Happy Summer everyone! This week on Tradio we are continuing the Summer of Sandman with The Sandman: A Game of You as written by Neil Gaiman with art by Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, and Brian Talbot and published under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.
A Game of You focuses on a group of people living in a small apartment building in New York City. Pretty standard stuff on the surface. A pretty, young thing from the country, her best friend pre-op transsexual, a lesbian couple, a awkward, bookish lady, and an odd older man all living in a building and going about their separate lives. Or so it would seem. As it turns out, they are all interconnected and the young thing from the country is actually Barbie that we met in The Doll's House and one of the lesbians is actually an old girlfriend of a character that died in the initial Sandman story arc. What do they have in common? Not a lot, save being thrown into a situation that will end up killing a couple of them and exploring the dream world of Barbie and how she must defeat the Cuckoo. Black magic, murder, talking animals, a homeless lady who hates dogs, and a hurricane all make for a story that whips around on itself and really plays with the ideas of dreams and their origins.
...or maybe that was what it meant. Honestly, I am not sure what all happened toward the end of the story. Barbie was in a dream land that wasn't her own and there was a jewel and a rune and a forgotten childhood. I don't know. There was so much good in the story, that final arc of the action really left me wanting. Maybe I need to reread it, but I don't think I should need to, honestly. There were a lot of good ideas there, they just never really seemed to gel like they should have. The very end did tie up some loose ends in a way, but there were a couple inconsistencies even in that. I totally understand that no writer is perfect, but I don't know, it was kind of a let down in a way considering how good Dream Country was. It was still good, just not my favorite so far. That said, the art that was done by Shawn McManus is pretty incredible and he ranks up there with Kelley Jones in a lot of ways in my book. Anyway, it is a good read, I just hope you understand it a little better than I did. So, see you in a week for Fables and Reflections.
A Game of You focuses on a group of people living in a small apartment building in New York City. Pretty standard stuff on the surface. A pretty, young thing from the country, her best friend pre-op transsexual, a lesbian couple, a awkward, bookish lady, and an odd older man all living in a building and going about their separate lives. Or so it would seem. As it turns out, they are all interconnected and the young thing from the country is actually Barbie that we met in The Doll's House and one of the lesbians is actually an old girlfriend of a character that died in the initial Sandman story arc. What do they have in common? Not a lot, save being thrown into a situation that will end up killing a couple of them and exploring the dream world of Barbie and how she must defeat the Cuckoo. Black magic, murder, talking animals, a homeless lady who hates dogs, and a hurricane all make for a story that whips around on itself and really plays with the ideas of dreams and their origins.
...or maybe that was what it meant. Honestly, I am not sure what all happened toward the end of the story. Barbie was in a dream land that wasn't her own and there was a jewel and a rune and a forgotten childhood. I don't know. There was so much good in the story, that final arc of the action really left me wanting. Maybe I need to reread it, but I don't think I should need to, honestly. There were a lot of good ideas there, they just never really seemed to gel like they should have. The very end did tie up some loose ends in a way, but there were a couple inconsistencies even in that. I totally understand that no writer is perfect, but I don't know, it was kind of a let down in a way considering how good Dream Country was. It was still good, just not my favorite so far. That said, the art that was done by Shawn McManus is pretty incredible and he ranks up there with Kelley Jones in a lot of ways in my book. Anyway, it is a good read, I just hope you understand it a little better than I did. So, see you in a week for Fables and Reflections.
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