Tag Archive for 'neil-gaiman'

19
Apr

The Sandman – The Endless

As a tribute to the greatest comic ever made today’s column will be a presentation of the Endless, the 7 members of the greatest family ever written about (ok, I’ll try to chill out). Less talk and more pictures, these are the Endless:

Destiny: The elder brother of this family Destiny is appeared as an old man dressed in brown robes with a book chained on his hand (or him chained to it). He is walking in his garden, a vast maze in which when you walk forward there are countless different ways but when you look back only one path exists, reading the book where everything that happened, happens or ever will happen is written.

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Despair: A short, fat, grey woman who rarely speaks, she wears a hooked ring (her emblem) which she uses to carve herself. She lives in a realm full of rats and windows, each window looking through a mirror where someone watches himself without hope, doomed to end under her influence.

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Delirium: One of my personal favorites, she is the youngest one of the Endless. Once she was Delight, now a half crazed, eccentric girl that constantly changes appearances, her hair always in a different style and her eyes another color in every picture. Even her text expresses the instability of her character, wavy colorful letters spilling out and dancing in every page. She seems to know things the other Endless don’t, and that knowledge pushes her to insanity.

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Desire: Beautiful, merciless and without a specific gender he/she is Despair’s twin sister/brother. She/he seems to have a grudge against Dream and he/she misses no chance to give him a hard time. Her/his emblem is the heart shape and his/her realm a large human body with a gallery in the heart.

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Destruction: An extremely large man with red hair and beard this is one of the most mysterious of the Endless, his first appearance in the series comes after many issues. Having a sword as his symbol Destruction creates and destroys things because it is the only way the world can go on, but his artistic talent are not quite developed as he’d like. Centuries ago he abandoned his responsibilities as an Endless and fled causing much conflict in the family.

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Death: My favorite, the most charming gothic character ever created in art. She is a beautiful young girl dressed in black with an ankh as her sigil, always present twice in every being’s life, in its birth and death. She is a kind and loving person, optimistic although the grim of her business, she is the one that will settle the table and close the door behind her when the last creature will end.

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Dream: The main character of this series, Morpheus, the lord Kai’Ckul, creator of stories and shape shifter. He is a tall, extremely thin man with black hair and eyes with his helm as an emblem (created from the bones of a dead god). He once was cruel and insensitive but during the series he changes and faces the results of his previous harsh decisions.

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What, you need more to get excited about this? This is a story you start for fun and end up reading it again and again because you need it, it’s addictive, it’s Sandman!


17
Apr

The Sandman

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The power of comics as a medium is unique, it the power of something combining some of the greatest advantages and disadvantages of other great art forms like literature and drawing. Every now and then comes a work of genius, an artistic creation so beautiful and poetic it’s hard to realize it’s just a comic, because it’s not. It’s a little bit of everything put together in a mix of something even superior. As far as I’m concerned the best example of this is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, something so extraordinary and breathtaking people still read it manically.

avatar1.JPGThis is the story of Dream, not the god of dreaming or the spirit of the stories but Morpheus, the manifestation of dreaming itself. He is one of the seven Endless, created long before humanity and destined to end when the last living creature will die, all of them personifications of something different and necessary. They are Destiny, Death, Delirium (who once was Delight), Despair, Desire, Destruction (long ago self-banished) and Dream, the mysterious tall, thin figure that creates the worlds we visit when our subconscious gains the upper hand. Reading every issue of this magnificent tale you will follow him in the present and past as “The king of dreams learns one must change or die and then makes his decision”.

I’ve spent half my life over pages and this might be my favourite work in literature, comics and drawing altogether, and before you hurry to object that it is literature you should know that it is the only comic book to ever have won the World Fantasy Award for its issue #19 (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), the next day the rules were changed so that it would never happened again. This is really not just a comic book, it’s the creating of a new world that affected story tellers, music artists, WWF wrestlers (it’s true, there’s a guy that fights wearing Sandman T-Shirts), people of all ages, you read it and it changes you in every page. To conclude I am not able to describe the phenomenon called The Sandman, get your asses of your chairs and go buy the issues (hard), the trade paperback albums (easy) or the Ultimate Sandman edition (expensive), don’t just sit here, go!

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06
Apr

The Eternals

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There are a few things I discovered through comics more serious than just fun, and one of the best was the work of Neil Gaiman. I still haven’t found a world he created that I did not like, or even better sink into; I am currently reading his Anansi Boys and enjoy each page with the happiness of a six year old kid opening his present! His latest creation with Marvel was a tale of gods and humans, of how our world was created and some of those present in that moment still walking among us. The return of the Eternals!

eternals2.jpgThe Eternals were introduced by previous marvel series, kind of indifferent if you ask me. Immortal beings that came to Earth million of years ago and offered the mammals they found here the potential to become humans, something like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey opening scene, they were sent by other, superb entities called The Celestials that created and watched them. In this new aspect of the story by Neil Gaiman (Books of Magic, The Sandman, American Gods, Anansi Boys, Stardust) and John Romita Jr. (X-Men, Daredevil, Thor, Hulk) the Eternals are living as normal people with most of them having no recollection at all of their powers and nature, at least until certain events unlock their memories and begin a chain of events that might change the route of history!

This is a Gaiman story and the way I see it that’s the only credential it needs to be in my bookcase, but it is also a Romita Jr. book (he’s one of the best known Marvel artists) and it presents a story with unused potential which finally gets the depth it deserves. The 7 issues should be sold out by now (the limited series was originally planned to last 6 issues but one more was added) but if you are willing to give it a try, which I recommend, the hard-cover collection will by out this May, get your own copy!

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05
Apr

Neil Gaiman – Stardust

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This is something I can’t make my mind upon, so help me on it, ok? If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s Stardust is it a good or a bad thing? When I tell you it’s one of my favorite books ever you might hurry to support the first opinion but you would be wrong, there is no expiration date on stories. I envy you fellow reader because you have the unique opportunity to live from the beginning the experience of getting lost in a Gaiman story, and if this article helps even one of you do that, well I’ll be a happier man!

 

Somewhere in the Middle Ages or shortly later there is a small village called Wall, in that countryside place there is, what a surprise, a wall no man is allowed to pass. That is the border between our world and Fairy, a land of magical creatures and wonders, and once every year there is a festival on the other side of it where humans and fairies sell, buy and trade possessions and experiences. This year young Tristran will attend the festival and furthermore, in an attempt to gain his only love’s hand he will promise to bring her a falling star they see together that dark night, so he will embark by himself in a journey that will put him in grave dangers and reveal him things about himself and the rest of the world he would never find out otherwise.

 

Neil Gaiman and artist Charles Vess (twice winner of the Eisner award) bring to us a fantastic tale about true and false love, magic and wonders, quests and pursuits. It is nothing like what you’ve read before, it can be read manically in one night, it is beautiful, addictive, mind blowing story telling, I loved every page of it!

 

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