Sandman’s Most Unique Volume (Neil Gaiman’s Sandman vol. 3 Review)
Dream Country might be the most bizarre Sandman volume, but it certainly is not the worst…
Dream Country, the third volume of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is the shortest volume of Sandman, it’s also the most unique volume, because unlike the rest, this is an anthology, and Morpheus barely appears in any of them, and yet, it also contains possibly my favorite issue in all of Sandman. In this review I’m gonna talk about the four short stories one by one, so stick around to find out which one is my favorite!
The first short story is called Calliope, written by Gaiman, with art by Kelley Jones and Malcolm Jones III. This to me, is by far the least impressive short story in the anthology. But it’s not bad by any means, it just pales in comparison to everything else here. For example, I think the art looks good, but it doesn’t have the distinctiveness that the best sandman art have. To me, it looks like a normal late 80s-early 90s comic book art, when other parts of Sandman have art that transcends that. This story is about a writer who got a literal muse, and well, that’s all there is to the premise. The story does go to some interesting bits, involving Morpheus, but it didn’t really engage me the same way the other stories here did. And yeah, I like the story, but as a Sandman story, it’s just okay, it’s not a very memorable one, and I’m giving this one a ⅘.
The second short story is called A Dream of a Thousand Cats, written by Gaiman, with art by the same artists who did the art for the previous story, Kelley Jones and Malcolm Jones III, but this time, I think the art style worked a lot better because, well, as the title suggests, it’s about cats. And the cats look very… dream-like, I’m not sure how to describe it, but that’s the vibes I got, and it matches perfectly with the story.
As for the story itself, it’s about a cat who asked Morpheus about why the world is the way it is, let’s just put it that way. It is a pretty simple story, but I think what makes it work so well is the fact that this is where Sandman begins to delve deeper into the meaning of stories and its connection to dreams, and stuff like that. In my review of the previous volume, I remarked that that was the first time the series touched on that topic, but this volume, in particular this short story and the one after it, are where it continued to get deeper into this endlessly-fascinating discourse.
As someone who is basically addicted to stories myself, this overarching theme is a big part of why I love Sandman so much. Stories are powerful, but for the longest time, I couldn’t really articulate why, Sandman helped me to be able to do that.
Out of all of the Sandman stories so far, this is probably the ones that feels more like a dream the most. There’s just something about it, from the way the characters talk, to the way they are drawn, to just the dream logic that governed the plot itself. It’s amazing. My favorite part is how Morpheus is literally a cat, and it just solidifies the idea that the endless can not only appear as anyone, but as anything. Anyways, I’m giving this one a 5/5. So good.
The third short story is called A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess and of course, with materials from Shakespeare’s play of the same title. This is possibly my favorite issue in the entire Sandman story. The reason for that is… hard to explain.
Basically, this is the continuation of the story of Dream and Shakespeare’s first meeting in the Hob Gadling issue in the previous volume. But this picks up quite a bit after that, we learned that basically, Dream asked Shakespeare to write two plays about dreams for him, and in return, he’d give Shakespeare the thing he wanted the most, which is, the iconic status that he still has even in now in 2022.
Shakespeare’s dream is to be remembered, and this issue is partly about the cost of that. The issue brilliantly showcased what it really means to be successful, and what it means to have your dreams come true. Even if you ignore the genius of that part of the story, that’s not all, at the same time, Dream is inviting the fairy creatures, you know, like Oberon, Titania, Puck, etc. to watch the play.
So there’s this really meta thing where I’m reading a fictional story, about people watching a play that exists in the real world, which contains a play in it. And the real world play is about the fictional people who are watching it, and this story is a part of a bigger story, that, as I’ve said before, is a love letter for stories in general.
There’s not a lot of things in this world that I love more than metatextual stories. So it feels like Gaiman wrote this issue specifically for me. Basically there’s a lot of layers in it, and the way they all intertwine is just genius. I genuinely wanna know what Baudrillard would say about this story, hell, I wanna know what Baudrillard would say about Sandman as a whole, considering all the things it borrowed.
I bet there’s some really good insight that you could gain if you dissect Sandman using Baudrillard’s postmodern and hyperreality theories. Someone should definitely do that, not me though, I’m too lazy, but I would definitely read it. Anyways, yeah it’s amazing, it’s one of the best stories I’ve ever read, period, it’s that good. So obviously 5/5.
The final story in this volume is Façade, written by Gaiman, with art from Colleen Doran and Malcolm Jones III. The story is about Rainie Blackwell, AKA Element Girl, ally of the kinda-famous DC hero Metamorpho. This story takes place years after her superheroing years. At this point, her “powers” have turned her into a shadow of her former self. To the point where she’s isolated from the outside world at this point.
Dream doesn’t even appear in this issue, like at all, but the effects of dreams do still appear, though in a somewhat different tone than it was previously showcased in this volume. Also, my favorite character of this entire series, Death, appeared here, and that’s part of what makes the issue so great. I think this was Colleen Doran’s first issue in Sandman, and that’s probably why I love this issue’s art so much. There’s a certain… gentleness in the art that is perfect for this type of more introspective story, where it’s less about what’s going on externally in the story world, but more about the thoughts and feelings of the characters if that makes sense.
The expressions in the characters’ faces add so much to the story in ways that I think is hard to achieve in other mediums like prose or TV. And the story itself is really emotional, and it’s one that will stay with me for a while. This issue just did such a good job at building up a character I had never heard before and making me care about her in such a short period of time, and the main character of the story didn’t even appear! So yeah, another 5/5.
This volume is a lot shorter than most Sandman volume. While most of them are like 200+ pages, containing six to eight volumes, this one is only 111 pages, containing only four volumes.
Four individual, standalone stories that don’t have much to do with the overarching plot of Sandman, but have so much to do with the thematic statements that Sandman is trying to make, about what it means to dream (both meanings of the word). And about what stories can do to us, both the bad things and the good things, and ultimately about why stories or dreams are just as important to humans as reality is, perhaps even more so.
Despite the shortness of the volume, it’s the one that has left me pondering the longest due to all of its thematic implications. Like I’m not trying to be pretentious here, but it’s just really how this story has made me feel. So obviously, 5/5 as a whole.
