Re: so - conversation - what's everyone watching these days?

Mordechai T. Abzug wrote:
> Have you tried Gaiman's Sandman?  If you can get past the comic book
> (AKA "graphic novel") form factor, it's some of the best fantasy ever
> written, IMHO.  It's been reduced into a 10-volume series.  I think a
> more recent collection has collapsed it into a smaller number of
> larger volumes, but I don't have the more recent one.

The "Absolute Sandman" volumes will collect the whole story plus
many new extras and rarities into four very large volumes.  I mean
LARGE volumes.  The kind of thing that if you were to drop it on
your foot you would be wearing a cast soon thereafter.  So heavy
and unwieldy that they aren't particularly good bathroom reading.
Not to mention expensive as they are slipcased hard cover volumes
that retail at $99 a book, $69 on sale via Amazon.  Only the first
two volumes are currently available and I've often been witnessed
cursing the person who proposed this series because hauling around
these behemoths all day long on comic book convention floor to
get them autographed and sketched in has literally nearly broken
my back and ruined my poor feet.  And I've only started on the
first volume!  Of course this would be my own fault seeing as I've
got a first print run collection of the original hard covers with
autographs already. But Sandman is my true collecting passion and
at one time I had one of the best Sandman collections in the world
until it got to be too expensive a hobby due to oversaturation of
expensive items.  I do own two of the most significant and key
pages of original art from the series though.  It would take alot
to get those outta my possession.  Sorry, not very many op****tunities
come up for me to brag on my collection anymore ;)

> 
> Unfortunately, the first book in the 10-volume anthology ("Preludes
> and Nocturnes") is relatively weak, up to a certain point.  So you
> kinda have to slog through most of the first book before it really
> becomes special.  Sorry.  The second book is consistently good, and
> the third book is amazing.

I disagree.  The first volume accomplished what it set out to do.
It was a quest of sorts and the various issues/stories were meant to
mimic different schools of horror/fantasy writing.  It's got many
excellent stories in it even before "The Sound Of Her Wings"
(which incidentally is where the text from my Tattoo is quoted from).
My faves have always been the single issue short stories though.
Such as "Calliope", "Dream of a Thousand Cats", "Facade", Etc.
I just reread the "Season of Mists" storyline and while it is
often pointed to as the best of the series I think it is quite
overrated. But to each their own.

> This is one of two series where, after I've lent some of the volumes
> to a friend, I've gotten an urgent call in the wee hours of a work
> night, asking if said friend could drive over to get the next one.
> 
> - Morty

That's why I don't have any friends.  I won't lend my precious books
out ;)

Ivory