Last night I dreamt I was the Sandman again....
(....apologies, Ms. DuMaurier, for the stolen, and abused line.)
Truth is .... last night i remembered the "comic-book" series Sandman Mystery Theater, from DC/Vertigo. Second only to the Batman, the story of Wesley Dodds (the Sandman) was my favorite comic series. It ran 70 issues from Apr.93 thru Feb.99; and briefly again (2007) for a 5-part story called "The Sleep of Reason". I have the complete set, thanks to Mike who found the elusive #37 for me in some shop somewhere.
I see now the DC/Vertigo is reissuing the series in several "anthology" volumes and they even have new vol#1 available in PDF for free download.... which i did and noticed the coloring is much different than my original printing.... but the drawings are the same.
I actually had my collection of the entire Sandman series, leather bound, and hey came out beautiful.
(Be warned: some scenes in every one of these stories are extremely violent and disturbing.)
Wesley Dodds is a meeky (whimpy?) type new yorker in the 1930's. He has no special powers or abilities, but he has dreams, and his dreams are haunting and very disturbing (to him and the reader), and they are premonitions.
Why he dreams is never explained to the reader (or to Wesley!), and the dream scenes are as confusing to him as they are to the reader.... and they are bizarre and unnerving.
Over the years, Wesley has learned to wake up in the middle of the night and to follow his feelings toward finding what his dreams mean.... and he has learned that they are premonitions of evil going on near him.... and he must do something about them.
Wesley Dodds is caught between his extreme mild manners and the forces of much evil taking place nearby... he can't rationally explain his visions to anyone (e.g., the police), yet he cannot ignore the evil they reveal to him.
So.... Wesley does what any mild mannered, proper dandy would do to enter a dangerous world and root out very real evil..... he makes a gas gun (sleeping gas), puts on a gas mask, wide brim hat and trench coat and goes out at night stalking his dreams..... and when he finds them, he gases the bad people to sleep and ends his dream and also ends the (very real) crimes that his dream revealed, and sometimes, but not always, saves the victims.
No flying about, no explosions, no super powers, no applauding crowds, no glory, no final scenes of triumph ... just a whimpy guy who can finally get some sleep (until the next horrid dream).
On another level, there is the idea that a timid soul will take on (secret) heroic tasks time and again, for reasons he doesn't clearly understand, and do it not armed with superpowers or blasters.
There is also a spirituality in the story of Wesley Dodds .... that there are helpless souls out there, trapped in horrendous events, calling out, through some mysterious force, to be rescued .... and they can be heard only in dreams ...... and only in the dreams of a soul such as Wesley Dodds.
Higher thoughts aside, the writing, at least the storyboards and the scripts are just great. (The narrative gets a little pompous at times.) And Wesley, too, gets pretty Shakespearian with his dialog once he puts on the mask and gas gun...... and I can imagine this would be me too if I had a second identity (and a gas gun !).
There are many artists that do the various stories, so the look of the characters and the scenes changes a bit, and I found that to be very interesting .... seeing how different artists visualize things.
Wesley's "girl" is Dian Belmont, the proper but gutsy daughter of an influential local judge, who is a grumpy, protective daddy but Dian is a bold and independent woman. She is a major player throughout the series. The two are very well written together, and when Wesley is not gassing the demons of his dreams, he is chasing Dian around.
..... and often catching her ......
In a much later story, Dian actually dons a mask and plays the Sandman (SandLady ?) for an episode.
