeries and witches and… just everything? All at once? In the same story? Is this allowed?” And it was unlike any story I’d ever read. “But some of it is close.”įirst he gave we Watchmen, and it floored me despite the fact that I didn’t I didn’t know superheroes mythology from a hole in the ground. I shook it at them, angry and incredulous, demanding: “Is it all as good as this?” Hours later, I hunted down the person who had brought the book. I read the whole thing straight through, completely lost in it, deaf to the riot and welter around me. I was well into my 20’s when, at a weekend-long party, I sat down in a quiet corner and idly picked up a copy of Dark Night Returns. I read Roethke and Frost and Brooks and Baldwin.īut comics? That was like… Garfield, right? And superheroes? I didn’t spare any thought for them, and when I did, I assumed they were (and I’m ashamed to write this now) silly bullshit for kids. I had a couple thousand fantasy and sci-fi novels under my belt, and my classes were exposing me to Shakespeare and Chaucer, Sanskrit theater and the Harlem Renaissance poets. Didn’t occur to me they might be worth reading. Then I read a novel or two a day until I finished high school.Įven as I slouched through college, comics simply weren’t on my radar. I was a voracious reader as a kid, going through pretty much every picture book in the local library until I finally started chapter books around age 9. If that’s not enough to convince you… I guess all that’s left is for me to tell you a story or two. It’s not often you get to say that and mean it. I don’t want to spoil its secrets or steal its thunder. If you haven’t read this book, and are, perhaps, standing in a bookstore or a comic shop, wondering if it’s worth your time, what I can say to convince you? Should I wax rhapsodic? Get lyrical and grandiose? Reference some of the story’s funnier jokes so I seem more clever than I really am? If you’ve already read this book, you know nothing I can say is as good as what waits for you ahead. You know it is beautiful and deep and wry and wondrous. If you’ve already read Sandman, what can I tell you that you don’t already know deep in the secret corners of your heart? You know this story is lovely and brilliant and sweet and strange. I’ll admit, I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do here. **(What follows is an excerpt from the intro)** But rather than just my usual messy gush about how I love some story, I got permission from the publisher to re-print part of my introduction I wrote. To celebrate, I thought I'd write a review here. It's been half a year since I got the invitation, and months since I actually finished writing the introduction, but I still can't believe it. I wrote the introduction to the 30th anniversary edition of The Sandman.
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