Many stories and instances in The Sandman do contain violent or subversive scenes that might provide inspiration for crime. Indeed, his eventual portrayal of the killers as lost and confused and of their deeds as undesirable might even have done the opposite, and deterred some from crime. A good grasp of the language and a fairly high level of intelligence are required to fully understand and appreciate the comic. The innumerable references to literary, pop, musical and historic sources found abundantly in The Sandman are also an essential part of what makes reading it so fulfilling. Perhaps Wertham is right after all, and comics should not be sold to children, for they simply would not understand what The Sandman tries to say.
Comics are essentially a collaborative effort and are the creative outlet for many people.
Gaiman often speaks of the inspiration he gets from each of his artists and their style of work, as well as of the dynamics of working in such a group. He is often surprised by how they know how to express and tell his story in a suitable way, ways that he could not have imagined himself, although most of the time his scripts are so detailed as to dictate the composition and layout of each panel. When such a group works together, the results are vastly different from what each individual may come up with on his or her own. Indeed, the comic is the creation of a group, and it is to the credit of the comic industry that they acknowledge this by crediting the artists on book covers. The Sandman further encourages creativity on the part of the artists by opening the title character and his cohorts to personal interpretation and expression by the artists.