The Sandman

An epic, surreal, slightly macabre, beautiful and thought-provoking series

by Neil Gaiman (and assorted artists)

Rating: Adult

Genre / themes: gods, mythology, alternate reality, psychology,

Art level: Variable. Distinctive characters, but a lot of people don't like the art. Very dark tones for most books, even though they are usually in colour.

Star Rating: 4.5/5


Number of Books: Was released in single comics, then twelve collected graphic novels. Four huge ultimate editions available, and a smaller Death one.

Other notes: Neil Gaiman is one of the Gods of writing :D

My Review
Gaiman's Sandman series was a long-running comic which opens up a clever, dark, often satirical world that is full of short stories of sad or ordinary or miraculous people, and is connected by the great deeds and brief appearances of the Endless - Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, Destruction, Destiny and Delirium.

 Sometimes the stories are tragic, or horrible, they focus on people's lives as they live and die, write books, touch magic, have sex, retreat from society. Sometimes the stories are utterly mundane, sometimes the characters save the world. Sometimes they're metaphorical - the famous writer who keeps a muse trapped in the attic, the woman who suffers a debilitating disease and retreats from society (but is actually turned into metamorphic warrior by the sungod Ra).

...and I just found this awfully fun dissertation on DeviantART looking at The Kindly Ones in the Sandman books.

The Sandman series is HUGE - the complete comics collection was recently released as the Absolute Sandman books - four enormous volumes bigger than my cat, and another for Death's miniseries. But it's also available in twelve 'normal' sized graphic novels, and a 'collected dustcovers' book. It was originally published - for years - in single comics, which can still be found on eBay.

The Absolute Sandman editions

Order the Sandman books from The Book Depository and get FREE shipping!

The Absolute Death volume is high quality and focuses only on Death herself - but it's also pretty short. It's only worth it if you can afford it, as there isn't enough exclusive content to make it worth buying for that alone. That said, the format is very nice, so if you can afford it, it's better quality than other options.

(Also, the price has dropped a lot on Amazon - it started out at $100!)

Fables

A new fantasy series about fairytale characters, and their refugee community in the real world

by Bill Willingham and various artists

(principal artist Mark Buckingham)

Fables Vol. 4:
March of the Wooden Soldiers

Rating: Young adult to adult.

Genre / themes: Alternate fairy tales, alternate universes, refugees, urban fantasy, modern world.

Art level: Good, coloured, western.

Star Rating: 4/5

Number of Books: Currently 14, nearly completed (I haven't been able to read the last couple of books yet).
 Also a spin-off series of nine books called 'Jack of the Fables'

and a single spin-off title, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love


Other notes: Variable books quality and length, but gets into its stride later in the series. Worth reading as an entire series.

The Fables books are a very new graphic novel series, and definitely worth picking up. The books are extremely variable in both length and quality - but skipping any isn't the best idea, as there is an actual narrative storyline! The first book is probably the least impressive, but later ones definitely make up for it! (I wouldn't recommend the first book alone, but I strongly recommend the entire series)

Fables is the story of the Fables - story book characters, fairy tales and myths - Snow White, Baba Yaga, Bigsby (the Big Bad Wolf), Prince Charming, Shere Khan, Bluebeard, Geppetto and Pinochio, the major King Coal, and the frog prince, to name but a few. They are refugees, fleeing a terrible army, who have established a city in the real world and are trying to get by without being noticed.

Fabletown is initially run by the affable and portly major, King Coal, and his ruthless secretary, Snow White. Bigsby, oncet he Big Bad Wolf, and the son of the North Wind, plays the sheriff, and the rest of the fables make up the diversity of the rest of the community, that they try to keep in line and out of site of the Mundanes. All signed a compact forgiving past crimes, and swearing to obey the laws of Fabletown. The (visually) non-humans live up on the Farm, also a source of tension.

The books follow both their individual adventures (Jack, knave of many stories, from tarts to beanstalks, wanders off to make himself a movie star at one point, and the first book revolves around the apparent murder of Rose Red), the politics and life of Fabletown (an uprising on the Farm, Prince Charming's election campaign), and the actual war with the Enemy (both in their homelands, and when spies and armies invade Fabletown).

The entire published Fables series in order, from left to right

A Distant Soil

A very pretty black and white series of telepathy and aliens
by Colleen Doran

A Distant Soil: Coda (Book 4)

Rating: Young adult.

Genre / themes: Fantasy, science fiction, some yaoi, rebellion

Art level: Good. Detailed inking - all black and white, Western comics style.

Star Rating: 4/5
Best Other Work in the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards 2001


Number of Books: Four, completed.

Other notes: Being released as a webcomic by the author.


Distant Soil Vol. 1: Amazon Blurb
The story of a young girl who is born the heir to an alien religious dynasty, is one of comics most lavish and romantic sagas, listed as one of the five best books for teenage girls by Sassy Magazine. A never-before-published A Distant Soil short story and the first 11 chapters of the science/fantasy series are collected in this 240 page trade.


My Review
A Distant Soil is the story of two children with telepathic powers who are rescued/recruited by aliens, in a complicated and desperate game of politics. It will probably appeal more to girls initially, unless you are buying it for the art - and the art is very pretty, so if you're artistically inclined I do recommend it. It's a little old-fashioned in style, particularly the way Liana is drawn (and by old-fashioned, I mean '80-90's comics). You can actually check it out here on Colleen Doran's site, as she's uploading it slowly as a webcomic. Of course, like almost all such stories, it's much easier to read in print. Colleen Doran has also illustrated for Marvel and DC.

It starts with two children - Liana and Jason - running away from an institute, who are mysteriously rescued by a pair of aliens (who basically look like humans... ). turns out their father wasn't human, Liana is an Avatar, and the current Avatar is trying desperately to both protect her, and use her to help break the hold of the current selfish, cruel and hedonistic Hiercracy, who intend to kill her - because she's preventing their Avatar using his power by existing. The children (well, young adults) get separated and Jason is enlisted into a rebellion, while Liana and and some hand-picked humans are taken back and snuck into the top level of government. among these humans is a random knight - the Arthurian Sir Galahad, plucked by chance and magic into the modern world.

The people and the backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and the book feels like a real work of love (I say 'book', rather than 'books' because only the first one ever made it into a library in New Zealand near me - there are four volumes. But I think they would all be similar). Recommended for readers of Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The complete series of A Distant Soil

Coraline: The Graphic Novel

Coraline: The Graphic Novel

A creepier young adult novel about a girl who wanders into the shadowier side of her life 

 by Neil Gaiman

Rating: Young adult (older children will enjoy it, but it may be a little creepy for them, adults should also enjoy it)

Genre / themes: Family, supernatural, alternate reality, imagination


Art level: Pretty good. Not outstanding, but not bad either. All in colour, quite flat looking.

Star Rating: 4 Stars


Number of Books: One.

Other notes: Adaptation of Neil Gaiman's original novel (which won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella for the year 2003, and also won the Locus Award, the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Work for Young Readers and the 2002 British Science Fiction Award for short fiction) and recently made into an animated film in 2009.

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The Coraline novel is also available for the Kindle.

My Review

Coraline is for older children, young adults and anyone who likes Gaiman's slightly scary take on everything he writes. I got my dad this for his birthday, and it has been reread by both siblings and him several times since then - and is looking a bit battered! Coraline is a little girl who is lonely and imaginative and wanders into the wrong part of her new house - where she meets her creepy Other Mother and Other Father.

Her Other Mother at first provides her with everything she wants, including a great deal of attention - but then gets too creepy for Coraline, who runs home. Unfortunately, her Other Mother doesn't approve of this, and steals her parents away. Coraline has to return and face down her Other Mother in order to rescue them. If she can find where they are hidden.

The other Coraline books, and the movie.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Long Way Home
(Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Season 8, Vol. 1)

The spin-off comics from the awesome vampire dusting television series from Joss Whedon


Rating: Young adult-adult

Genre / themes: Vampires, Buffy, supernatural, saving the world, normal- 'super' heroes.

Art level: Very variable - mostly quite bad, but the artists change a lot. The season eight books are much better.

Star Rating: 3.5 stars (4.5 stars for season 8)


Number of Books: Seven Omnibuses (one for each finished season) plus individual graphic novels and comics. Season Eight is unfinished, so still only in single story graphic novels.

Other notes: Mostly spin-off stories and retellings of the show, so it's not too repetitive if you've seen the original series. Bonus materials (e.g. original covers) included. Storytelling and art highly variable originally. Season eight only available as graphic novels, due to the television series ending, and much better quality (also actually written by Joss Whedon in many cases).

This is a brilliant gift for a Buffy fan, so-so for anyone else (with the exception of season eight which is pretty awesome)

See this series on Amazon
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My Review
The graphic novel version of the famous television series is collected in seven volumes, plus the eighth season that's still being written. The art doesn't get consistently good until the final season, but we're not buying this for the art. We're buying it for Buffy and the Scoobies.

 Some of the artwork or the stories are patchy, as they tend to be collaborations with various writers, but the omnibuses are the best way to collect the Buffy comics - they're even organised into chornological order (story wise). And the story is different enough to be worth reading, and to provide new enjoyment - especially the bonus stories! The stories in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume 1" take place before the show's first season, and the other volumes all deviate from the television and include additional stories.

Season Eight - 4.5 stars
From what I've seen of the single graphic novels in the eighth series, the art is incredibly improved, and as it's the continuation of the television series, not the spin-off, and Joss Whedon is actually taking a hand in the plot, I can guarantee that a) it actually has a cohesive story (and is not just a bunch of collectible tales)  and b) it's canon, and good.

I actually met Georges Jeanty, the artist who did the pencils for the season eight books, and was impressed enough to buy one of his sketchbooks (reviewed here).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 was shortlisted for the 2008 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards, in the 'Other work' category.

All the BtVS compilations so far (not including season eight)