The Sandman Vol. 8: World's End (New Edition)

This is not a Dream-centered books, you crazy women who are, admit it, a little stuck on the Sandman. This is a book about dreams...the lives, in essence, that he touches. He pops up in various places along the way, but this is more a collection of short stories. Two travelers get lost in a snowstorm in June and find their way to an inn of all worlds. Creatures from various times and places, caught up in the "reality storm" have come to this place for food and drink and rest from the icy storm, including Clurachan (sp?), a favorite faerie hedonist from other installments in the Sandman series. My favorite story is inarguable "A Tale of Two Cities" when a very average man with a very normal job and a great love of his city finds himself, after falling asleep in the subway (see if you can't connect to an interest in subways overall by Gaiman in his book "Neverwhere"), that he has fallen into a dream of the city. Cities dream as do people...anyone who has traveled extensively knows that cities do have their own personalities. New Orleans feels nothing like New York, etcetera. He searches for months trying to find an exit from the dream of the city, only to find temptation to stay. All of the stories are entertaining, but this one sticks out the most in my mind. I have a great love of cities, especially New York, and I can only imagine what she dreams. A dark shadow plagues the end of "World's End"...a funeral procession...who this funeral procession is for, well...call it foreshadowing.

Travelers all converge at a Tavern at the end of the world to sit out a snowstorm. They pass the time by telling stories. The stories make up each issue and quite often the stories are inseparable from their narrators. Many familiar Sandman characters pop up such as Hob Gadlin and Cluaracan of faerie in the most entertaining of the stories. Even though the Sandman barely figures into the stories, his presence is felt; but what makes everything work is that different artists do the different stories in their own styles. In the case of Mike Allred (the creator of Madman one of the funnest super hero books in recent years) his style works perfectly with the tale of Prez. The last issue is a foreshadowing of things to come... Brace yourself for "The Kindly Ones."

Brant Tucker and Charlene Mooney are two travellers making their way cross-country, when a snowstorm (in June, no less!) and an otherworldly animal-beast in the middle of a highway interrupts their travel, and the car crashes. Lost in the blizzard, Brant stumbles upon The World's End Inn, a free house. A tavern populated by people and creatures from different worlds and times, displaced from their homes by a `reality storm', an event so cosmically huge, it resonates across time and space.So, to kill time until the storm passes, they tell stories. The art in theWorld's End framing sequences is top-notch stuff by Bryan Talbot and Mark Buckingham. Very tight, its realism contrasting nicely against the art in some of the other stories.The first story, "A Tale of Two Cities", the story of a man (literally) lost in the dreams of his city. While a favorite of Sandman editor Karen Berger, I must confess I found it a little puzzling and indecipherable. And this is no fault of the artist, because the separation of text and art works very well. The format almost makes up for the lame story. My least favorite in the book. Cluracan's Tale was much more enjoyable, starring and narrated by the lovable, oft-inebriated, arrogant emmisary of Queen Titania of Faerie. Cluracan is sent to a city-state run by a corrupt, piggish king, who is, by a quirk of politics and bloodlines, is also the city's spiritual leader. What follows is an adventurous story of murder, family helping family, and political sabotage. The art's very nice here, conveying a very interesting fairy-tale look, although Cluracan, Titania, and Nuala look nothing at all like they do in this or any of the other books.Hob's Leviathan, a story of the immortal Hob Gadling (my favorite Sandman character, bar none) told by Jim, a young man who met Hob on a Ship in 1914. A stowaway is discoverd, whom Hob knows as a fellow immortal (in case you didn't know, he's the king in the story of the fruit of eternal life). Jim's fascination with the sailboats becomes the readers own. The crew of the Sea Witch are given real personalities here, and are shown to be real people. After the ship is nearly capsized by a sea serpent, every one of these grown men cry. This was my favorite story in the novel, mostly because of Michael Zulli's wonderful art. While sketchy and bland compared to his work in The Wake, it's still beautiful and works with the story wonderfully to convey the wonder and grandeur of those ships.In The Golden Boy, the story of cheesy 70's comic character Prez Rickard, the teenage president, is updated courtesy Gaiman and Madman Comics creator Mike Allred. Given a Christ-like sensibilty, Prez becomes not only the hippest president of all time, appearing on Saturday Night Live skits with John Belushi, but also the best. He disarms the country's nuclear and biological weapons, and puts education back as the #1 priority. And he does it on his own, despite the evil Boss

In this collection of the individual stories of some visitors at the Worlds' End Inn, we see the impact of the Sandman on the lives of those around him. We also get hints of what's to come in the next book, The Kindly Ones. The art is widely diverse and consistently beautiful, and the stories span genre, time, and space, fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle. Here's to comics!

Before you condemn comic books, you must read Sandman. Even my mother likes this series! As for me, I think Worlds' End is one of the best of the Sandman story arcs (closely rivalled by Brief Lives) simply because the characters are so extraordinary - and yet so human. From the envoy of the fairies to a girl masquerading as a boy in the last days before the steamship, every protagonist in this collection of tales is engaging beyond superficial levels. The artwork is as varied and delightful as the stories themselves. Newcomers to Sandman may find this collection somewhat harder going than the others; Worlds' End is rather more abstract in making its point than are the other collections. Definitely, however, worth reading.