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The Sandman: A Game of You | |
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Publisher | DC Comics |
Publication date | November 1991 – May 1992 |
Title(s) | The Sandman #32-37 |
Main character(s) | Dream |
ISBN | ISBN 1-56389-089-5 |
Creative team | |
Writer(s) | Neil Gaiman |
Artist(s) | Dave McKean Shawn McManus Colleen Doran Bryan Talbot Dick Giordano George Pratt Stan Woch Daniel Vozzo |
Penciller(s) | Shawn McManus Colleen Doran Bryan Talbot |
Inker(s) | Dick Giordano George Pratt Shawn McManus Stan Woch |
Letterer(s) | Todd Klein |
Colorist(s) | Daniel Vozzo |
Editor(s) | Karen Berger Alisa Kwitney |
A Game of You (1993) is the fifth collection of issues in the DC Comics series, The Sandman . Written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, George Pratt, Stan Woch and Dick Giordano, and lettered by Todd Klein. The volume's introduction was written by Samuel R. Delany.
It collects issues #32-37. The issues in the collection first appeared in 1991 and 1992. The collection first appeared in paperback and hardback in 1993.
Barbie, a minor character from The Doll's House , has recently divorced and is trying to rediscover her own identity. At the same time, Barbie's rich but childish fantasy world is threatened by a malevolent creature called the Cuckoo. Her hard-pressed imaginary friends reach out into the real world for help, resulting in blood and death in both worlds.
Gaiman described A Game of You as "probably" his favorite volume in the series, "because it's most people's least favourite volume, and I love it all the more for that." [1]
This fifth collection continues the story of some of the characters of the second, The Doll's House, and is closely linked with the ninth, The Kindly Ones .
Each of the issues in the collection takes its name from a song, including Lullaby of Broadway (represented as "Lullabies of Broadway"), Bad Moon Rising, taken from the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, "Beginning to See the Light", a Velvet Underground song, "Over the Sea to Sky," from a Scottish folk song, and "I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying" from Elvis Costello's "I Want You."
It is preceded by Season of Mists and followed by Fables & Reflections .
The central character of A Game of You is Barbie, introduced as a resident of the house where Rose Walker stayed during the events of The Doll's House , wherein Barbie dreamt a vivid dream of herself as a princess of a fantasy realm. As A Game of You opens, Barbie no longer dreams and lives in an apartment block with her best friend Wanda, a transgender woman; the lesbian couple Hazel and Foxglove, the witch Thessaly, and a quiet man named George. Martin Tenbones, a character of Barbie's dreams in The Doll's House , enters into the waking world to give her the Porpentine, a quartz amulet, but is slain by the police. Using the Porpentine, Barbie returns to her fantasy realm, known simply as the Land, where she is required to oppose the mysterious villain called the 'Cuckoo'. Upon returning to the Land she is greeted by Wilkinson the shrew, Prinado the monkey, and Luz the dodo—her allies in the quest. In New York, George, recruited by the Cuckoo, releases a flock of birds to give nightmares to the other apartment residents. Immune to this, Thessaly kills George, and uses George's remains to divine the threat of the Cuckoo. Thessaly then summons the moon, which offers advice; on which Thessaly, Hazel, and Foxglove travel to the Land to assist Barbie. However, as she is not "a real woman" due to her being biologically male and the Moon only being willing to transport biological females, Wanda is forced to stay behind with the unconscious Barbie and George's still-animated head.
Barbie has several adventures, which involve pursuit, loss of friends, and betrayal, and discovers that the Cuckoo resembles herself as a child, while the Land is identified as part of The Dreaming. The Cuckoo describes Barbie as "the perfect place to develop" and describes herself as "unable to fly", but intends to escape from the Land so that she can fly through the worlds and lay her own eggs in more young girls' minds. She therefore causes Barbie to break the Porpentine on a monolith called the Hierogram, which summons Morpheus and dissolves the Land. Morpheus absorbs its inhabitants and assures the Land's original owner, a woman named Alianora, that the Land has been home to many minds since her own time. Thessaly urges him to kill the Cuckoo, but Morpheus suggests that some action of Barbie's prevented the Cuckoo from leaving the Land, in connection to the events of The Doll's House. Dream then grants Barbie a boon, for which she asks that she and her friends be returned to New York "safe and sound". The Cuckoo flies away, and Barbie and her friends learn that a storm, resulting from Thessaly's spell, has killed Wanda. At the funeral, Barbie finds that Wanda's conservative parents have cut off her long hair, and buried her under her deadname. After the funeral, when the mourners have departed, Barbie uses Wanda's favorite lipstick to correct the name on the tombstone. She then dreams of a female Wanda and Death, who both wave her goodbye.
Dave McKean has explained the origins of the arc's cover art as having "abused a colour photocopier, shone lights into it and moved things around on the surface ". [2]
Issue | Title | Writer | Penciller | Inker | Colorist | Letterer | Ast Editor | Editor |
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32 | Slaughter on Fifth Avenue | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
33 | Lullabies of Broadway | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
34 | Bad Moon Rising | Neil Gaiman | Colleen Doran | George Pratt & Dick Giordano | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
35 | Beginning to See the Light | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
36 | Over the Sea to Sky | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus & Bryan Talbot | Shawn McManus & Stan Woch | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
37 | I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
Colleen Doran redid the inking of issue 34 for the collection The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2 . [3]
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and the novels Good Omens, Stardust, Anansi Boys, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He co-created the TV series adaptations of Good Omens and The Sandman.
Preludes & Nocturnes is the first trade paperback collection of the comic book series The Sandman, published by the DC Comics imprint Vertigo. It collects issues #1–8. It is written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III, colored by Robbie Busch and lettered by Todd Klein.
The Doll's House is the second trade paperback of the DC comic series The Sandman. It collects issues #9–16. It was written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli and Steve Parkhouse, coloured by Robbie Busch and lettered by Todd Klein.
Dream Country is the third trade paperback collection of the comic book series The Sandman, published by DC Comics. It collects issues #17–20. It is written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Kelley Jones, Charles Vess, Colleen Doran and Malcolm Jones III, coloured by Robbie Busch and Steve Oliff, and lettered by Todd Klein.
Season of Mists is a 1990–1991 American eight-part comic and the fourth collection of issues in the DC Comics' The Sandman series. It collects issues #21–28. It was written by Neil Gaiman; illustrated by Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Matt Wagner, Dick Giordano, George Pratt, and P. Craig Russell; coloured by Steve Oliff and Daniel Vozzo; and lettered by Todd Klein.
Fables & Reflections (1993) is an American fantasy comic book, the sixth collection of issues in the DC Comics series The Sandman. It was written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Bryan Talbot, Stan Woch, P. Craig Russell, Shawn McManus, John Watkiss, Jill Thompson, Duncan Eagleson, Kent Williams, Mark Buckingham, Vince Locke and Dick Giordano, coloured by Daniel Vozzo and Lovern Kindzierski/Digital Chameleon, and lettered by Todd Klein. The introduction is written by Gene Wolfe.
Worlds' End (1994) is the eighth collection of issues in the DC Comics series The Sandman. It was written by Neil Gaiman; illustrated by Michael Allred, Gary Amaro, Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano, Tony Harris, Steve Leialoha, Vince Locke, Shea Anton Pensa, Alec Stevens, Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss, and Michael Zulli; colored by Danny Vozzo; and lettered by Todd Klein. The stories in the collection first appeared in 1993. The collection first appeared in paperback and hardback editions in 1994 with an introduction by Stephen King. The collection's title, setting, and a number of its themes and images are also found in G. K. Chesterton's poem "A Child of the Snows".
The Kindly Ones (1996) is the ninth collection of issues in the DC Comics series, The Sandman. Written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Marc Hempel, Richard Case, D'Israeli, Teddy Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon, Charles Vess, Dean Ormston and Kevin Nowlan, coloured by Daniel Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein.The volume features an introduction by Frank McConnell.
The Wake is the tenth and final collection of issues in the American comic book series The Sandman. It is written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Michael Zulli, Jon J. Muth and Charles Vess, colored by Daniel Vozzo and Jon J. Muth, and lettered by Todd Klein. The collection opens with James Elroy Flecker's poem "The Bridge of Fire", prefacing the events which follow.
The Sandman is a comic book written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. Its artists include Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, Bryan Talbot, and Michael Zulli, with lettering by Todd Klein and covers by Dave McKean. The original series ran for 75 issues from January 1989 to March 1996. Beginning with issue No. 47, it was placed under DC's Vertigo imprint, and following Vertigo's retirement in 2020, reprints have been published under DC's Black Label imprint.
Dream of the Endless is a fictional anthropomorphic personification who first appeared in the first issue of The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. One of the seven Endless, who are inconceivably powerful beings older and greater than gods, Dream is both lord and personification of all dreams and stories, and all that is not in reality. He has taken many names, including Morpheus, Oneiros, Kai'ckul, and the Sandman, and his appearance can change depending on the person who is seeing him. Dream was named the sixth-greatest comic book character by Empire. He was also named fifteenth in IGN's 100 Top Comic Book Heroes list.
Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.
The Sandman is the pseudonym of several fictional characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. They have appeared in stories of various genres, including the pulp detective character Wesley Dodds, superheroes such as Garrett Sanford and Hector Hall, and mythic fantasy characters more commonly called by the name Dream. Named after the folklore character that is said to bring pleasant dreams to children, each has had some thematic connection to dreaming, and efforts have been made to tie them into a common continuity within the DC Universe.
Mike Dringenberg is an American comics artist best known for his work on DC Comics/Vertigo's Sandman series with writer Neil Gaiman.
Charles Vess is an American fantasy artist and comics artist who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, and comic-strip artist Hal Foster, among others. Vess has won several awards for his illustrations. Vess' studio, Green Man Press, is located in Abingdon, VA.
This is a list of works by Neil Gaiman.
The Endless are a family of cosmic beings who appear in American comic books published by DC Comics. The members of the family are: Death, Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction and Dream.
The Sandman is an American fantasy drama television series based on the 1989–1996 comic book written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. The series was developed by Gaiman, David S. Goyer, and Allan Heinberg for the streaming service Netflix and is produced by DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television. Like the comic, The Sandman tells the story of Dream / Morpheus, the titular Sandman. The series stars Tom Sturridge as the title character, with Boyd Holbrook, Vivienne Acheampong, and Patton Oswalt in supporting roles.