How The Sandman shaped my life

I was going through my comic book collection the other day just to check if it was still intact. Most of the books were still in good condition, but a few of the older ones have started to turn yellow and had a sharp acidic smell about them. In mint condition or visibly ratty, it was good to see them again; it was like saying hello to my childhood friends. I used to spend so much time with them, just hours on end reading and admiring the artwork. No wonder I didn’t have money or a social life back in high school and college!

My all-time favorite title would have to be THE SANDMAN by Neil Gaiman. I was already happily collecting titles such as the X-MEN and the BATMAN when it came along. I must admit that during that time I fed on high-kicking action scenes and angst-filled dramatic battles, but I also enjoyed reading my sister’s "mature" titles (re no muscular/big-boobed heroes involved) by amazing Brit authors (THE SWAMP THING by Alan Moore and Jamie Delano’s HELLBLAZER). I had just gotten of high school and, being a teenager, I was still into kiddy and colorful stuff but was ready for something with a little more meat. I am just thankful I didn’t think too much about it and was smart enough to part with my 75 pesos (that’s around 350 pesos now) to buy "Sleep of the Just" (SANDMAN#1).

Thank God for that! I was hooked and couldn’t wait for the next issue to arrive. The first story line ended with "The Sound of Her Wings" and I knew there was no turning back, I was in love, and was in for a roller coaster ride. Then came other story arcs and halfway though the 4th or the 5th, I could sense that this book was taking me somewhere and that it will end when we get there. Panic struck. I never had to forcibly say goodbye to any of my favorite titles! Sure, some of them got cancelled and some I willingly dropped (I had stopped reading the mutant books by then), but none of them started with an ending in mind after so-and-so issues. I was devastated. The more I read the more I savored each panel thinking that it could be the last one. Of course that meant that the more I read the more I fell in LOVE with it. It was inevitable. I was setting myself up for a heartbreak.

And then it came. I had cried through most of THE KINDLY ONES so by the time "The Tempest" came I was exhausted. That was it. The End. No more Sandman to look forward to every month. And then it hit me—after mourning my loss with buckets and buckets of tears for days—I was okay. Fine, it was just a comic book and to most human beings it wasn’t real, but I realized that I was lucky to have had a companion, a surrogate father, a fairy godfather of sorts in Dream (or Neil) all those years. Flawed as he was (he was a bungling, pompous, insensitive prick at the beginning), he learned from his past, his relationships with his family, and his mistakes, and in the end took responsibility of his life. I saw him grow up, and in turn he helped me grow up too. I had fun, and it was time to go on my own. By being there with me in those seven years THE SANDMAN drummed monthly into my head several important lessons no comic book or song or movie or self-help book could ever give me—that I will always have the choice to start and end things, that everything has a beginning and an end, that I have to learn when to let go when the time comes, and that even when things end they will still remain with me.

Over and over again I learned about beginnings, endings, good-byes, and that one has to be responsible for his own life. At the end of the first arc Dream had to dust himself off and start his life anew after he found all of his missing possessions and was at a loss at what to do next. His brother Destruction left his domain after he realized what he was doing had no point or meaning. Dream killed his son when he finally realized and accepted that it was the right thing to do. And it all aptly ended with a reference to my favorite Shakespeare book—like Prospero, Dream knew when to step aside and let things run its course. We are in a way bound by the choices that we make and the consequences that come with making them, but we will always have a choice to change them.

It’s been almost 10 years since the last issue of THE SANDMAN came out. I realize that I’ve had to start and end story lines of my own since then (it’s curious to note that I stopped collecting comic books when THE SANDMAN ended and I moved to another country to start a new life. Coincidence?). Now as I am poised to open a new chapter in my own book, I re-read the whole series and it has helped me yet again put things into perspective. My sentiments are perfectly encapsulated in a line found in issue #74: one of the barbarian riders said to Dream as he starts to disappear, "Omnia mutanthur, nihil interit." How true, how true. "Everything changes but nothing is truly lost."