The Annotated Sandman Edited and largely written by Greg Morrow Issue 1: "Sleep of the Just" Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg First part of first storyline, _More than Rubies_ First story reprinted in _Preludes and Nocturnes_ Disclaimer: Sandman and all related characters are copyrights and trademarks of DC Comics Inc. Sandman and this annotation are intended for mature audiences only. Notice: Commentaries and additional information should go to morrow@fnal.fnal.gov (Internet) or morrow@fnal.BITNET. This material is posted by the editor directly to rec.arts.comics and COMICS-L, and is licensed to appear on Compu$erve and GEnie. It is also available via anonymous ftp from theory.lcs.mit.edu in pub/wald/sandman. Please contact the editor if you see this material on any other forum. Reproduction in any form without permission of the editor (as agent for the contributors) is forbidden. Page 1 panel 2: First known appearance of Dr. John Hathaway, who we will shortly find out is senior curator of the Royal Museum. Page 2 panel 1: First known appearance of Roderick Burgess, who we will shortly find out is "Lord Magus" (Magus being a Latinized singular of mage, equivalent to wizard or magician) of the "Order of Ancient Mysteries". Panel 6: Only known appearance of the _Magdalene Grimoire_. This is not a DC equivalent to Marvel's _Darkhold_. A grimoire is a fancy word for a (magical) book. According to Neil Gaiman, Magdalene is "marginally more likely to be the university than to refer to [the biblical] Mary Magdalene." Magdalene is a college in Cambridge, Magdalen a college in Oxford. Both are pronounced "mauldin" in British usage. Page 3 panels 1-4: First known appearances of Ellie Marsten, Daniel Bustamonte, Stefan Wasserman, and Unity Kincaid. Unity will appear later, the rest appear only throughout this issue. Page 4 panel 1: First known appearance of Alex Burgess, Roderick's son. Panel 4: "Aleister" is Aleister Crowley, the most widely known demonologist and occultist of that era (and probably still today). Roderick Burgess is essentially only Aleister Crowley renamed. Page 5-7: Let's look at the materials in the summoning ritual. On page five, the materials are fairly mundane, except in panel 7: A feather pulled from an angel's wing. This would appear to be fairly difficult, and worth a story in its own. The coin, stick, song, and knife may correspond to the Disk, Wand, Cup, and Sword suits of the Tarot cards. Disks are analogous to modern diamonds, and represent earth and business. Wands became clubs, and represent fire and energy. Cups became hearts, and represent water and emotions, and are a feminine suit. Swords became spades, and represent air and intellect, and are a masculine suit. Page 6 panel 4: Burgess gives the name of "old lords": Namtar, Allatu, Morax, Naberius, Klesh, Vepar, Maymon. Morax is certainly the name of a bull-headed demon appearing in _The Demon_. Maymon may be a reference to Mammon, a Greek word for riches. Mammon is also the name of a devil in the Key of Solomon, based on the line "one cannot serve God and Mammon" in the scripture. Panel 5: More names: Ashema-Deva, Maborym, Horvendile. Ashema-Deva is Persian, a god or devil in the Zoroastrian pantheon. He is more familiar to Westerners under the name Asmodeus. Horvendile is a name that appears in both Lord Dunsany and James Branch Cabell. In Dunsany (an early fantasist and playwright, active in the early decades of this century, best known work perhaps _The King of Elfland's Daughter_), Horvendile is a god. In Cabell's "Poictesme" cycle, he is referred to as a demiurge, a being who, though walking through the story, is above it, and possibly pulling the strings. He also keeps swine that feed on human flesh. Page 7 panel 6: First known appearance of Morpheus, the Sandman. Morpheus has many different names, since every culture has known of him in some form. Morpheus is fairly rarely referred to directly as the Sandman, with the major exception being issue #3. In this shot, he is wearing a helmet; that is not his head. Page 8-9: We clearly see here the removal of the helmet, ruby, and pouch of sand, whose recovery will occupy most of _More than Rubies_. Page 10 panel 1: Ellie is holding a copy of _Through the Looking Glass_, and her appearance bears some resemblence to Alice, the heroine of that book. Page 11 panel 2: The word "morphine" is derived from the name "Morpheus". Page 14 panel 3-4: "Sleepy sickness" appears to have been a real phenomenon in the early part of this century. It can also be seen in the Williams-De Niro movie _Awakenings_ and various texts. Page 15 panel 4: Who or what are the Endless? They include Death, Destiny, Desire, and Dream. We will find out more in later issues. Panel 5: First known appearance of the _Paginarum Fulvarum_. According to Neil Gaiman, fulvous is reddish yellow, dull yellowish brown, golden, or tawny. The _Paginarum Fulvarum_ is thus a bad joke, the "Yellow Pages". The "Yellow Pages" is a business directory in England, a business phone directory arranged by category of service in America. (The Yellow Pages may be the same in England and America. My English source gave no additional explanation.) Note that the colorist doesn't know Latin. First identification of Morpheus as the Kinge of Dremes [sic]. Panel 6: First identification as such of Ruthven Sykes, second in command of the Order. This issue is his first known appearance. We have seen him in several earlier shots; we see here indications of why he did what he does on the next page. Page 16 panel 1-2: First known appearance of Ethel Cripps; she will appear in later issues. Panel 4-6: First known appearance of a demon we will see again. The amulet will also appear again. Page 18 panel 3: Unity's child will become important later. Panel 4-6: Wesley Dodds was the Golden Age Sandman. The dreams are a retcon. The costume is correct; it is Dodds' first costume. Later he will don a purple and gold outfit and acquire a sidekick, Sandy. Dodds will be referred to again. Page 21 panel 2: First known appearance of Paul McGuire, new second in command of the Order. He will not appear in later issues. Page 23 panel 6: "Do what thou wilt", on the t-shirt, is the first half of a statement made famous by Aleister Crowley: "Do what thou wilt, and that shall be the whole of the Law." It is traceable back to Rabelais, and was the motto of the Hellfire Club. Crowley also used, with this motto, another Rabelais statement, "Love is the Law, Love under Will." Some modern groups use a slightly different version: "An' ye harm none, do what ye will." Page 24 panel 7: Here the text is named the _Liber Fulvarum Paginarum_. "Liber" translates as "book", and word order is quite flexible in Latin, so this is clearly the same as the text on page 15. Page 27 panel 6-7: Morpheus reaches into his guard's dream (daydream?) and grabs a handful of sand. This is a power he will manifest many times. Page 29 panel 7: Morpheus uses the sand to put his captors to sleep. This is a traditional power of the children's-tale Sandman. Page 31 panel 4: We are seeing Mort Notkin's dream, in which he is dressed as a clown at a party which is not a costume party after all (a common dream). The people pictured are, left to right, Marilyn Monroe, an American film actress; Jimmy Durante, an American film actor; Mort himself (note dismayed expression); Elvis Presley, an American rock musician; (small face) unknown (Humphrey Bogart?); John Wayne, American film actor; unknown (Jane Fonda?). Panel 5: Colonel Harlan Sanders, American fast food entrepreneur. The bucket he is holding contains his famous fried chicken. Panel 6: On the left, Marilyn again; on the right, we can see Mort's left rear. Page 31 panel 6; page 32 panel 3: Morpheus uses two different methods to acquire food and clothing. It is unclear why, except that perhaps Gaiman is showing us the extent of his powers. Page 32 panel 6: We will see that Morpheus craves revenge in the short term, but repents of it in the long term, as a general facet of his personality. Page 36 panel 7: "Lord, what fools these mortals be" is from Shakespeare's _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_. This play is evidently a favorite of Gaiman's, as he often uses it as a source, and bases an entire later issue around the play. Contributors include: jasona@sco.COM ( Convincing simulation ) Andrew David Weiland (aw1s+@andrew.cmu.edu) Connie Hirsch (fuzzy@athena.mit.edu) Dani Zweig (dani@netcom.COM) Col. Sicherman (gls@windmill.ATT.COM) Jim W Lai (jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu) Thomas White (twhite@mozart.amd.com) Dan Holzman (holzman@fnal.fnal.gov) Neil Gaiman, via Tanaqui C. Weaver (tweaver@isis.cs.du.edu) Andrew Sigel (sigel@vsscad.enet.dec.com)