The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives (2001)

Author: Ed Brubaker | Illustrator: Bryan Talbot | Page Count: 96

"At that moment, Edwin Paine remembered exactly why he used to be afraid of the dark."

The DBD miniseries features Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine, characters first introduced in The Sandman: Vol IV: Season of Mists (1992). Some other supporting characters from the Sandman universe pop up and will leave new readers confused because the book offers no explanation of who they are.

It's set in England. The dialogue is supposed to reflect that, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. It's more like an outsider's view of how English people sound. It's easy to overlook because the characters existed before author Ed Brubaker took the reins, so he was tied to them having a different geographical origin than himself.

What's more difficult to ignore is the lack of danger or urgency. The youthful Holmes and Watson-esque relationship on the verge of maturity yet still clinging to the ties of childhood was certainly a sensible approach, but deeper introspection, or perhaps more of a focus on the boys' unique position within the world they inhabit, could've improved the narrative.

Brubaker went on to pen some of the genre greats (including Batman, Daredevil, Captain America and the X-Men!) but Dead Boy Detectives isn't something I'd recommend to anyone who isn't a fanatic Sandman collector. It feels too much like an attempt to mimic Alan Moore's period pieces, without the gravitas. If the series had been continued it could've explored a small pocket of the Sandman universe from a murder mystery perspective; that would've been really interesting.

The book collects together The Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives Issues 1-4.

1 smile, because even dead people read Batman out of 5

The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (2009)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrator: P. Craig Russell | Page Count: 144

“In the flickering light ... the monk experienced a strange illusion – it occurred to him that a scrap of his shadow was missing, gone as if it had been torn away.”

For the 20th anniversary of Sandman, Gaiman permitted an adaptation of his 1999 novella of the same name into comic book form.  I didn't buy it at the time because it seemed unnecessary; the original was perfect so why bother making it into something it wasn't meant to be?  It smelt like an easy cash manoeuvre.  I relented (after 3 years!) and bought it recently because it was on sale.  It turns out it’s equally as good--and in places even better--than the novella and actually feels like it could be a part of the original comic book series.  It could easily be included in one of the stand-alone collections and it wouldn't feel out of place.

The obvious difference is the art.  Yoshitaka Amano, who illustrated the original novella, has a unique painting style.  Rather than try and compete with that, Russell presents his work in a palette of autumnal colours that he styled on ancient woodblock paintings.  His lines are perfect, and his colouring non-intrusive.  He restructured small parts of the dialogue to fit the serialised format, and imbued the remainder with something it didn’t have before; in short he successfully made it into a comic full of grace and passion.  His version of Morpheus is so damn good.  He’s a history of doing adaptations; this one is by far the most successful of the ones I’ve read.  Even if you own the novella, this is still a worthy purchase.

5 fox tails and fairy tales out of 5

VideoHound's Horror Show: 999 Hair Raising, Hellish, and Humorous Movies (1998)

Author: Mike Mayo | Page Count: 525

“We’ve gone from the darkened movie house to the darkened den … but our expectations of horror have not changed.”

Before the popularity of DVD, and the advent of the availability of any movie on the internet, came VideoHound, a series of tomes each dedicated to a specific film genre, in an effort to aid the collector of hard-to-find video titles.  VideoHound's Horror Show focuses on the frightening, the macabre and the weird, even including such fringe titles as The Wizard of Oz, Taxi Driver, Deliverance, and Apocalypse Now as they fit the criteria for being scary and traumatizing to many.

Now, a book published in 1998 which aids in tracking down obscure videos may not be as pertinent today, with such websites as IMDB and Wikipedia detailing all things movie and otherwise but it's still a replete reference, and a fine read for anyone interested in the origins and history of the horror film.  The movies are alphabetized, each including a small plot synopsis, review and rating from author Mike Mayo, and a small amount of credits including the release date, actors, director, writer, etc.  The opinions of Mayo will undoubtedly clash with yours as they did with mine but that doesn't defeat the fact that he has an intelligent grasp of how a film is made, and the story devices and underlying themes which pervade a script.

As you flip through the pages you will come upon stark B&W photos of horror icons as a blood-drenced prom queen, a Pazuzu-possessed little girl, a poised yet grotesque Erik and a furry-faced lycanthrope stare back at you.  Besides the reviews, another main attraction is the detailed history of horror films throughout the years.  Each era has an assigned essay describing the origins of trends and a list of standout features.  Other stops among the assemblage are 'Hound Salutes' which include directors, actors, and writers among other important roles that defined and refined genres and paved the way for future horror film-making.

I will say now that I have not read every word in this book. I've only read through the essays, Salutes, and select reviews, as I still hold it as a future reference and guide to more obscure titles I wish to unearth.  From reading what I have, I came to notice an appreciation the author had for certain ground breaking titles such as Fritz Lang's M, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Brian De Palma's Carrie, and John Carpenter's Halloween.  Now while these titles obviously have held a major influence on later films, Mayo holds them in too high a regard, labeling most other films that came after as derivations or even rip-offs of their general formulas and themes.  Though dated, there are many great titles within waiting to be discovered and a flood of information and knowledge that can still gorge the ravenous horror fan.

3 Woofs! out of 5

Nutted by Borderline

The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990)

Author: Douglas Adams & John Lloyd | Page Count: 146

A revised and expanded version of the previous edition, which was called simply The Meaning of Liff (1983). It’s a dictionary of things there aren't any words for yet. All those little hells that torment us each day and the simple pleasures that make life bearable are accounted for. It’s impossible to describe properly, so a few examples will have to suffice. (There should be a word to describe writing a review about a book that is impossible to describe properly.)

• Gulberwick (n.): The small particle that you always think you've got stuck at the back of your throat after you've been sick.
• Acklins (pl. n.): The odd twinges you get in parts of your body when you scratch other parts.

If you know Douglas Adams' work you'll know that he labours over every word, sometimes for days. If you're new to his brand of humour, this is a good place to start. If you happen to be Scottish (that's not an insult) you'll find even more to laugh about than the rest of us.

• Skibbereen (n.): The noise made by a sunburned thigh leaving a plastic chair.
• Keele (n.): The horrible smell caused by washing ashtrays.

You can read half a page with a minor titter or maybe a half-smile, and then without warning you'll piss yourself royally at a particularity poignant and wry observation. It’s perfect for leaving in the shitter for those times when you expect to be two minutes but end up twiddling your thumbs for twenty minutes with nary a toot from your anus. Curses!

5 doses of best medicine out of 5

The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrator: Yoshitaka Amano | Page Count: 128

"The fly crawled into the fox's eyeball.  She did not blink, although the tickling felt like madness in her mind."

Some stories have to be written; they make your brain itch until you relent and put them down on paper.  I can’t say if that was the case with The Dream Hunters but it certainly feels like it was from a reader’s point of view.  It’s a novella, not a comic, a fairytale for adults, but one that will stir your withered heart out of its apathetic and cynical safe haven.  It'll remind you why life and love deserve more attention than most of us are apt to give in these hurried and dark days.

Gaiman teamed with legendary Japanese illustrator Yoshitaka Amano to achieve the task.  Together they created magic.  If the book had a soundtrack it would be played on harp strings spun from silk, coupled with the sound forest winds make as they brush past golden leaves.  It’s a love story, of sorts, between a Monk and his admirer.  If the idea of a love story scares you, it also has a wicked, selfish onmyoji (magician) to keep the narrative from being too one-sided.  His story unfolds parallel to the Monk's, as almost a mirror image.  It makes sense when you consider the origin of the work and the setting, as you'll discover.

Being a stand-alone means no prior knowledge of the extended Sandman universe is necessary, so it'll make sense on its own.  It’s one of those tales where Morpheus makes a cameo, serves as a catalyst for something and then steps aside to allow the story to continue along its own organic path.

Amano compliments Gaiman’s prose with a number of full page paintings in his usual fluidic, sketchy style; the almost translucent watercolours are something you’ll either love or hate.  There are occasional cluttered perspectives that make you work hard to find the focal point but at other times the page is almost empty, with a serene, heavenly quality.

Characterisation is slight, forcing the reader to fill the recognisable shapes with their own ideals.  I don't believe it's an oversight or sloppy writing.  It's more likely a clever trick to make the story more personal than it otherwise could've been.

5 servings of Amano goodness out of 5

The Sandman: Vol X: The Wake (1996)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Michael Zulli / Charles Vess / Bryan Talbot / John Ridgway | Page Count: 185

"Even in this half-assed medieval Milton Keynes there's got to be somewhere a man can get a pint of beer."

Book 10 of 10 in the Sandman saga is a quiet, reflective piece wherein Gaiman says goodbye to the enduring characters he created and the stories that he felt he was fit to tell; it’s a bitter-sweet reading experience.  Like I’ve said before, Vol IX: The Kindly Ones (1996) is the true end, this is merely an epilogue.  However, it’s notable for giving us the second thing that a man in a tavern promised the Dream King twenty years previous; the first was in Vol III: Dream Country (1991).  Yes, that guy; and the gift given is perfect in every way.

The book is split into two distinct parts: a three issue farewell that wraps up the Endless story, and three stand-alone works that serve to tie up loose ends of some of the more long-lived secondary characters.  The sense of loss and of inevitable new beginnings permeates every aspect of the book.  It also manages to be a celebration of the long tradition of spoken word storytelling, and of the comic book format.  As such, it’s less immediate than what came before.

Reading it feels like wanting to stay home when you know you have someplace important to go; you go because you know you must but part of you remains in the safe home environment; a part of you that you can't define but can invariably feel.  That might sound like I’m talking out of my ass (you should hear me whistle) but if you’ve walked with Morpheus, and love the art of storytelling, you’ll understand what I mean.  If you didn't already love Matthew, you will.

I felt a little guilty consuming all 10 volumes in such a short space of time but that won’t stop me doing it again someday.  When something is this good, binging is a justifiable act.

The book collects together Sandman issues 70 – 75.

3½ cameos by some of DC's finest out of 5

A Brief History of Underpants (2008)

Author: Timothy James Brown | Page Count: 128

"Some extremists refused to let their patriarchal oppressors remove their trunks before stuffing them with fire-lighters."

The book takes the view that underpants are hilarious. It proposes that underpants played a key role in shaping great historic events. It tries to convince the reader that it's the most piss-inducing, rib-tickling piece of prose ever written. Farting in a lift is sometimes funny. Urinating in the frozen food aisle of Tesco may even raise a titter. But underpants don’t. It's 128 glossy pages that smelt funny, half of which contain, I quote, "…some spectacular pictures of pants," is the author’s idea of a quality read. Thank Christ I only paid 49p for it.

American readers should note that "pants" in Britain is short for "underpants." The phrase "ants in your pants" is much more terrifying to us than to you. And when you ask, "does my fanny look big in these pants?" we have been known to occasionally drop our chips.

0½ for Raquel Welsh in her furry bikini out of 5