All The Ways Are His

This in reply to a young monk asking, "I seek the King of Dreams. Am I going the right way?" The exchange comes in the middle of an astounding dream sequence, across pages of silent, exquisite narrative. We witness the monk traverse a midnight void on a sparkling bridge. Or is it a river, for he soon must leap from a yawning golden cataract. When he drifts to a halt, his wood-block sandals meet a jagged jade landscape, where they soon disintegrate. From there, a bleached bone-yard of fantastic remains, and a garden of whispered contradictions.

Even if the names Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russel mean nothing to you, opening The Sandman: The Dream Hunters graphic novel makes you one lucky lemur. As I said, the scene above is a fantasy within the fantasy. I belabor this because both artist and writer have been floating gargantuan ideas for decades. It's probably more challenging for them to craft the mundane.

Novelist and comic-scribe Gaiman reinvented DC's Sandman for mature audiences in 1988. The character went from being a Depression-era vigilante to a deity whose "adventures" spanned time, space and literature. Ending in 1996, when Gaiman left, The Sandman might be the most widely-acclaimed ongoing comic ever; it ranks high among readers who like The Watchmen, high-flown indie fluff, and little else.

I can take or leave Gaiman's novels, dripping with >kewt< as they are. The voice of his comics, however, when paired with the perfect artist, is irresistible. For The Dream Hunters, he crafts a faux Japanese legend about a monk who falls in love with a fox. Originally this tale had been published as prose, with illustrations by the inimitable Yoshitako Amano (Final Fantasy). But thankfully Russel couldn't get the imagery out of his head, so here we are.

In the 1970s and 80s, adapting the work of Rudyard Kipling and Michael Moorcock, Russel wielded an intimidating baroque style. He's since become a storyteller of startling balance; his panels no longer paralyze the eyes with detail, but draw them further in. Forest landscapes offer lushly-lined foregrounds that give way to mountains and clouds of hypnotic simplicity. All of these, including water courses, crisp and curl like Japanese block-prints of old. The coloring by Lovern Kindzierski, too, is in homage to this bygone era, as is the texture of watercolor paper, added digitally.

While it would be easy to gush over the storybook elegance of every panel (and their marvelous interaction on every page), there are highlights. One is the scene in which a demon tears free a piece of the monk's shadow. The piece is then ground up and used in an incantation by the small and jealous onmyoji, whose material wealth has failed to settle his soul.

Another great scene has the fox, who can craft elaborate illusions, dangle herself before the onmyoji as a beautiful young woman. She lures him from his wife, concubine, home and possessions on the promise of filling his existential chasm. During the meal they share, he experiences a lavish home and delicious food. The reality the fox hides, of a derelict shack and bowls of mice, unfolds chillingly. As usual, the Sandman appears late in the tale, as Gaiman's characters reach never-forced, poetic crossroads.

As a cape-chaser, an action junkie, I found The Sandman late in my reading life. I decided to finally read him not because someone forced me to, or spoke so eloquently about his travels that I couldn't resist. No. I entered his world simply because nobody could describe it. Here, I've done The Dream Hunters hardly any justice. But sometimes you just want to say, "Thank you."

The World is a Vampire

And Elric, albino emperor of the kingdom of Melnibone, feels every bite. He sits atop the Ruby Throne, gaunt but striking, suffering the mediocre entertainments of his court. The ravishing Cymoril, his lover and cousin, is never far from his side. They rule from a palace in Imrryr, the Deaming City, capital of the Dragon Isle. A few hundred years ago, the Melniboneans owned the world. Now, an upstart race called humanity (broken itself into squabbling kingdoms) threatens to overtake all like a piratical fungus.

Legendary fantasy writer Michael Moorcock gave us this formidable premise in the 1960s and 70s. Elric, around whom the series of novels and short stories revolve, is so sickly that he lives, "Thanks to sorcery alone, his strength sustained by every art known to the sorcerer kings [who preceded him]." He also lives thanks to some wonderful comics produced in the early 80s by Roy Thomas (The Avengers), P. Craig Russell (Sandman) and Michael T. Gilbert.

Short-lived independent publisher Pacific Comics released their adaptation of Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone between 1983-84. I'd had the first of six issues for years, never bothering to track down the rest. Finally doing so put me in touch with a comic just as tortured as its sword-and-sorcery antihero.

Richly colored, ecstatically composed, the first issue is a treasure. Scripter Thomas (who's adaptations, from Conan to Dracula, are always great) fluffs and folds Moorcock's writing impressively: "Without both magic and his daily intake of drugs, this albino whose skin is the color of a bleached skull would barely be able to raise his arms from his side. His is a grim but natural lassitude-"

Cymoril's conniving brother Yyrkoon knows this too well. He wants to wrest from Elric both the Ruby Throne and his sister's physical affection (shudder). The opening scene establishing this dynamic among the characters is a tightly paneled marvel. Later, when the lovers journey through the countryside toward the ocean, the layout blooms to comprise ever wider panels, allowing us to thrill at Russell and Gilbert's elegant art.

Elegant, yet weirdly symbiotic. Initially, Russell (the more gifted of the pair) sketched out the panels. Then Gilbert did the actual drawing of figures and landscapes. Afterward, Russell inked the work, giving it his rococo sharpness. The result is a strange compression of Russell's artistic delivery (extravagantly present in his Jungle Book adaptations of this era).

The second issue, featuring a sea battle (and Elric in his signature bat-winged helm), is on better paper. But the colors aren't as rosily warm this time. Seemingly a mix of marker and watercolor paint, they struggle against too white pages. The overall work is still exceedingly beautiful, which can't be said of the third and fourth issues. They've got, quite possibly, the most hideously intrusive colors I've ever seen in a comic. Pale pink skies and orange flesh exist alongside muddy green word balloons. Entire panels vanish beneath flat blocks of blue.

The saving grace is that Russel and Gilbert hit their stride envisioning Moorcock's landmark realm of sorcery. Elric is aided by wood and water elementals, and the Chaos Lord Arioch, in his quest to confront Yyrkoon, who's taken Cymoril (and cities of Oin and Yu) captive. Thomas' absorbing abridgement of the tale is just as entrancing as the original: "For a goodly space of time the rune-chanting goes on, the Melnibonean high speech mingling with the sound of the fiercely beating rain."

Issues five and six see Elric enter the Shade Gate in search of two mystical swords- Stormbringer and Mournblade. Otherworldly purples and grays service this shadowy dimension well, and no longer imply an epic tussle between creators and printing technology. Thank heavens, because the showdown between Elric (like a giant insect in his black armor) and Yyrkoon (like a raving derelict in his checkered robe) is orchestrated masterfully. Russel and Gilbert's lithe figures, each brandishing one of the swords, clash with vibrant force. Color-wise, the solids, washes and gradations are finally perfect; like characters unto themselves, they tell a share of the story important as any other.

And, I may be a biased child of the 90s, but I detect a strong line of descent racing from Russell to Yoshitako Amano and his work on the Final Fantasy video games. Both are capable of startling delicacy in their designs, whether it's clothing or architecture. Both have worked on Sandman with Neil Gaiman. Both melt reality, painting miraculous alternatives with the runoff.