Comicade

Neil Gaiman's stock and trade has always been representing famous myths in ways that make them interesting, relevant and, most importantly, unpredictable for modern readers. He doesn't always stray from stereotype, especially when there's nothing wrong with the original understanding of the myth. Rather, he picks and chooses those aspects of human legend that don't really serve the tone of his stories and turns them on their heads, or at the very least interprets them in an unusual way. "Seasons of Mist", the fourth trade paperback compilation of Sandman comics, goes into mythology overdrive, depicting some famous figures exactly as they've always been depicted and reinventing others radically. Gaiman wouldn't attempt a mythological deconstruction as vast and varied as this for another decade when he wrote American Gods.

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Several times throughout the Sandman series, Neil Gaiman took some time off from the main plot (or the closest thing the series ever had to a main plot) to indulge in some stand-alone stories that have little or nothing to do with Dream himself. These stories more often than not highlight how deep and malleable the Sandman universe was from the very start. They're stories about human nature and the consequences of desire, fun vignettes that display Neil Gaiman at his most imaginative and reverential. "Dream Country" highlights four stories from early in the series that alternate between funny, sad and delightfully strange.

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How does one write a story about a god? This has been the central question of a large part of Neil Gaiman's work. He writes stories about incredibly powerful things, whether they're deities, legendary heroes or the keepers of secrets so important that they could unravel the very fabric of existence. Making a compelling narrative about even a partially omnipotent character is almost impossible. It's no fun to read about a hero who can't die, permanently lose anything of value or fall prey to mortal frailty. Perhaps that's why Gaiman's approach is so thoroughly postmodern. His gods are powerful, but they're also at the mercy of the very beliefs that surround them. It's this core of pop culture deconstruction that makes DC Vertigo's Sandman series so interesting.

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In the first half of And Here My Troubles Began, the second trade paperback compilation of Art Spiegelman's Maus comic strip, Art depicts himself in the mid 1980's when the first half of his award-winning graphic novel was a remarkably successful property. He's drawn as a human wearing a mouse mask, surrounded by other Americans who wear the animal masks of their ethnic heritages. When beset upon by journalists and marketing executives who all want something extra out of the first Maus book, Art literally shrinks into a child in front of them. Maus is every bit Art Spiegelman's search for own his place in the post-Holocaust world as it is a document of his parents' experience during the war. He wonders aloud whether or not he can actually capture the truth of life and death in Auschwitz, whether or not Maus says anything profound, or even anything that hasn't been said already in the countless books documenting Europe under Nazi rule. The responsibility of finding something meaningful in Maus may be up to us readers, not Art Spiegelman. He just recorded his father's words and tried not to spare any details.

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