All publications by Vertigo come with a label reading, ‘suggested for mature readers’. An imprint of DC Comics, Vertigo originally provided a platform for comics that weren’t directly linked with DC universe superheroes, although more recently has given way to darker stories containing material better suited to older audiences. In the 1990’s, the time when Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman comics were being published, the majority of DC Comics’ readership consisted of boys aged 16 and younger (Craig, 1992). The occasional suggestive scene and the more frequent disturbing depictions of demons, dreams, and delusions warrant the attachment of the advisory label, although another consideration could have been the complex storytelling of Gaiman’s that may have been lost on many of the young readers.
Neil Gaiman has collected thoughts from famous literature to fill speech bubbles and plucked characters from multitudes of mythologies to people his story, so much so that …show more content…
During these seven years, The Absolute Sandman, a collection of The Sandman comics, started being published. In an introduction to the first volume, Levitz discussed the fine line between stories and mythologies. “When does the story begin? When does the myth begin?” he asks. He describes how “mythology exerts its power by making the universe’s impersonal forces more bearable, to us.” The Sandman holds this very same power due to the presence of the Endless, as well as of the many borrowed mythological characters, that represent such forces. Levitz concludes that the lack of explanation as to where the Endless came from while at the same time using them to try to explain these inexplicable forces makes The Sandman a mythology; “the storytelling did not end when the mythology began” (Gaiman et al. 2006). Though the comic has been recognized as a mythology, it strays off the path when it comes to incorporating stories from multiple mythologies into
Neil Gaiman has collected thoughts from famous literature to fill speech bubbles and plucked characters from multitudes of mythologies to people his story, so much so that …show more content…
During these seven years, The Absolute Sandman, a collection of The Sandman comics, started being published. In an introduction to the first volume, Levitz discussed the fine line between stories and mythologies. “When does the story begin? When does the myth begin?” he asks. He describes how “mythology exerts its power by making the universe’s impersonal forces more bearable, to us.” The Sandman holds this very same power due to the presence of the Endless, as well as of the many borrowed mythological characters, that represent such forces. Levitz concludes that the lack of explanation as to where the Endless came from while at the same time using them to try to explain these inexplicable forces makes The Sandman a mythology; “the storytelling did not end when the mythology began” (Gaiman et al. 2006). Though the comic has been recognized as a mythology, it strays off the path when it comes to incorporating stories from multiple mythologies into