After an unexpected week off due to vacation travel stress (let me assure all of you, the stories you’ve seen in the media about airport headaches this summer are true, so if you are traveling via air this summer, definitely pack your patience), we’re back for our 2022 Summer Comics Binge of “Sandman” with a new arc, ‘Dream Country.’
The first two issues we’ll cover today are standalone stories, one perhaps inspired by a Stephen King story that came to the screen a few months after it was published, the other by . . . cats. Even before they were internet darlings, man has sought to understand the mind of the cat. Is it going to be easier than understanding the mind of a muse, or Morpheus himself? Let’s find out.
Please note a trigger warning for one of these issues (issue #17) for a rape scene.
A demented writer purchases a muse named Calliope and keeps her locked up to exploit her idea-generating abilities. Unfortunately for the writer, Calliope also happens to be a close friend of Morpheus. And the Dream King doesn’t take kindly to kidnappers…
[image width=200 align=left caption="Cover by Dave McKean"]http://multiversitystatic.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/07/The-Sandman-18.jpg&q=95&w=188&zc=1&a=t" style="border-bottom: none;" />Cover by Dave McKean
Written by Neil Gaiman
Penciled by Kelley Jones
Inked by Malcolm Jones III
Colored by Daniel Vozzo
Lettered by Todd Klein
My first thought on reading the solicit for issue #17 was simply: a twist on Misery? The Stephen King classic was getting a film release only a few months after this issue dropped, so it would be no surprise to find one supernatural master looking to another for creative release, turning the story of the kidnapped author on its head by making that kidnapped author the kidnapper.
And that twist makes this story creepier than its inspiration. Richard Madoc kidnaps a literal muse to help him find fame. That muse is Calliope, ironically in Greek mythology the “Chief of All Muses,” but in this story rendered powerless. This is a young Calliope, at the mercy of her masters, who take her powers in the most brutal of ways. It’s inferred that her power comes from her sexuality, and while Jones and Jones do their best not to draw her as a cheesecake figure, using shadow to obscure the human female form to a fault, several of the angles we see Calliope from at our first meeting certainly emphasize her figure and female assets. It’s also that shading that helps keep several of the rape scenes from being too graphic – – the unknown and the unseen provide the horrors too depraved to comprehend in daylight.
Colorist Daniel Vozzo, who provided the colors for the first 12 issues of the series, returns, and it is certainly a welcome return. In my look at
issues #4-6, we explored how Vozzo uses color saturation as a symbol for horror, and that’s on full display here. The first third of the issue, where Madoc struggles with writer’s block, remain desaturated. There are hints of color, but the colors all remain monochromatic, bathed in grey. As Richard’s fame grows, the colors brighten but only to a fault, suggesting that there is something lurking behind this curtain of glory. Once again all appears well. But all only appears well, for when Morpheus (here called Oneiros) comes to rescue Calliope, the colors return to their desaturated form as Madoc descends into the madness that is his true life, first filled with too many ideas to control, and then without any ideas at all.
The use of Oneiros here fits with Greek mythology, for
Oneiros is the personification of dreams. Small touches like these are something I appreciate, the weaving of various traditions into this story. Our various myths and fables may look different across cultures, but they have more in common than we may realize. Also of note in this story is that Oneiros/Morpheus/Dream has a romantic history with Calliope, along with a child. However it ended was traumatic and painful for both of them, but Oneiros/Morpheus/Dream shows he is capable of forgiveness in coming to Calliope’s aid and honoring her request to stop Madoc’s torment. We continue to build the character of our protagonist in these one off stories.
Issue #18 proves a change of pace in that we explore the animal world, through the eyes of cats. It is the story of one cat who sought out the Cat of Dreams after her humans remove her children. The Cat of Dreams (Morpheus again, in a new form) provides her a vision of a world where cats ruled over humans, but humans dreamed themselves superior, leaving cats subservient. He suggests that cats can reverse the humans’s rule with just enough of them dreaming themselves superior, and thus this cat’s purpose in life remains clear: tell her story and rally the cat world to her cause.
It’s implied that the Cat of Dreams led this cat on a wild goose chase (wild cat chase?) and that there is no way that cats can dream themselves into superiority. Could this be a sign that Morpheus’s loyalties lie towards humans? Perhaps. But there is still one young cat who believes, who dreams of ruling the world. It is a lesson that one person’s belief in a dream keeps that dream alive, no matter how preposterous it is. (Perhaps it is the reason cats always tend to be dicks towards humans, coughing up furballs and knocking over our things – – an attempt to assert that superiority that they cannot dream into existence, at least yet.)
The artwork in this issue shows skills at vast scenery, with many detailed scenes in the journey through the Dreaming, but once again color sticks with me. The cat that travels through the Dreaming has piercing blue eyes, a color that represents faith, loyalty, imagination, and inspiration – – all that she seeks in her journey. The young kitten that starts and ends this story is pure white, an absence of colors that symbolizes peace, purity, and innocence. How appropriate that it is a white cat that embraces the older cat’s story. But in Eastern culture, white can also symbolize sadness, suggesting that this young cat may be setting themselves up for a fall.
It’s good to have these one-shot stories as palate cleansers after the longer ‘A Doll’s House’ arc, self-contained but still providing growth for Morpheus and the world of the Dreaming.
See you next week.
Next week we wrap up the ‘Dream Country’ arc with issues #19 and #20.
If you want to read along with me this summer, single issues and trades are available through comiXology. As of this writing, the first eight issues of the comic are also available on DC Universe Infinite. You can also check your local library for trade and collected editions of the series.
