Comic book review: Sandman Overture #3: Reader meet author

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artist: J.H. Williams III
Publisher: Vertigo (DC)
Released: 30th July 2014

Morrissey knows- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCR8T5YFHg4

It’s been a long wait, but we expected that, and now after reading the third instalment of The Sandman Overture I’m more certain than ever that what Neil Gaiman is doing here is working through his career as a writer, and the success that his most famous creation has given to him. 

I don’t know anything about Neil Gaiman’s life story, and I’ve only attempted to read one of his novels (it was boring and I stopped reading one third of the way through), so I’m not a fanboy. I enjoyed reading his Sandman comic books in the 1990’s, and I left it there, in the past. 

This new Sandman book has a nostalgic quality, and that’s why I’m reading it. It reminds me of some horrible times in my own life when I didn’t have much to look forward to apart from a good book.

Sandman was a good book, it opened a door to something better, something more interesting than my own lead weight life of predictable reality, routine and sleepwalking through crowds of horrifyingly indifferent people. 

I welcome its return, but everything has changed. Not just in my own life of course, but in the wider world as well. Read my other reviews, as that’s where I’ll detail the changes, this review is going to be simple, precise and short.

Sandman Overture #2 is heavy in text, and some of the background art looks wonderful. It has that mythical, mystical, intergalactic, otherworldly, spaced out quality that makes you think of larger, weightier concepts than everyday concerns on planet Earth. You can get lost in this world, and that’s exactly what the Sandman books used to do so very well when they were new, different and special.

The fanboys will appreciate that. They can pretend it’s still 1996. They do love to do that. I however read nothing in this script other than a writer talking about being a celebrity (a ‘star’) and how to deal with killing off the character that made him a star in the first place. Is it a subconscious thing? I think so. Gaiman is sitting down and writing his reality into the world of the Sandman. 

It’s not a bad book. It’s a book with a famous author revisiting the character that has allowed him to live a life as a celebrity writer. If you want to know how Neil Gaiman really feels about the character that made his name, then buy this book.  I can’t get anything else out of it.

I’m 100% positive that I would have loved this book if I read it back in 1996 as a bored and alienated young man. However, in 2014, and as the man that I am today, I read it, put it aside and think, man, life has really changed me. That’s all. 

Rating: 7/10