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scans_dailyI've thought long and hard about what to put into this category. I originally wanted it to be Joker & Penguin, but then I realized that that friendship doesn't really exist anywhere except in my own head. Then I considered Harvey Dent & Bruce Wayne, but to this day, posting about anything Two-Face-related makes me feel like I'm stepping into thehefner's old underwear.
Then, it struck me.
I only began reading The Sandman last month, and already, I'm amazed by Neil Gaiman's skills as a storyteller. The longer story arcs are, by turns, confusing, rewarding, trippy, heartwarming and heartbreaking, but what I really respect is that Gaiman never lost his skill for the done-in-one. Almost every one of the longer story arcs is punctuated by a little one-shot issue that may or may not tangentially tie into the larger scope of things, and it's in these that I find the comic's most memorable bits.
Case in point: Hob Gadling, the man who might be called the anti-Ra's al-Ghul. A man of little inherent talent, who stumbled onto immortality almost totally by accident, held on to it through sheer optimism, and never rose toward any truly lofty ambitions. He's not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, but he never makes any particular pretensions to morality, either.
Oh, and he befriends a god in the process.
(Well, Gaiman insists that the Endless aren't gods, but it's the same principle - all-powerful, supernatural being that tiny mortals can't hope to ever fully comprehend.)
All because he woke up one day and went...
Let's begin at the beginning. Back in Ye Olde Middle Ages, Dream is making another one of his infamous wagers. This time, he gets his sister Death to leave a certain man alone. Said man will become immortal and unaging, until he personally chooses to embrace death.
And, in 1489...
Heh. Hob's probably older than every other man in the tavern now, and he still hasn't fallen prey to the "it was better back in MY day!"-itis.
Anyways, Dream fully explains to him the conditions of his immortality, and Hob gleefully agrees to meet him at the same tavern in a hundred years' time.
Come 1589, life is better than ever for Hob:
(Another chap, a certain Will Shaxberd, also has a bit of a presence during this segment, but I've excluded him because quite frankly, Gaiman's Shakespeare-centric bits bore me to tears. I don't think I've ever struggled to finish a comic as much as The Sandman #19. Yes, yes, I'm an uneducated plebeian, moving on...)
Hob makes the idiotic mistake of proclaiming that he's now got "everything to live for... any nowhere to go but up". Naturally, the god of dramatic irony gives him a nice kick in the pants.
1689:
By 1789, Hob's fortunes have turned around again. Unfortunately, his new fortune is directly tied to the misfortune of the millions of Black slaves being shipped over to America.
The woman here is Johanna Constantine, ancestor to Vertigo favorite John Constantine. Sadly, I have no space to post her full encounter with Dream and Hob (it's a pretty nice sequence that shows exactly why you don't fuck around with the Lord of Dreams), but I might make up for it by posting her solo adventure from The Sandman #29 sometime down the road.
Anyways, Dream leaves Hob with a warning to exit the slave business. Hob does, but the exact sequence of that bit of character development is left to the imagination. All we get is this snapshot from 1889:
A couple decades after this, unfortunately, Dream gets captured by a coven of wannabe warlocks and gets trapped in a glass box on Earth for about eighty years. After a series of adventures (which form the first eight issues of the series), Dream is left... slightly humbler.
D'awwwwww.
I'm told that Hob appears several more times throughout the comic, but I've only read one of them so far. It's a pretty touching little three-page sequence, from Season of Mists:
(Some context: Dream is getting ready to storm Hell to rescue one of his former lovers, and the Devil happens to have a particular grudge against him because he'd already humiliated all of Hell once before. Dream straight-up tells his servants that he's not sure whether he'll come back intact.)
Awww yeah. What better friend than one who can actually reach through the sands of time and reality to fish out the best possible booze for his pal?
Then, it struck me.
I only began reading The Sandman last month, and already, I'm amazed by Neil Gaiman's skills as a storyteller. The longer story arcs are, by turns, confusing, rewarding, trippy, heartwarming and heartbreaking, but what I really respect is that Gaiman never lost his skill for the done-in-one. Almost every one of the longer story arcs is punctuated by a little one-shot issue that may or may not tangentially tie into the larger scope of things, and it's in these that I find the comic's most memorable bits.
Case in point: Hob Gadling, the man who might be called the anti-Ra's al-Ghul. A man of little inherent talent, who stumbled onto immortality almost totally by accident, held on to it through sheer optimism, and never rose toward any truly lofty ambitions. He's not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, but he never makes any particular pretensions to morality, either.
Oh, and he befriends a god in the process.
(Well, Gaiman insists that the Endless aren't gods, but it's the same principle - all-powerful, supernatural being that tiny mortals can't hope to ever fully comprehend.)
All because he woke up one day and went...
Let's begin at the beginning. Back in Ye Olde Middle Ages, Dream is making another one of his infamous wagers. This time, he gets his sister Death to leave a certain man alone. Said man will become immortal and unaging, until he personally chooses to embrace death.
And, in 1489...
Heh. Hob's probably older than every other man in the tavern now, and he still hasn't fallen prey to the "it was better back in MY day!"-itis.
Anyways, Dream fully explains to him the conditions of his immortality, and Hob gleefully agrees to meet him at the same tavern in a hundred years' time.
Come 1589, life is better than ever for Hob:
(Another chap, a certain Will Shaxberd, also has a bit of a presence during this segment, but I've excluded him because quite frankly, Gaiman's Shakespeare-centric bits bore me to tears. I don't think I've ever struggled to finish a comic as much as The Sandman #19. Yes, yes, I'm an uneducated plebeian, moving on...)
Hob makes the idiotic mistake of proclaiming that he's now got "everything to live for... any nowhere to go but up". Naturally, the god of dramatic irony gives him a nice kick in the pants.
1689:
By 1789, Hob's fortunes have turned around again. Unfortunately, his new fortune is directly tied to the misfortune of the millions of Black slaves being shipped over to America.
The woman here is Johanna Constantine, ancestor to Vertigo favorite John Constantine. Sadly, I have no space to post her full encounter with Dream and Hob (it's a pretty nice sequence that shows exactly why you don't fuck around with the Lord of Dreams), but I might make up for it by posting her solo adventure from The Sandman #29 sometime down the road.
Anyways, Dream leaves Hob with a warning to exit the slave business. Hob does, but the exact sequence of that bit of character development is left to the imagination. All we get is this snapshot from 1889:
A couple decades after this, unfortunately, Dream gets captured by a coven of wannabe warlocks and gets trapped in a glass box on Earth for about eighty years. After a series of adventures (which form the first eight issues of the series), Dream is left... slightly humbler.
D'awwwwww.
I'm told that Hob appears several more times throughout the comic, but I've only read one of them so far. It's a pretty touching little three-page sequence, from Season of Mists:
(Some context: Dream is getting ready to storm Hell to rescue one of his former lovers, and the Devil happens to have a particular grudge against him because he'd already humiliated all of Hell once before. Dream straight-up tells his servants that he's not sure whether he'll come back intact.)
Awww yeah. What better friend than one who can actually reach through the sands of time and reality to fish out the best possible booze for his pal?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-03 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-03 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-03 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-03 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 03:15 am (UTC)I'm told that Hob appears several more times throughout the comic, but I've only read one of them so far. It's a pretty touching little three-page sequence, from Season of Mists:-
The last one is good too :)
no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 01:30 pm (UTC)