The Annotated Sandman Edited and largely written by David Goldfarb Issue 66: "The Kindly Ones: 10" Neil Gaiman, Marc Hempel, Richard Case 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 goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (Internet) or goldfarb@UCBOCF.BITNET. This material is posted by the editor directly to rec.arts.comics, 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 1: Snap! panel 7: Puck is quoting Yeats' "The Second Coming". Strictly speaking, that should be "loosed", not "loose". Here and on the next few pages his speech seems to waver between prose and blank verse. Page 2 panel 1: Note how Daniel's eyes appear to glow. This is perhaps a symptom of his part-immortal nature; they did not when we saw him back in issue #59. panel 4: "So the wolf...": a quote from "The White Devil", act V scene 4. Daniel's eyes here especially resemble Dream's. Page 3 panel 1:"The letters" are probably the two that the apostle Paul wrote, found in the New Testament of the Bible. "The pillars" are the most ornate of the various orders of Greek architecture; they are fluted, and decorated at the capital with carvings of acanthus leaves. "The leather" refers to car advertisements; in the late 1970s the ads for the Chrysler Cordoba featured the phrase "fine Corinthian leather". (I have heard that Corinth is not in fact known for leather, that the phrase was merely the brainchild of some advertising executive.) "The place" is the Greek city of Corinth, and also the isthmus upon which it is located, which connects the Greek mainland with the Peloponnesian peninsula. In ancient times the city was known as a place of immorality and luxury -- a Greek Las Vegas, if you like. "The mode of behavior" is thus (in the words of one dictionary) "that of a licentious libertine". panel 4: Notice that mouse that Puck was playing with; it is one-eyed. Page 4 panel 1: ...And here is suddenly introduced one-eyed Odin, who was capable of shifting shape. Among the wisdom that he received for his eye was the knowledge of runic writing; and in some versions, foreknowledge of Ragnarok. Page 9 panel 1: Each title page shows a dwelling-place. Here, Titania's castle. panel 2: "One must not offend against the notions of one's neighbors." This is a reference to James Branch Cabell's novel _The High Place_, where that very phrase was used many times. Page 10 panel 1: The name "Menton" showed up in the background chatter when we first saw the Inn of Worlds' End (51:6:6). There is no evidence connecting that Menton with this one, but then there is no evidence to the contrary. panel 6: "Silver apples of the moon": a reference to "The Golden Apples of the Sun, the Silver Apples of the Moon", a poem by William Butler Yeats. Page 12 panel 5: "Wonderer"? The word used by Shakespeare (in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_) is "wanderer"... Page 14 panel 1: The usual collective noun for ravens is not "murder" but "unkindness". Perhaps a "murder" is a very great "unkindness". panel 2: These two have appeared twice before: once in the last part of "Brief Lives" (49:14:1) and once in 58:18:3-5. The rabbit was named Ruthven; we know nothing else about them. panel 4: Mervyn, as shown more clearly a few panels later, is wearing the uniform of a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps -- although the bow tie is likely non-regulation. The dialogue and action of the next few pages parodies the conventions of war movies. Page 15 panel 3: As a rule, the military units in war movies are relentlessly ethnically diverse. Mervyn's seems to have a Pole, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Jew, an Italian, and "the little Norwegian". Page 18 panel 1: "The Wood Between the Worlds" was the name given to a realm connecting one world to another in _The Magician's Nephew_, by C.S. Lewis. There is also the early fantasy novel, _The Wood Beyond the World_, by William Morris. panel 7: "Pigsney" is a variety of flower, I believe. Page 19 panel 4: The word is "sinople". Page 21 panel 2: This woman's name, as we will find out shortly, is Celia Cripps; the aunt to whom she refers is very likely Ethel Cripps, former mistress of Roderick Burgess. panel 3: _Princess Daisy_ is a real novel, a best-seller in 1980. Rose's novel was written by Erasmus Fry. We first heard of him in issue #17, "Calliope" -- it was he who captured the muse of that name and held her prisoner. The plot of the book as Rose describes it has obvious parallels to her situation. panel 7: Robert Aickman (1914-1981): author of, among others, _Painted Devils_, _Cold Hand in Mine_, and _The Story of our Inland Waterways_. His "strange stories" could be described as horror or dark fantasy. They didn't use shock or gore, though, but rather created a mood of the unusual and eerie. Shirley Jackson (1919-1965): best known for the novel _The Haunting of Hill House_ and the short story "The Lottery". _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ concerns two girls who live alone and outcast after the death by poison of their parents; it has a similar concern for mood over thrill to Aickman's stories. Page 22 panel 1: Someone very kindly sent me definitions for these from the OED, and with my usual deftness I have lost them. Anyone out there with an online OED care to send them again? panel 2: Tori Amos, whose mutual admiration with Neil Gaiman is well-known, has a song called "Cornflakes Girl" on her album "Under the Pink". panel 4: Note the handwriting on the list of words: the word "sinople" is identical to that on Delirium's slip of paper. panel 5: Is "Marks and Sparks" a real store or a variation on "Marks and Spencer"? Page 24 panel 5: "Dirae": a Latin name for the Furies. Release History: Version 1.0 released 17 May 95. Credits: Greg "elmo" Morrow (morrow@physics.rice.edu) created the Sandman Annotations. Numerous people identified the song "Cornflakes Girl": Joe Brenner (doom@kzsu.Stanford.EDU), Glenn Carnagey (lf7z@midway.uchicago.edu), David W. James (vnend@princeton.edu), Bill Jennings (zenok13@uclink2. berkeley.edu), Greg Primm (primm@ibm.net), Christina Schulman (schulman+@pitt.edu), and Eric Tsai (juvenile@leland.Stanford.EDU). Katie Schwarz (katie@physics.berkeley.edu) gave the precise reference on the "White Devil" quote.