542 SANDMAN, THE (GOLDEN AGE)
of sibling rivalry and passion turned to revenge, themes on the dangerous nature of
gifts, particularly the gift of creativity, as well as recurrent meditations on the power of
women, the nature of vision, and the distinction between Dream and Death.”
Outside of the original, 75-issue run of Sandman, there have been numerous spin-off
works. Gaiman himself wrote Th e Dream Hunters (1999), an illustrated novel taking
place in Japan. Th e three-issue miniseries Death: Th e High Cost of Living (1993) and
Death: Th e Time of Your Life (1996) both feature Dream’s older sister, while Endless
Nights (2003) contains seven separate tales about each of the Endless, some of which
were set after the main series’ end. DC also launched a number of titles connected with
the world of Sandman, including Mike Carey’s Lucifer (2001–6), which followed the
title character after his abandoning of Hell; Th e Dreaming (1996–2001), a monthly
series by several artists and writers that focused on the supporting characters (mostly
Cain and Abel) within Dream’s realm; and Th e Sandman Presents (1999–2004), another
multi-author series that followed the large number of supporting characters from the
main series.
Th e eff ect of Th e Sandman on comics in general has been to promote a sense of
literary development in comics. In the early 1990s, Th e Sandman was the center of DC’s
new “mature” imprint, Vertigo. Th e success of Th e Sandman led to a boom in new titles
that not only addressed adult themes—including more graphic violence and open dis-
cussions of sex—but also seemed to raise the perceived quality of the stories. Indeed,
along with the work of Alan Moore, Th e Sandman is credited with adding depth to a
medium often condemned as juvenile and sub-literary.
Curiously for a series that began as a horror comic, Th e Sandman also comments on
the theme of hope in literature. More than just a story about “the shaper of dreams,”
Gaiman’s stories touch on the importance of dreaming and hope in everyday lives,
from African tribesmen to desperate writers to the Emperor Joshua Norton. As Death
notes in Th e Wake , the passing of “Dream” is really the passing of a “point of view.” Th e
implication is that dreams will no longer be directly shaped by some higher power, but
will be more open and free. Th e release of dreams back to the dreamers plays into that
theme of hope.
Selected Bibliography: Bender, Hy. Th e Sandman Companion. New York: DC Comics,
1999; Kwitney, Alisa. Th e Sandman: King of Dreams. San Francisco: Chronicle Books,
2003.
Jacob Lewis
SANDMAN, THE (GOLDEN AGE). DC’s original Sandman was a transitional fi gure
between pulp heroes and the emerging Superman-style heroes that would soon dom-
inate comics. Wesley Dodds (sometimes Dodd) wore a suit under his cape and a
fedora over the gas mask that protected him from the eff ects of his sleeping gas gun.
Like many pulp heroes, he left a sign at the scene of his activities—a few grains of
sand. He fi rst appeared in the 1939 New York World’s Fair Comics, but the story in
