If Poppy could listen to rock music, she’d be listening to “Time” by Pink Floyd, ticking a way the moments that make up a dull day as things change and stay the same around her.
Written by Sarah Vaughn
Illustrated by Leila del Duca
Colored by Alissa Sallah and Gabe Fischer
Lettered by Deron Bennett
Nearly a year has passed, and much has changed for Poppy. But now she needs to make an important decision about her future without Cyrenic.
The first arc of “Sleepless” was surrounded by motifs of flowers, poppies in particular, and skulls symbolizing sleep, rebirth, and death. “Sleepless” #7 is tied together by a competently different elemental motif: time. It’s a concept that the creative team use to ties both narrative of the issue and the reader together at start this new arc.
The “Sleepless” creative team pulls off something most comics do not, employ massive time jump. The seventh issue picks things up a year after the previous issue. It’s a bit of a gutsy call by writer Sarah Vaughn, the first arc ended on a cliffhanger note that this series rarely goes for. The decision does read in keeping with the sort of Diana Gabaldon mold of treating the fantastical in a magical realist tradition and not really wanting to explain the magic. From a readers standpoint the time skip is made effective because of how it mimics the act of reading “Sleepless” issue by issue. The sixth issue was released in May 2018, the trade the following month, and now here we are roughly four months later picking things up. It’s like seeing friends for the first time in awhile, they kept on going even if you didn’t see it. Building in something that plays off the distance between publications is a nice sort of realist touch for this fantastical series.
Baking in the time skip also puts the series in a bit of a stasis, if it were important it would’ve been shown on panel. Stasis isn’t a bad thing, considering how artists Leila del Duca gets that feeling across, and what it allows the book to do with its readers. The time skip allows this issue to smoothly act as a sort of introduction (or reintroduction) to readers about books core drama: Poppy’s liminal status in court and the machinations of feudalism. Issue 7 might not be the start of the series, but it’s the kind of issue you could give to a new reader and it will explain the series to them without getting them the trade first.
The term stasis implies some sense of inactivity or equilibrium, but that isn’t a comforting feeling for Poppy. The time skip and what we see of her in this issue helps to reinforce how she is betwixt in all things (culture, royal status, relationships, etc.), unable to move forward she can only repeat the past. One of the things that makes issue #7 read like an introduction is how artists Lelia del Duca mirrors the very first page of issue #1 in the seventh. One of the main characters stares at a symbol of death in three panels with the fourth pulling out to reveal them in catacombs. In the first issue it was Cyrenic watching Poppy pay respects to her father, now she does it alone. Her inability to progress helps to bring out a real nostalgia to Poppy as she tells Princess Rellen about traveling her personal estate. The nostalgia in this sequence is different from previous instances with it’s specificity and enhanced sense of meaning the minor details in her story compared to larger more vague ones developed in the previous arc. One of the nice things about having this book back is getting to see del Duca work in great subtle character acting physicality that reinforces Vaughn’s scripting which shines through in this sequence.
From a larger design perspective, del Duca establishes this static quality and the slow passage of time by inserting panels into a sequence that simply mark a lack within a previously inhabited space. As Poppy leaves a slumbering Cyrenic, the sequence is capped by a panel that marks her absence. Another technique is inserting panels that allow a moment to hang by showing a moment of brief contemplation or recognition on a characters face. Throughout the issue del Duca does a good job of using page design to establish environments and tracking the cast members moving through it furthering the sense of time slowly moving forward. “Sleepless” #7, and the series as a whole, is a reminder of how smart design work is more stylish and effective than art that is heavy on styyyle for it’s own sake.
Another strength of the time skip is how it allows Vaughn to rewrite previously assumed relationships without having to dedicate the page budget to showing the change. A year ago, Poppy and Princess Rellen’s relationship was presented as standoffish, a mixture of systemic rivalry and ego, despite being family. In the present they are friends and allies in the coming political struggle. Crucially, this isn’t a instance of trying to have cake and eat it at the sametime, as Vaughn and del Duca use their scene together to illustrate why their relationship has changed and works. Poppy and Rellen are shown to recognize the similar shackles within their patriarchal structure and able to confide in and stick up for one another in an honest fashion. Something the other courtiers cannot do, as they are busy playing the Game of Thrones. The creative team’s ability to twist this relationship and narrate to readers why it works is one of the most effective things this issue does.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – “Sleepless” is back with a strong issue that plays to the series and creative team’s core strengths as things begin to move forward for Poppy.
