The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

When the tenth anniversary of Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking Sandman series rolled around we were treated to a luscious prose tale by Neil, drawing on elements of Asian folklore and boasting some truly stunning illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano that you could lose yourself in. Now, unbelievably, it’s the twentieth anniversary year – how did that happen? I find it hard enough to process the thought it was ten years ago I bought myself that book (signed and still taking pride of place in my collection), even harder to accept it was twenty years ago that I first picked up the Sandman comics and was utterly absorbed into the unfolding stories within stories and the multiple layers and references to world folklore, myth and literature, impatiently waiting for each new issue month by month (years later, reading some Sandman graphic novels with my book group several non comics fans there were surprised to hear that month by month issues was how the first readers got their Sandman fix, they simply didn’t realise each volume was the best part of a year’s worth of comics).

Ah, twenty years ago – I was young, fresh faced, flowing of locks and joyfully immersing myself back into the world of comics because work like this was being created to appeal to the older reader who wanted more from their funnybooks (and I’m sure many of you had similar experiences, reading fewer and fewer comics as you got older then finding new work that re-ignited your love for the medium. Fortunately today we’re blessed with more interesting comics work than we can fit into our reading time). Now for the twentieth anniversary year the great P Craig Russell’s comics adaptation of The Dream Hunters is coming in hardback. Normally I’d be cynical about adapting a previously published work in this way, but I lost my normal wariness to such projects when it was announced that Craig was doing it. And I know we’re not supposed to judge by them, but just how utterly gorgeous is this cover?