The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1
Comic-book publishers have grown expert at collecting individual issues of a title as graphic novels and later rereleasing those collections with hitherto unpublished sequences, further artwork, and other "bonus" material to entice buffs to purchase the same book twice and thrice. DC Comics brings the game to a new level with the Absolute series of oversized, slipcased, hardcover volumes of landmark titles. Neil Gaiman revived the name of an early comic-book superhero only to give it to a protagonist whose utter difference, and that of the cohort of relatives who took the spotlight whenever he--the Sandman--absented it, refreshed mainstream comics even more than Frank Miller's overhauled Batman had a few years earlier. The Sandman and his siblings are embodiments of the dark forces of nature----death, destiny, and other dismaying elementals. They play out their adventures mostly in contemporary settings that have been completely recolored for the first of four Absolute volumes that will re-present them all.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved