The Annotated Sandman Edited and largely written by Greg Morrow Issue 7: "Sound and Fury" Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III Seventh part of first storyline, _More than Rubies_ Seventh 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. Title: "Sound and Fury" is probably a reference to a line from Macbeth. Since I have it online, here's a more complete excerpt: She should have died hereafter, there would have been time for such a word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays are lighted fools....the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow...a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.....signifying --- nothing. - Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5 Page 1: These people are walkons. Page 2 panel 3: First known appearance of Nan Fowler. She will make a one-panel appearance later in this issue. Page 3: The two people are Morpheus (standing) and John Dee. See previous annotations for what's going on. Page 4 panel 5: _Death Takes A Holiday_ was a play during the 1920s and a black-and-white movie from the 1930s with Fredric March in the title role. Death appears for one night, during which nothing dies, as the "Prince Sirki." Page 8 panel 5: The button "Norman Lives" is probably a reference to Norman Bates, a main character in the movie "Psycho" and its sequels. Page 9 panel 2-3: Dee enters the Dreamtime dressed as Julius Caesar; the three ladies are probably not the Hecateae, but are simply denizens of the dreamtime. Shakespeare's play _Julius Caesar_ does not include a dream such as Dee's. Page 10 panel 1: A larger bit of the title quote. Panel 2: There is a picture in the background, probably of Ethel Dee, John Dee's mother. The inscription reads "To Daddy, [illegible] in love, Ethel 1927". Panel 4: "Beware the Ides of March" is the admonition given to Caesar at the beginning of Shakespeare's play _Julius Caesar_. The Ides of March are the fifteenth day of that month, the day on which Caesar was killed by the conspirators. The women are now wearing Dream's helmet. Panel 4; page 11 panel 1: Dee is undergoing the free association often experienced in dreams as the phrase mutates from "Ides of March" to "March of Ideas" to "Brides of Frankenstein". The women now resemble the Bride from the movie "Bride of Frankenstein". Page 14 panel 1: "Stinkard lord of piss and mire" sounds like a quote. Page 15 panel 1: It would appear that Eve is in fact the Raven Woman of issue #2. Note the raven. Eve has previously appeared in the DC humor mag _Plop!_ in the 1970s, along with Cain and Abel. Panel 2: "Rag-shag Lord of Nowhere-at-all" sounds like a quote. Panel 3: These three characters are, left to right, Abel, Cain, and Gregory, for whose descriptions see the annotation to #2. Panel 4: "Spittle-arsed poxy-pale wanker" is a peculiarly British thing for Dee to be saying. An arse is an ass; poxy is probably related to the diseases of smallpox and chicken pox, or possibly to any of a variety of venereal diseases. A wanker is a self-important idiot; "wanking off" is masturbation, so a wanker is one who prefers masturbation to sex. A North American would probably use "asshole." Panel 5: Destiny was the host of one of DC's mystery titles in the late 70s or early 80s. He has also appeared in _Elvira's House of Mystery_. Marv Wolfman used him for appearances in _Superman_ and _The New Teen Titans_. In these, it was established that he was more powerful than Superman and not obligated to obey Zeus or Kronos. The character may have had his genesis in the 1960s edition of _The Spectre_. In issues #8-10, the Spectre made some grievous error and was chained by the mysterious voice that resurrected him to a "book of destiny". He was forced to follow mortals around and try to get them to change their destiny, which was written in the book. In effect, the Spectre was demoted to "pseudo-horror anthology host." It has been theorized that Destiny was created from inventory stories for this incarnation of the Spectre; all it would require was slight redrawing, some relettering, and a new color scheme. Destiny was mentioned in _Sandman_ #1 as one of the "Endless", of whom we will see more later. Page 16 panel 1: In the early part of this century, the sham magician Aleister Crowley revived the earlier alternate spelling "magick" to lend an air of mystery to his flummery. Crowley is roughly equivalent to Roderick Burgess, of issue #1. Page 22 panel 2: This is the Scarecrow, Jonathan Crane, who was explained in #5. They are in an asylum for the criminally insane, Arkham Asylum, which also was explained earlier in this series. Page 23 panel 3: "Mister Dent" is Harvey Dent, the Batman villain Two-Face, a long-term resident of Arkham. Dent is a sort of multiple personality, and might easily decide to try to kill himself. Page 24 panel 1: This is Nan Fowler again, whom we saw on page 2. Contributors: Jeremy Louis Billones , Viktor Haag , and Chris Jarocha-Ernst (cje@heart.rutgers.edu) identified _Death Takes a Holiday_. Viktor thinks that Dee's appearance as Caesar refers to Shakespeare's play. And he defined "wanker." David Henry (UD137927@VM1.NoDak.EDU) recalled the Bard's Caesar, and thinks that Dee's appearance has little to do with that play.. Abhijit Khale (akhale@cayuga.Stanford.EDU) and Chris delved into Destiny's background. Andrew David Weiland thinks "the pox" is VD. Ian Lance Taylor (ian@airs.com) clarified "magick" a bit.