I discovered "The Sandman" more than 15 years ago. A friend recommended it to me, saying that with my love for mythology, dark fantasy, twisted stories and all things Gothic (and that was in the peak of my Über-Goth phase), the comic was exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered. So I borrowed "Preludes&Nocturnes" from him and started reading.

Frankly, I wasn't impressed.

The plot was a mess: started in medias res, and then threw in way too many obscure DCU references for me to follow. The main character was an ass. The drawing style was, pardon my French, butt ugly. Sure, there were some interesting ideas and lines here and there, but I found the overall narrative forced and confused, as if the author wasn't sure in which direction he wanted to take his story.

(I knew little about Neil Gaiman back then, only having read a short story published here in a bootleg fantasy anthology in late 90's - a cute, but not particularly outstanding story. It's only much later that I discovered that he had indeed struggled when writing "Preludes&Nocturnes", trying very hard to find his own style.)

Then, I arrived to Chapter 8, poetically called "The Sound of Her Wings" - and everything changed. Death appeared. She and Dream met in London, sat on the edge of a fountain, fed pigeons, and had a loooooong conversation.

She was like a breath of fresh air - charming, easygoing, but with both feet on the ground. She called out the main character for being an ass, and exactly for the same reasons that grated my nerves. She was perky and chipper, and yet looked like a Goth icon. She was the personification of Death and took people's lives, but she also radiated warmth and compassion. It was obvious that she was to be the main female character of the story - or as close as it got to that - but lo and behold, she was no love interest. She was a character I could actually RELATE to. It was unlike anything I'd seen before.

It's there, on that bench, as Dream and Death were feeding the pigeons, that I fell in love with "The Sandman". Funny thing, Neil Gaiman also said that it's in "The Sound of Her Wings" that he finally found his own voice and knew what kind of a story he wanted to tell. From that point onward, the saga about the Endless family began to take shape.

"The Sandman" would indeed become my very favorite comic book of all times, with its bittersweet tone, memorable characters, and intricate tapestry of myths and pop-culture - and yes, it does feel as if it was made according to my wishlist. (I even learned to like Dream after a while, and by the end he totally broke my heart - but I'm one of those weirdos who love to have their hearts broken to pieces by memorable stories.)

So this is our homage to "The Sound of Her Wings": London, pigeons, and a pair of siblings having a difficult yet cathartic conversation after not seeing each other for a while. Or, as Death would say, that's what family is about.




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Dream by Endymion Craftsmanship & Cosplay
Photo by Guru
Edited by Shunak