Volume 1.1 Neil Gaiman News and Information Transit Authority March, 1993
Contents:
Welcome to the first installment of the Magian Line newsletter! My profound and humble apologies to all of you who waited patiently for this to come out, even though the flyers said the first issue was expected in February. For those of you who were a trifle IMpatient (you know who you are!), please note that patience is a virtue (not Patience is a Virtue - personifications of attributes and emotions are SO silly, don't you think? Hee!)... Back when I started talking to Neil about this idea, I thought it would be easy to collect everything by February - shows how naive I can be sometimes. I guess I can't make a definite claim to get this out exactly quarterly, but I CAN promise that your "yearly dues" will get you 4 issues, and we'll do our best to be on time in the future. For those of you who are wondering, MAGIAN LINE is an anagram, and furthermore, it was Neil's idea. Confused me for a moment, but it's odd enough that I took to liking it right away. I'm going to torture him (and you) with anagrams from now on - if we start having a lettercol, it's going to be called "Gannie Mail"... Those of you who sent checks made out to MAGICIAN LINE, I'm pretty sure they've cleared, but you've got 5 demerits on your cosmic scorecard, anyway. I should introduce ourselves. I'm the Exalted Potentate of Magian Line, Sadie McFarlane. Brian Hibbs, of Comix Experience in San Francisco, is Pulsethumber General. The very lovely Elspeth and AliCat are Office Flunkies. Many of the Sandman artists are Blessed Contributors, as are Squiddie and Elmo. I want to thank them all for being wunnerful, wunnerful people, without whom life would be so much less lifelike. I want to thank Neil most of all, naturally, because he's not only the whole point of the thing, and gave me his benediction, but he's been incredibly generous about contributing from his personal archives and affects. What a guy! As you'll see, we've got a bunch of his ephemera (book reviews and such) that we'll include from time to time, direct from Neil's diskettes to your head. The Bibliography doesn't mention all that stuff, because they're basically impossible to track down. It also doesn't mention anything Neil would just as soon disassociate himself from, I think... While we're at it, I should also clarify that this is NOT a Sandman club and it's NOT a fan club. I guess I can explain it by reconstructing the email conversation that led to Magian Line's existance. Neil casually mentioned (in Rocknet, on Compuserve, where I live and he visits once a year or so) that he was working on a record with Alice Cooper. I gasped and wheezed, and said "how the heck can we keep track of all your projects, Neil?" He mused aloud about how he probably should have some way of getting news about what he's doing out to readers. I said "Me! Me! I'll do it!" He said "Do you really want to? Think about it, don't just say 'yeah yeah, yummy yummy'" (that's a direct quote, folks!) and I said "yeah yeah, yummy yummy!" I guess he realized at that point that I could arm wrestle him and win, and that resistance was useless... At any rate, although Sandman is currently a big (overwhelming, almost) hunk of what Neil's doing, and we're all fans of his, the point of Magian Line is simply to get news of his projects to the people who are interested in them. Also to wear fezzes and drive funny cars. Er, maybe not. Well, at least to have a secret handshake. Which I haven't invented yet. If you want to send in suggestions for a secret handshake, feel free. I also want to encourage people to submit their observations (no mushy poetry, bleah!), original art, or anything they think belongs in these pages. I can't promise publication, but if I do, you'll certainly be credited. I'll be happy to discuss small ads. Ideas are welcome. Neil says he'll give us a list of his favorite authors and rock gods next issue, by the way...
I called Neil suring a week he spent in LA recently, to get the lowdown on his works in process. I said, Neil, what the heck have you been doing? and he said... Neil Gaiman: Well, one sort of special surprise that just came out is the Hellraiser comic. Marvel's Hellraiser number 20. It's a story that I wrote way back before number 1 ever came out -- it was kind of meant to be a present for Clive Barker. I was writing it while Clive was filming NIGHTBREED. It dates back quite a ways. Magian Line: I guess so, that's a couple of years. NG: And it's not exactly a monthly comic... 20's the last issue, and I have this strange unprovable notion that it was sitting in a drawer somewhere, and they went "Oh, we better use up everything we have here..." It's a weird thing with lots of photographs and typewriting over them. So that's just came out, it's a story about crossword puzzles and a librarian. ML: That sounds like fun! So, what else? NG: Well, there's the Alice Cooper album. ML: Yes, tell us how that came to be and what you're doing. NG: It seems that people who like Sandman and people who like my work are gradually becoming pervasive. One of them is Jason Fiber of Epic Records, who persuaded his boss Bob Pfeifer, who is basically Alice's A&R guy, to read Sandman. He read it, and loved it, and rang me up. He had also passed it on to Alice. So he rang me up and said "I have an artist who wants to do a concept album. Do you have a concept?" So I said "Well, who is it?" and he said "Alice Cooper." I thought about it, and had it been anyone I loved, had it been Lou Reed or Elvis Costello, I would have said "Come up with your own concept!" Had it been someone I had no interest whatsoever in, like Michael Jackson, I would have said "No, no way, go away." But Alice - Alice is a comic book character. Alice is a huge, larger than life thing. He's partly fictional. I can remember being 13 and wandering around listening to "Teenage Lament 1974". So I said "Yeah, ok, I'll do it." I thought I'd meet him first, so I came out to Pheonix. Basically, I just wanted to make sure he wasn't a rock star. Which he wasn't, he's a lovely guy, terribly nice guy - a gentleman, someone I really get on with. After a couple more visits to Phoenix, I wrote a story, which he really loved. I helped write a few lyrics, but my contribution there wasn't much. It was more like being in a hotel room while some of the lyrics were being written, occasionally pointing out that 'above' rhymes with 'love'. Right now I'm out here talking with the studio, having coffees with Alice, talking about various permutations of the project. ML: Are we going to find out what the concept of the record is, or is that going to be a surprise? NG: The concept of the record is about a strange showman, and he travels to a town and gets a kid, who we're calling Steven, because it's a name Alice has used all the way back to Welcome To My Nightmare, sits him down and shows him a series of little plays, which are acted out by dead members of a theatrical troupe, trying to get him to join up. What happens to the kid then, and to the showman, and to the show, is the story. It's a story about fear: fear of growing up, fear of responsibility, fear of a dead-end life. ML: I bet there'll be kids out there who can relate. NG: I hope so. That's like Sexton in the High Cost of Living. Opinion from people I've been signing for is divided currently over whether Sexton is a whining, moaning idiot or The Voice Of Our Generation, depending, as far as I can tell, on how old you are. Anybody over 18 seems to think he's a whiner, and anybody under says "Wow! He tells it like it is!" (Sandman, World's End and toying with the short story idiom.) I've done 10 short stories that'll be in the next collection, FABLES AND REFLECTIONS I'd like to do some more short stories and single issues, but I don't want to repeat myself. I'll go back and do another few 24 page stories, so I've created a frame for them, like those strange movies you used to see in the 60's, like the Amicus movies, or some of the Hammer films. All of the stories in Worlds' End will be being told in a pub. I figure it makes a connection with a long tradition going all the way back to the Canterbury Tales. Sit in a pub and spin stories. That will be I think 4 or 5, maybe 6 issues. Then I'll start with the last major section, which is called THE KINDLY ONES. ML: Who's doing the art for the stories, a bunch of people? NG: Bryan Talbot will do the linking story- ML: And he IS a honey bunny, you were right. NG: I told you he would be. Bryan is doing the framing sequence, and the stories will be done by a number of artists, with names like Alec Stevens, John Watkiss, M. Dalton Allred, and Michael Zulli (who did the first appearance of Hob Gadling) will be doing the return of Hob, in a story called Hob's Leviathan. ML: And have you come to a halfway definite conclusion as to how many more Sandman issues there's going to be? NG: Nope! All I can say is to point out that no one in the whole world ever turns to a novelist, when they say they're about 3/4 of the way finished, and says "Oh, that's great - what number page are you going to finish on?" And then holds them to it! "Oh, say page 350..." The best I can say these day is that if I ever make it to issue 70, I will be kind of surprised. ML: I can remember in the old letter columns, you were saying it might make it to issue 40 or so... NG: Which shows you what a completely useless judge I am of this sort of thing. What I'm really lousy at is figuring out how long something's going to go. I though Brief Lives would be about 5 issues, and it was 9 - and I wouldn't have minded a few more. ML: How come there are so many stories in you? NG: I don't know. What gets strange and what gets scary is that one of the things I've done over the last month or so is actually written a bunch of outlines for all the things I've promised people for ages. There are a lot of stories. I'm afraid that someday I'll find out why I have all these stories, and that will be that: it'll never happen again. I'm also writing stories for some Vertigo anthology. I thought of maybe having a story showing the secrets of the Dreaming, having Lucien showing everyone around the Castle. Give an opportunity to bring out people like Merv Pumpkinhead. That's all the Sandman stuff. I've just written the outline for a strange sort of giant Vertigo annual crossover issue. It's under the working title of THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. I'll get to write the sort of bread in the sandwich, and all the middle stuff will be filled in by the Annuals of the various other vertigo titles. It's all about kids. The heroes are the two little dead kids from Season of Mists. I gradually faced up to the fact that I'd never be able to get back to them in Sandman. The get to be the heroes and they travel. Theyhave a huge collection of false mustaches and they have a detective agency, although they haven't come up with their first case yet. ML: I was afraid you were going to say it was actually going to be about the Children's Crusade! NG: Actually, at some point I think I'm going to do a very short version of the Children's Crusade. Having done some research on this - I'd originally believed that the Children's Crusade was a kind of sweet thing that went wrong at the end. There are different versions of the story, though, that say that apparently it was a slave-gathering operation from the outset. ML: That would be a very clever thing on the part of the Islamic leaders, to gather off the youth of Europe - NG: My guess is that it was Europeans who did it. They'd get them to the south of Europe, shove them in little boats and send them down to Africa and Turkey. ML: Not very foresightful of the Europeans! NG: No, but it was lucrative - they had boats and boats and boatloads full of little kids. Let's see what else. So ok, Miracle Man is gradually getting up to steam again. We're still doing the Silver Age and once we're done releasing it as a series. Spawn 9 will come out one day, possibly before this does. It's the only story I've ever written with lots of fighting and shouting. ML: How about books or stories? NG: OK, there's a book called Narrow Houses II, coming out in England, which has a story of mine called "The Mouse", which, truth to tell, I kind of felt needed another draft. But I sent off the first draft and told the guy "well, this is what I've done" and he said "well, our deadline's tomorrow and I love it." But I'm also going to be doing a book, a collection. Have you ever seen "Now We Are Sick"? Ok, Dreamhaven Press, who did "Now We Are Sick", run by a guy called Greg Ketter in Minneapolis, are talking about doing a small, good looking, limited edition, small press hardback of my short stories, maybe some non-fiction, maybe even a few sort oflittle uncollected weird stuff, bit of poetry - because I'm the toastmaster at this year's World Fantasy Convention. It's in Minneapolis this year, it moves from year to year, and it's a professional's convention. Toastmaster is the job they give you when they think you're kind of neat, but you're not old. At the World Fantasy Convention - and I think quite rightly - the guests have a long track record. There aren't many fans, it's all publishers, writers, artists. ML: We will want to, when that shows up, provide information for people to get that book. NG: Yes, we will see what we can do on that. Before I forget - "Murder Mysteries" which has already come out in the Midnight Graffiti Anthology, is slightly corrected, and with some proofreading corrections corrected back, will be in the Year's Best Fantasy Anthology book, I think published by Morrow, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling -- it comes out in the Fall, and it's last year's material. "Troll Bridge" already came out, and "Chivalry" - you know about Chivalry, the Holy Grail story? - "Troll Bridge" was in anthology called Snow White, Blood Red, and "Chivalry" was in an anthology called, I think, Grails and Visitations, which was an anthology created for the last World Fantasy Convention. I really wrote it out of a sense of guilt, knowing that I wouldn't be going. And it's about a little old lady who finds the Holy Grail. ML: That was the one you read at the Atlanta Con the other year. NG: Did you get a tape? They were doing audio tapes at Atlanta. ML: I'd like to find out if those tapes can be gotten by mortals. We're going to get a lot of these sorts of questions. Like, I know that people who miss the first 300 Heliogaboluses will want to know where they can be gotten. NG: The answer on Heliogabolus is probably trying to get in touch with Moondog Comics. Although there isn't any information on the inside of the front page, they were done by Moondogs, and really by Gary Colobuono. Moondogs is one of the largest comic store chains in Chicago, and he's a very nice man. There were,if memory serves, 3000 printed, of which 2500 were signed and numbered, and 500 were given to me, and I'm giving 300 to you. I've given most of the other 200 away already. ML: I should put the information in this issue, because we're coming up on 300 members, and everyone is SO desperate to get a Heliogabolus. NG: What's interesting is that most of the shops seem to be selling them for $10. What a deal! The question I keep getting is "This Magian Line thing, is it on the level? Do you know anything about it?" To which I say "Yes. It's run by a nice lady named Sadie, and has nothing to do with me, but I'm offering help and encouragement and Heliogaboluses and articles." "Oh, so you DO know about it. OK." I may send you, sort of as a teaser, a few pages of the script to The Underside, which is the BBC TV show. ML: When is that going to start running? NG: What happened is I'd contracted to do it, the BBC had contracted to do it, I'd been paid for the pilot episode, and then the BBC ran out of money. So basically right now everything's on wait, until - I think they're out right now trying to close a deal with some foreign investors. They don't want investors to actually take control, they just want them to give them money. Meanwhile, in London, negotiations are finishing off with somebody who wants to buy the film rights to "Violent Cases". For a small film. ML: Presumably this is going to be completely different from your dismal Hollywood experience. NG: Well, what I've said is essentially what I said back when they turned "Violent Cases" into a stage play - "Great, invite me to the first night." This time I said "Great, I'd love to see it, send me a video of the movie when it's finished." "Signal to Noise" is out there - which a lot of people still don't know. What's happening on "Sweeney Todd" is one of the questions I get asked a lot. Basically, Taboo got cancelled, but it will continue on to issue 10, using material that existed before cancellation. We are currently negotiating with a number of different publishers for Sweeney Todd, and I'll let you know as soon as we pick one. Other than that, "Mr. Punch", which was the graphic novel about Punch and Judy puppets and about childhood - I've done the first draft, which I still love a lot, but which the editor wanted to be more structured. so while I'm out here I'm rewriting the whole thing. ML: They should love it too, if you love it, goddam it! NG: I think they they thought they were going to get something else. It's a weird little hard to hold on to story, kind of like "Violent Cases". Only more strange. ML: That's with Dave McKean, right? NG: Yes, that's Dave. So I've just got to redo it now. ML: Do you have any plans for any more books? NG: Ah yes, one of the reasons I've put off doing that is because Sandman takes up too much of my time. It takes up three weeks out of every month. Everything else gets done in that other week. The idea of doing a novel is something I am looking forward to. I've been working for a few years on a children's story called "Coraline", and writing it has been something I do on my own time. And gradually, as the years progress, I've run out of time. But I've given the first few chapters of the book to an author and an editor named Jane Yolen, who has her own imprint at Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Jane Yolen Books, which is a children's imprint. She loves it, so she wants a few rewrites before she submits it to them to un-Britishize it. ML: Ha! The name "Coraline" sounds terribly Victorian, somehow. NG: It does, doesn't it? I think I made it up. I don't think anyone's been named that. Then again, I didn't think anyone had ever been called Larissa, which is a name that I made up and never used, til I went on a signing tour... The point is that I want to finish up "Coraline" before there's someone there going "Huh! Scuse me! Contract!" And that will be a 20,000 word novel, a short children's novel, when it's finished. There's another whole book, for very small children, called "The Time I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish" which would probably take me a day to write. Someday I'll just grab a day and write it. That's kind of a lot of stuff, isn't it? ML: Do you have any plans for any more non-fiction article type things? NG: No. (laughs) Well, yeah, but - did you see the Lou Reed interview? ML: Someone sent me a xerox of that. You should do more of that sort of stuff! NG: The only other I'd want to do like that would be Steven Sondheim.. I was just going to do that for Reflex when Reflex folded. ML: It would be a great companion piece to Lou Reed, huh? NG: Yes, in a strange way it would! I kind of left that with Bob Morales, one of the editors of Reflex, and said if there's ever one day another magazine that he can persuade to do it, I'll do that. But that's the only other non-fiction thing I'd ever want to do. But I did Lou Reed! ML: It's a brilliant pairing. I remember Interview made a big thing about pairing interviewers and interviewees, but they never came up with anything tht bright. NG: I'm just pleased it was me and not Martin Amis. He was Time Out magazine's first choice for interviewer. That's about it, I must dive into the shower now before some people from the record company come to take me for lunch...
What Is `The Annotated Sandman'? by Greg Morrow Lucien first appeared in a comic book called Tales of Ghost Castle, and may have antecedents in the 19th century Scottish fantasy Lilith, by George MacDonald. From "Men of Good Fortune", the Buckingham Hob Gadling fought under is Thomas of Gloucester, earl (later duke) of Buckingham, and uncle to King Richard II. And Neil Gaiman got the French in that story wrong. Loki chose Susano-o-no-Mikoto to impersonate for no less a reason than Brave-Swift-Impetuous-Male is a god of thunder. James Branch Cabell created Alianora. The Annotated Sandman is, as its name suggests, a companion to Sandman, with notes on sources and influences, and explanations of mythological, literary, and historical allusions, and cultural references, with some attention paid to the comic book context of Sandman. The introductory notes above are small examples of some of the information contained in The Annotated Sandman. The annotations for recent issues have also included some literary and thematic analysis. I edit and do most of the writing for the Annotated Sandman, but any credit for depth and breadth of research must go to the rec.arts.comics.misc newsgroup of USENET, a BBS-like entity carried on Internet, the largest and most international computer network of educational and commercial sites in the world. Computer networks bring together people in all places, from all walks of life, and of all specialties. Internet's backbone is educational institutions; I like to say that contributors to the Annotated Sandman do research in the greatest libraries in the world--so I don't have to. For now, the Annotated Sandman is only available to the devotees of the Information Age; it exists only in electronic form, and is accessible only by computer. Someday, it may be published in bound form. (Potentate's Note: Neil and I would both like to see it made available through Magian Line. We'll see...) In the meantime, the Annotated Sandman can be found in the archives of GEnie, CompuServe, and AmericaOnline, although the versions therein may be outdated and the available set is probably incomplete. [they're also now available at both of the Sandman links in my main Comics menu] The next several paragraphs give technical instructions for Internet users. Skip down to avoid gibberish. Readers with access to Internet can find the Annotated Sandman via anonymous ftp to theory.lcs.mit.edu in the directory pub/wald/sandman. The naming convention is sandman.##, where ## is the issue number in two digit format (01, 02, ..., 22, ....) The file Index in the same directory contains a list of all available files. Currently, annotations for issues 1-35 and the Special are stored in the archive. The Special has the name sandman-special.01. For those not proficient with ftp, the files may be retrieved via e-mail. Send the line: send wald sandman/sandman.## using the same naming convention above, to: archive-server@theory.lcs.mit.edu The file will be mailed to you in ASCII format. David Goldfarb (goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu) has written annotations for The Books of Magic; those are also archived at theory.lcs.mit.edu in the directory pub/wald/books-of-magic, with an accompanying Index file. As a final note: The theory archive is the official archive, but I have copies of each annotation in various stages of revision, including annotations for issues 36-40 which have not been released to the archive. I can be reached for questions and comments at morrow@physics.rice.edu (Internet) or morrow@fnal (Bitnet). Additionally, I welcome additions or corrections to the annotations themselves; those can be sent to me at the same address.
PUNCH Book Review: *Talking Blues*. Roger Graef. (Collins Harvill 15.00) Reviewed by Neil Gaiman.
I was proceeding in a westerly direction, or possibly a northerly direction, haven't a clue really, but I was heading towards East Croydon station anyway, when I was apprehended by a police officer in pursuit of her duties. She said, "Look, sorry about this, but I was wondering if you could help out? We're trying to do an identity parade, and we're a couple of people short." I stared at her blankly, weighing the disadvantages of missing my train (and -- more importantly -- what if they picked *me*? I mean, I was probably innocent of whatever it was, but how could I *convince* anyone of that?), against discovering what it was really like to be on an identity parade. The two-way mirrors. The lines behind you with your height on them. Hill Street Blues. Magnum Force. "Yo! Mu'fu'! Get your ass on the parade or we'll blow it away!" "We'll pay you," she promised. "Four pounds. And we'll give you a cup of tea." I got into the police van, and she set off in pursuit of the final member of the line-up. It was a two minute drive to the Station. On the way I was enlightened by the driver about identity parades. "'Safunny thing, but some people won't be on a parade 'cos they acherly think if they get picked they'll go down for six months!" We both chuckled at this. Him more than me. Through the corridors of Croydon police station, through the canteen (I had not yet read *Talking Blues* at this point, although it was in my bag; I had not heard of the *canteen culture*) and eventually, with nine other men, who looked nothing like me, or, indeed, each other, I was lined up in a small conference room, with a number in front of me. I was Number 4. The suspect was shown in. He looked a little more like me; but not much. Then the witnesses were led in. (No two-way mirrors. No lines on the back wall indicating height. None of that fun stuff. Pity.) One of the witnesses couldn't see the burglar anywhere. The other unhesitatingly pointed to me. "That's him," he said. "Number Four." The suspected burglar, standing at number 6, smirked. I blushed a deep red until we were told to go, took my four pound coins and stumbled out into the sunlight. The rest of the identity parade, chiefly local builders on their lunch hour, kept asking me what I'd been doing on the night of April the 28th, and giggling. I'd learned something important about police procedure here: most of it's about asking strange men to stand in lines, and dishing out the coins afterwards. Nothing like the telly. On that score, at least, me and *Talking Blues* are in perfect agreement. *Talking Blues* is a mosaic of interviews with nameless police officers ("Former Met PC, age 28, six years service in an inner- city area of south London. Now resigned." "Inspector in a Home Counties force south of London, age 38, nineteen years service." and the rest of them, all kinds). Roger Graef interviewed them, let them speak for themselves, punctuating the interviews (interesting) with lengthy italicised commentary (worthy but dull); Graef comes off as a neutral commentator -- only once breaking italicized cover, in the chapter on 'Sex Husbands and Wives'. "*During the year we spent with Thames Valley Police, all the film-unit marriages were under strain, and three ended in divorce, including mine.*" They should print a marital health warning on the side of the blue light. With chapter headings like 'Public Order', 'Freemasonry', 'Race', 'Firearms', 'Complaints', 'Corruption', the book makes reasonably compulsive reading. And it is also untrue: as a tv cop show cuts out the routine of police work, imposes fictional shapes on the shapelessness of everyday experience, Graef picks and weaves his interviews, puts them into categories; dumps, we assume, the dull ones. They say what they think with no fear of comeback. A few selections from the glossary demonstrate the terrain: *Canteen Culture* Informal ethos of the lower ranks at the sharp end: often cynical racist, sexist and aggressive in words, but not always in deeds. *Fit up* To frame someone by planting, adding to or tampering with evidence *OTS* Over the side. Married officer being unfaithful. *plonk* A derogatory term for a WPC. ("So he says: 'No fucking plonk tells me what to do. You go and fuck off!' I said, "I'm no ordinary plonk, I'm a WPC and don't you ever forget it.") *relief bicycle* Derogatory term referring to the sexual availability of certain female officers. *verbal* Unofficial practice of saying a suspect said something when the suspect claims he didn't. And so forth. Tells you something. Not that the police are corrupt: obviously not all police are corrupt (although it's revealing that many of the interviewees in *Talking Blues* are kept on the straight and narrow through fear of losing their job security and police pension). What we learn from *Talking Blues* is that the police are human beings, just like you or me or the other nine people on my identity parade -- including the suspected burglar. Only taller. And with their own walkie talkies. Five hundred pages. It's eye-opening; occasionally scary. I can only recommend it, for the pro-police lobby, for their detractors, and for the casual reader. Revealing in its display of the paranoia inherent in any large and capricious organisation; in its portrait of the police force as *Sun* & *Mail* readers (SGT "I have actually said to myself since I've been in a black area, 'I understand what Hitler was doing'." WPS: "You mean getting rid of people, racially?" SGT: "Yes..."); in its portrait of the urban copper. The role of the police in the 80s is a confused and a strained one. *Talking Blues* goes some way towards putting it into perspective. And they do have a lot to say about the (perhaps slightly skewed) vision of life they are granted. As one PC puts it, "I used to hang around a toilet in plainclothes, where male prostitution was going on. Inevitably the people concerned come and approach you. You find yourself dragged into being an *agent provocateur*. It didn't do me any good at all. I enjoyed my work inasmuch as it was something new and it broadened my horizons..."
(From FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) compiled by Lance "Squiddie" Smith) Question: In what issues do each of the Endless/Dreaming Staff appear? Dream...1-19, 21-32, 34-40, 42-49, Special, Vertigo Preview
Abel...2, 7, 9, 10, 24, 26, 40, 42, Special
This list includes portraits in the Sandman Special and very brief cameo appearances. Three of Matthew's predecessors appear in Sandman stories. Jessamy appears in "Thermidor" (Sandman #29) and Aristeas of Marmora appears in "August" (Sandman #30). An unnamed raven appears in "Imperfect Hosts" (Sandman #2). Another unnamed raven, possibly a servant of Dream, appears in "The Hunt" (Sandman #38). In Sandman #45, Delirium counts the ravens who have worked for Dream. She mentions Aristeas, but not by name. ("The one who came back again after he was a man again.") Destruction made his first appearance in The Sandman Special. He is mentioned in earlier issues and this is discussed below. Most of the Endless are mentioned before they appear. Death, Destiny, and Desire are all first mentioned in "Sleep of the Just" (Sandman #1). Lucifer includes Despair as part of Dream's family in "A Hope in Hell" (Sandman #4). Delirium is the last to be mentioned, but not the last to be named. Dream talks of her when speaking to Desire in "Lost Hearts" (Sandman #16). We learn she used to be Delight in the the prologue to Season of Mists (Sandman #21). Cain, Abel, Matthew, Gregory and Eve's appearances in the Sandman Special are limited to portraits in the gallery at the end of the book. They are not a part of the story. The Gatekeepers are the griffin, wyvern and hippogriff that guard the door to Dream's castle. Question: What characters have appeared in more than one Sandman story line? Azazel...4, 24, 26, 27
1. Lady Johanna's appearances in "Brief Lives" are limited to her grave. 2. Judy talks to Rose Walker about Donna/Foxglove in "24 Hours" (Sandman #6.) Rose mentions both Donna and Judy in "Lost Hearts" (Sandman #16.) A small newspaper picture is also seen tacked on Rose's note board. Foxglove sings a song about Judy in "A Night to Remember" (Death #2.) 3. Ken appears only in Barbie's dream in "Lullabies of Broadway" (Sandman #33.)
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