#IReadsYou Review: THE SANDMAN #1

SANDMAN #1
DC COMICS – @DCComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY:  Neil Gaiman
ART: Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg
COLORS: Robbie Busch
LETTERS: Todd Klein
EDITOR: Karen Berger
COVER: Dave McKean
48pp, Color, $2.00 U.S., $2.50 CAN, £1.20 UK (January 1989)

“Suggested for Mature Readers”

The Sandman created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg

“Sleep of the Just”

The Sandman is a DC Comics comic book series created by writer Neil Gaiman and artists Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg.  Published by DC Comics from 1989 to 1996, The Sandman ran for 75 issues, with the first issue cover dated January 1989 (although it was published in October 1988) and the last issue, March 1996.

Sandman #1 (“Sleep of the Just”) introduces the character “Dream” of “The Endless.”  Also named Morpheus (as well as other names), Dream rules over the world of dreams.  This first issue is written by Gaiman; drawn by Keith and Dringenberg; colored by Robbie Busch; and lettered by Todd Klein, with the cover illustration produced by Dave McKean (who had worked with Gaiman before Sandman).

Sandman #1 opens June 6th, 1916 in Wych Cross, England.  Dr. John Hathaway, senior curator at the Royal Museum in London, arrives at “Fawney Rig,” the manor house of Roderick Burgess.  Also known as the “Daemon King,” Burgess is the “Lord Magus” of the “Order of Ancient Mysteries,” an occult group.  Hathaway has been stealing books and manuscripts from the museum for Burgess, who needs them in order to create the incantation for a particular summoning ritual.

On the evening of June 6th, Burgess plans to hold a ritual that will end death in the world by capturing and imprisoning the personification of “Death,” of the Endless.  However, the ritual will not go as Burgess plans, and he will capture and imprison another of the Endless, Dream.  Burgess is not fully aware of what and whom he has captured, but he is determined to make Dream submit to his will.  Burgess is also not fully aware that his prisoner has all the time in the world... and beyond.

I think Sandman had reached its fourth or fifth issue by the time I starting hearing from other comic book readers how good it was.  I do remember seeing pre-release in-house ads for Sandman #1 in other DC Comics titles.  Whatever issue I first read amazed and blew me away so much that I started looking for back issues, and I was quickly able to find all the early issues, including the first issue.

I have previously read Sandman #1 once as an individual comic book and at least twice in collected form via the first Sandman trade paperback, The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes.  DC Comics is shortly to launch a line of comic books under the banner, “The Sandman Universe.”  A recently release stand-alone comic book, The Sandman Universe #1, introduces those titles.  For the first time in probably two decades, I decided to read Sandman #1 again as a kind of preparation for the The Sandman Universe.

Sandman #1 stands the test of time, as far as I am concerned.  Todd Klein's lettering for this first issue still evokes the fonts and lettering on old parchment and in aged books and texts that are sacred, profane, and mysterious.  The production, printing, and color separation of the time only barely manages to capture the vivid weirdness and screwy surrealism of Robbie Busch's coloring.

Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg are not my favorite “Sandman artists.”  [I lean towards P. Craig Russell.]  I am fan of Keith's, though, and I love the funky graphic sensibilities of the Keith-Dringenberg team.  Their art recalls DC Comics' horror and dark fantasy comic books of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but this team also seems to be creating a new visual language for a new kind of comic book writer.

That new kind of writer of that time was Neil Gaiman.  Over its seven years of publication, Sandman (or The Sandman) evolves into a comic book that embraces fairy tales, folk tales, legends, myth, religion and more.  This first issue is the one that began the change.  “Sleep of the Just” looks like the kind of prose fiction written by Edgar Allen Poe or H.P. Lovecraft or by some author who wrote weird fiction and horror stories between the time of Poe and Lovecraft.  As the story progress through this first issue, however, Gaiman begins the move beyond what influences him and starts to tell stories of fantasy and myth in a new voice, spoken via a medium, the comic book, that is, despite the status quo, always ready for a challenge.

Sandman #1 is one of the most important individual issues of a comic book ever published in the United States.  Hopefully, what it wrought can inspire The Sandman Universe to aspire for excellence, if not greatness.

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Review: LAGUARDIA #1

LAGUARDIA No. 1 (OF 4)
DARK HORSE COMICS/Berger Books – @DarkHorseComics #bergerbooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Nnedi Okorafor
ART: Tana Ford
COLORS: James Devlin
LETTERS: Sal Cipriano
EDITOR: Karen Berger – @karenpberger
28pp, B&W, $3.99 U.S. (February 2018)

Mature Readers

Chapter 1: “Homecoming”

LaGuardia is a new science fiction comic book series from writer Nnedi Okorafor and artist Tana Ford.  The series is set in an alternate world in which multiple alien species have come to Earth and have integrated into society – to the chagrin of some.  Colorist James Devlin and letterer Sal Cipriano complete the creative team for this four-issue miniseries.

LaGuardia #1 (“Homecoming”) introduces Future Nwafor Chukwuebuka, a pregnant Nigerian-American doctor returns to New York City under mysterious conditions.  She smuggles an illegal alien plant through LaGuardia International and Interstellar Airport customs and security.  Now, at her grandmother's tenement, the New Hope Apartments in the South Bronx, she has secrets to reveal.  Back in Lagos, Nigeria, Professor Citizen Nwabara, a friend of Future's, is dealing with multiple alien issues.

LaGuardia #1 is so flavorful, so different.  It is like an alien thing.  I love the imagination of Nnedi Okorafor's story, and her afterword, “Coming and Going,” is so personal, yet so defines this age of fear.  I don't know how she kept from punching the TSA officer who was pawing over her scalp; perhaps, it was her expansive worldview as a world traveler and as a child of immigrants that gives her the patience of adaptation.  In fact, LaGuardia's Afrofuturism is about adaptation, and that connects the United States and Nigeria as if they were supposed to be connected all along.

This first issue, however, I want to give special attention to illustrator Tana Ford.  It is Ford who takes Okorafor's fresh and innovative concept and turns into a graphical story that truly seems like something alien.  Ford's art here reminds me of Eric Vincent's art on the late, lamented science fiction comic book, Alien Fire.  The difference is that Vincent's comic book art was published in black and white (by Kitchen Sink Press and Dark Horse Comics), and he did not have the benefit of the kind of otherworldly coloring that James Devlin gives LaGuardia.  Ford and Devlin are a collabo that should keep going on and on.

LaGuardia #1 shows that Karen Berger is not making Berger Books into some kind of Vertigo 2.0.  Instead, Berger Books is exploring new worlds of storytelling, like the world of LaGuardia.

8.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: INCOGNEGRO: Renaissance #1

INCOGNEGRO: RENAISSANCE No. 1 (OF 5)
DARK HORSE COMICS/Berger Books – @DarkHorseComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Mat Johnson
ART: Warren Pleece
LETTERS: Clem Robin
EDITOR: Karen Berger – @karenpberger
28pp, B&W, $3.99 U.S. (February 2018)

Mature Readers

Part 1: “Soaked”

Incognegro is an original graphic novel created by writer Mat Johnson and artist Warren Pleece.  First published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint in 2008, Incognegro is set in the 1930’s and focuses on Zane Pinchback, of the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City.  Zane is a reporter for the “New Holland Herald,” a newspaper which serves the Black community of Harlem and beyond.  Although Zane is a Negro, his skin complexion is so light that he looks like a White man.  When Zane pretends to be a White man, he is doing what is called “passing” or “going incognegro.”

Zane occasionally leaves the relative safety of Harlem and heads to the Deep South where he infiltrates the local White populace – “going incognegro.”  Pretending to be a White man, Zane can freely take pictures of the lynchings of black men and also learn the names of the respectable folks attending these ghastly events.  In the main story of Incognegro, Zane is forced to travel back to Tupelo, Mississippi where his estranged brother, Alonzo “Pinchy” Pinchback, is scheduled to hang for the murder of a white woman.  Zane has to find the real killer while someone who knows of Zane's ruse of passing as a White man arrives in Tupelo, determined to find Zane and out him to the White populace.

Zane Pinchback returns in a new five-issue miniseries, Incognegro: Renaissance, a prequel of sorts to the Incognegro graphic novel.  This new comic book is written and drawn by the original Incognegro team of Johnson and Pleece and lettered by Clem Robins.  This miniseries is published by Dark Horse Comics' imprint, Berger Books, which is headed by DC Comics/Vertigo's legendary former editor, Karen Berger.

Incognegro: Renaissance #1 opens about two decades before the events depicted in the original Incognegro in New York City of the early 1920s.  Zane Pinchback, a young reporter for the New Holland Herald, is accompanying his friend, Carl (who is also a lightly-complected Negro) to a swanky book release party in midtown New York that is being held at a White man's apartment.

Former literary sensation, Arna Van Horn, is celebrating the release of his first book in about 15 years.  Set in Harlem, the book is entitled “Nigger Town.”  During the party, a dark-skinned Black man named Xavier Harris causes a commotion that leads to a shocking turn of events.  The party may also provide an opportunity for a struggling young reporter to make a name for himself.

I am probably one of the few comic book reviewers (if not the only one) outside the mainstream, big media press that listed Incognegro as one of the top five comic books of the first decade of the twenty-first century.  Incognegro did turn out to be quite well regarded with critics and reviewers who don't trade in the comic book fan-driven press.  According to author Mat Johnson, the original Incognegro was quite popular in high school and college classes, but for some reason, DC Comics allowed the graphic novel to go out of print.  Incognegro is back in print under Berger Books, so hopefully, it has found a long-term home.

Concerning Incognegro: Renaissance:  it opens with a strong first issue.  Mat Johnson's writing is as witty and as engaging as ever, and his eye as a social critic and a commentator may be stronger than ever.  In his hands, the pen is not mightier than the sword; it is a sharp and beautifully lethal sword.

I was not crazy about Warren Pleece as the artist of the first Incognegro.  Although, his storytelling was good, I found his compositions to be awkward.  Now, I have warmed to him.  His pen is also a switchblade, honey.  Here, Pleece's storytelling is mostly subtle and graceful, but there are times when he conveys the hypocrisy of a 1920's high White society that treats Negros like pets so bluntly.  One might mistake this British comics artist as a propagandist for Black radicals.

Readers who want really exceptional comic books will want Incognegro: Renaissance.

9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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