The Sandman (Vertigo) - Publication History

Publication History

The Sandman grew out of a proposal by Neil Gaiman to revive DC's 1974–1976 series The Sandman, illustrated by Jack Kirby and Ernie Chua and written by Joe Simon and Michael Fleisher. Gaiman had considered including characters from the "Dream Stream" (including the Kirby Sandman, Brute, Glob, and the brothers Cain and Abel) in a scene for the first issue of his 1988 miniseries Black Orchid. While the scene did not make it into later drafts because Roy Thomas was using the characters in Infinity, Inc., Gaiman soon began constructing a treatment for a new series. Gaiman mentioned his treatment in passing to DC editor Karen Berger. While months later Berger offered Gaiman a comic title to work on, he was unsure his Sandman pitch would be accepted. However, weeks later Berger asked Gaiman if he was interested in doing a Sandman series. Gaiman recalled, "I said, 'Um... yes. Yes, definitely. What's the catch?' 'There's only one. We'd like a new Sandman. Keep the name. But the rest is up to you.'"

Gaiman crafted the new character from an initial image of "a man, young, pale and naked, imprisoned in a tiny cell, waiting until his captors passed away deathly thin, with long dark hair, and strange eyes." Gaiman patterned the character's black attire on a print of a Japanese kimono as well as his own wardrobe. Gaiman wrote an eight-issue outline and gave it to Dave McKean and Leigh Baulch, who drew character sketches. Berger reviewed the sketches (along with some drawn by Gaiman) and suggested Sam Kieth as the series' artist. Mike Dringenberg, Todd Klein, Robbie Busch, and Dave McKean were hired as inker, letterer, colorist, and cover artist, respectively. McKean's approach towards comics covers was unconventional, for he convinced Berger that the series' protagonist did not need to appear on every cover.

The debut issue of The Sandman was on sale in October 1988 and cover-dated January 1989. Gaiman described the early issues as "awkward", for he, as well as Kieth, Dringenberg, and Busch, had never worked on a regular series before. Kieth quit after the fifth issue; he was replaced by Dringenberg as penciler, who was in turn replaced by Malcolm Jones III as inker.

The character then appeared in two of DC's "Suggested for Mature Readers" titles. In Swamp Thing #84, written by Rick Veitch, Dream and Eve allow Matthew Cable to live in the Dreaming, because he died there, resurrecting him as a raven. He then meets John Constantine in Hellblazer #19, written by Jamie Delano, leading into the latter's guest appearance in issue #3.

Issue #4 revisited Hell as depicted by Alan Moore in Swamp Thing, beginning with a guest appearance by Kirby's Etrigan the Demon guarding the gates of Hell. The issue introduces Hell's Hierarchy (as their entry is titled in Who's Who in the DC Universe), headed by Lucifer (who would spin off into his own series in 1999), Beelzebub (later adversary to Kid Eternity), and Azazel, whom Dream defeated later in the run.

In issue #5, Dream visited the Justice League International. Although DC superheroes appeared in the series as late as issue #72, this would not be the norm.

By issue #11, Gaiman began incorporating elements of the Kirby Sandman series, including the changes implemented by Thomas. Simon and Fleisher had treated the character, who resembled a superhero, as the "true" Sandman. Between Thomas and Gaiman, the character's existence was revealed to be a sham created by two nightmares who had escaped to a pocket of the Dreaming, who would later attempt this again on Sanderson Hawkins, sidekick to Wesley Dodds, the Golden Age Sandman (who himself made several appearances in the Gaiman series). Gaiman gave Jed Walker a surname and made him related to several new characters, and treated his relationship with Uncle Barnaby and Aunt Clarice as abusive rather than Cinderella-esque. The Thomas Sandman was Hector Hall, who married the already-pregnant Fury in the Dreaming in Infinity, Inc. #51. It was explained that Dr. Garrett Sanford, the original Brute/Glob Sandman, had gone insane from the loneliness of the Dream Dimension and taken his own life. Brute and Glob put the spirit of Hector Hall, which had been cast out of his own body by the Silver Scarab, into Sanford's body, and it eventually began to resemble Hall's. Fury, in her civilian guise as Lyta Hall after these issues, was the only major superhero recurring character in the series. Even at that, her powers had come to her via the Fury Tisiphone, and the Furies, under the euphemism, "the Kindly Ones" (a translation of "Eumenides", a name they earned during the events of Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy), are major characters in the series.

The series follows a tragic course in which Dream, having learned a great deal from his imprisonment, tries to correct the things he has done wrong in the past. Ultimately, this causes him to mercy kill his own son, which leads to his own death at the hands of the Furies. Dream, having found himself a replacement early on in Daniel Hall, dies in issue #69. The remaining issues deal with Dream's funeral, Hob Gadling choosing to remain immortal in spite of Dream's passing, and two stories from the past. The series wraps with the story of William Shakespeare creating his other commission for Dream, The Tempest, his last work not in collaboration with other writers.

The Sandman became a cult success for DC Comics and attracted an audience unlike that of mainstream comics: half the readership was female, many were in their twenties, and many read no other comics at all. By the time the series concluded in 1996, it was outselling the titles of DC's flagship character Superman. Gaiman had a finite run in mind for the series, and it concluded with issue #75. Gaiman said in 1996, "Could I do another five issues of Sandman? Well, damn right. And would I be able to look at myself in the mirror happily? No. Is it time to stop because I've reached the end, yes, and I think I'd rather leave while I'm in love." By 1994, the book was not quite retaining a monthly schedule, having not released issues dated January, May, or October 1994; February, April, June, or October 1995; or February 1996. The final issue was dated March 1996.

More recently, Dream appeared in a flashback in Green Arrow vol. 3, #9, which takes place at a point during the 70 years of the first issue, as does Sandman Midnight Theatre, a 1995 Gaiman-penned prestige format one-shot in which Dream and Wesley Dodds meet in person after the events in the storyline, "The Python," which ended with Dodds's lover, Dian Belmont, going to England, which eventually brings both her and Dodds to Roderick Burgess's mansion.