Jim Taylor

A ponderer with delusions of grandeur...

COMIC REVIEW: ‘Retrovirus’ by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti

Feb 272014
 

The cover of Retrovirus is great, I admit.  The promise of violence, a Strong Female Lead, an enigmatic plain white background – it’s full of promise.  Then you turn to the back cover, and are promised de-frosted neanderthals. You can’t lose, right?

Yes. Yes, you can.  This review is full of spoilers, because I read this and feel like sharing as much of the pain as I can.

I finished reading it, and had to turn back to the title page to confirm that this slab of tripe was published in 2012 and not 1962.  The Strong Female Character – who has no competition, being the only female character – is one of the worst pieces of wish-fulfilment I’ve seen in a comic.  This is a top scientist who, after one brief flash of realistic independent thought early on, swishes effortlessly from warrior to sex object to mother, doesn’t mind being filmed in the shower and seems to do all her science while nobody’s looking.  This incredible multi-tasker is hired by an Ominous Corporation, packs all her best underwear and, at a moment’s notice, takes a seaplane to the Evil Research Base in Antarctica.  What does she find there?  Frozen neanderthals, of course!  While researching them, she strikes up the world’s creepiest relationship with her jailer/CCTV operator, who seems to be moonlighting from his other job as a Big White Hunter.  This genius has installed audio and speakers in the scientist’s bedroom cameras, but not in the lab.  This leads to a key scene where the leading lady flashes the lab camera to get the Big White Hunter’s attention, which of course is how leading female scientists who are tired of casual workplace sexism always communicate in the wild.

Why were there neanderthals in Antarctica to start with?  Nobody’s telling.  The opening sequence has them running about in the snow in loincloths and bare feet, which is yet another detail in this book that raises far too many questions.  Jumping forward, these resuscitated cavemen have the power to destroy the world, but before the inevitable breakout they’re going to watch the Alien films and a big stack of ’50’s creature features for hints and tips.  Having done that, mass carnage ensues as they kill time before trying to Violate the White Woman. The Great White Hunter can’t be having that, so he saves the day and gets the girl, this seduction happening on the rescue plane – a private jet, as far as I can tell – with three panels of dialogue that might be less realistic than the entire rest of the book.

There is no foreshadowing of anything, anywhere.  Neither is there any self-aware aspect to the pulp clichés and b-movie logic, they just jump down your neck one after the other and stick in your throat in a big, jaggy, slapped-together mess.  This title is meant to feature drama, action, sci-fi and horror, but mangles every one of those definitions to breaking point.  The art is decent, admittedly, but it feels rushed.  It is also let down by the compositions, which are badly matched to the pace of the story – some potentially very impressive panels are left in miniature while the frame lingers on every last scrap of bare female flesh.  The over-arching impression this graphic novel left me with is that it was conceived, scripted, drawn and sent off to the printers in one heroically ambitious single draft, without a single piece of revision.  It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it gets one out of five, and that feels generous to me.

Ryan Thomason

Inventing to Remember, part 1: how science fiction can be all about the “real world”

Feb 232014
 

“We always write in order to remember the truth.  When we invent, it is only in order to remember the truth more exactly.” (Luis Fernando Verissimo)

I’ve often mistakenly attributed the above quote to Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, possibly because it’s written in a book (Borges and the Eternal Orangutans) which pays tribute to the master short story-writer.  But despite my foggy recollection of its origin, it’s become one of my favourite quotes, partly because it’s now my go-to riposte when arguing with people who say that science fiction (in particular) doesn’t have anything to say about the real world.

Poncey literary ruminations come easily to someone who works in a bookshop, which is where I was when I encountered the customer who unknowingly provided the inspiration for this article.  The gentleman in question was looking for a novel for his grandson, and specified that it had to be something different from the usual science fiction and fantasy which the boy preferred, because he wanted him to read something which was “about the real world for a change”.  I found myself uncomfortable with this idea, not only because a realistic setting does not necessarily a good book make (obviously), but also because my mind’s immediate (unspoken) response was: “of course science fiction can be about the real world!”

Snowpiercer

By definition, works of science fiction do not take the “real world” as their setting, but this doesn’t mean that the stories they tell don’t resonate with readers and viewers in the course of their day-to-day lives.  Having a futuristic or fantastical setting doesn’t preclude a book or film connecting with its audience emotionally, and such a connection often occurs precisely because the work tackles an idea or theme which stands out as being relevant in some way to the “real world” which that audience inhabits.  In particular, there’s a rich heritage of allegory in science fiction, and various books, films and TV shows in the genre have portrayed events and characters which echo situations and people in the real world.  The latest high profile addition to this list is director Bong Joon-ho’s dystopian thriller Snowpiercer (based on the french comic book of the same name), which portrays the last remnants of humanity living together on a monstrous train, with the rich living in luxury at the front and the poor in squalor at the back.  It’s an obvious metaphor for class hierarchy on a global scale, and the social unrest which such inequalities inevitably generate, and thus follows in the footsteps of many of its socially-aware SF forebears.

Superman the immigrant

Consider Paul Verhoven’s Robocop, and its satirising of ’80s corporate culture and free-market neo-liberalism; the long-running TV series Babylon 5 and its take on religious fundamentalism and 20th-century international relations; 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its commentary on McCarthyism; Romero’s Dawn of the Dead skewering mindless consumerism; the 21st century reboot of Battlestar Galactica tackling military occupation and insurgency only a few years into the Iraq war; and the abstract yet poignant ruminations of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker on humanity’s search for spiritual enlightenment and ultimate meaning.  In print, too, a tradition exists in SF of allegory, metaphor and commentary on goings-on in the real world.  The most famous examples are probably Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, both of which envision nightmarish dystopias as the inevitable consequence of real-world trends in the politics and society of their authors’ time, but there’s also Orson Scott Card’s modern classic Ender’s Game, which deals with child soldiers and the dangers of simulated warfare (decades before drone strikes became a regular component of modern army tactics), and more recently China Mieville’s Embassytown and its thinly-veiled critique of British colonialism, to name just a couple of many possible examples.  Marvel’s X-Men comics have consistently dealt with issues of intolerance and alienation since their inception, and the origin story of Superman, the most iconic superhero of all, has long been interpreted – at least in part – as a comment on immigration, an element made particularly explicit in Grant Morrison’s recent Action Comics run.  Even in gaming, we see science fiction making statements about the real world, not least with 2007’s Bioshock, which dealt with the moral philosophy of objectivism which still inspires political movements today, and its 2013 sequel Bioshock Infinite, which concerns (among myriad other themes) the legacy of America’s 19th-century wars and the insidious nature of historical revisionism.  These are just a few examples, across multiple media, of works of science fiction making comments on, or relating to, so-called “real world” issues.  The list could go on and on, such is the rich heritage of this theme within the genre.

Bioshock Infinite’s American dreamscape

Despite its unrealistic setting, then, science fiction can obviously be all about the “real world”, but why is this so frequently the case?  As the (by no means exhaustive) list above shows, SF authors, artists and film-makers regularly create stories which take inspiration from events in the non-fictional realm, and have been doing so for a very long time.  Is this simply due to a dearth of original ideas in the genre, or might there be another reason for it?  I suspect that the reason allegory and metaphor so regularly appear in SF works is that the genre as a whole is actually an incredibly effective context in which to discuss the “real world”.

Chronicling historical and contemporary world events as a matter of documentation is all well and good; a well-made documentary about the civil rights movement or a well-written book about the Iraq war will be informative, well-researched and (hopefully) relatively impartial, and will serve to educate people about important figures and events in world history.  But to provoke deeper thought about such issues on the part of an audience, it can in fact be more effective to approach the subject indirectly.  Being exposed to true stories of landmark events and figures via the medium of print or screen can in fact make these real-world occurrences seem slightly ‘unreal’ to the reader/viewer, because although the experience can enlighten and inform them, it can also have a distancing effect, as it tries to represent concrete reality through an inherently abstract medium.  Reading about the holocaust, for example, will make you informed about the historical facts of the matter, but attempting to then hold in one’s mind the idea that a horrific tragedy of such magnitude actually happened in our own recent history is another matter.  Embedding echoes of real-world events in an unrealistic setting (as SF allegories do) actually makes the elements inspired by our own history and experience stand out all the more.  A sort of resonance occurs which causes us to think more deeply about these figures and events from the “real world”, precisely because we have encountered them in an indirect fashion, devoid of the distancing effect of head-on documentation.  It is in this way that science fiction (and indeed fantasy and horror, too) can not only be all about the “real world”, but can in fact be a very effective way of talking about it.

To be continued in part two, which will look at surreality and weirdness as indirect paths to truth….

Devils and Demon Stars: looking back at Grant Morrison’s Batman saga

Feb 072014
 

Christopher Nolan wasn’t the only artist to successfully re-imagine Gotham’s Dark Knight over the course of the last decade….

The publication of the final issue of Batman Incorporated in July 2013 brought an end to Grant Morrison’s seven-year run on Batman, an epic and multifaceted arc during which the writer reinvigorated classic characters and made some bold and, at times, controversial storytelling decisions.  While some long-term fans still angrily insist that Morrison “ruined” Batman during his time on the title, it’s hard to think of any other run in mainstream superhero comics with such a consistently high level of quality throughout the whole of its long duration.  Morrison’s masterstroke was to simultaneously revere and pervert Batman’s long and illustrious history in comic books, making references to obscure stories from the Dark Knight’s entire back catalogue while at the same time drawing new, mind-bending meanings from them.  This approach allowed him to answer some very old questions from the character’s past in original and unexpected ways, all the while staying true to the essence of Batman and simply telling an utterly engrossing story about the character.  With the aid of talented artists like Andy Kubert, Tony Daniel, Frank Quitely and Frazer Irving, Morrison also brought his love of symbolism to the comic, reconfiguring the exploits of the Dark Knight as modern pop-culture myths sketched on a grand scale.  In short, Morrison created nothing less than a seven-year-long masterpiece.

Dr Simon Hurt

All throughout his run, Morrison clearly delighted in digging up pieces of Batman’s past which had failed to make the cut of recent established continuity.  No storyline from the character’s 67-year history was considered off-limits, meaning a wealth of wacky storytelling possibilities which at times sat uneasily next to the grim and grittily realistic portrayal of Batman which has come to dominate since the 1980s.  The Batman and Son arc which began Morrison’s run drew upon one such non-canonical story, 1987’s Son of the Demon, in bringing back the character of Damian, Bruce Wayne’s illegitimate son with Talia al Ghul.  Damian’s arrival in the Wayne household and the upheaval it causes form the point of departure for Morrison’s story, although from early on there’s also a sense of something darker lurking in the background, an ancient and sinister presence marshaling its forces against the Dark Knight and his closest allies.  In the Black Glove and Batman RIP story arcs this conspiracy reveals itself, and, led by the mysterious and demonic Dr Hurt, proceeds to wage all-out war against Batman.  Drawing upon the more fantastical side of Batman’s publication history, which has fallen out of favour with comics writers in recent years, Morrison uses Satanic symbolism and ominous fragments of dialogue to imply a supernatural dimension to Batman’s newest enemies, giving hints as to the terrible true identity of Hurt.  This melding of down-to-earth realism and dark fantasy continually keeps the reader guessing, and rather than being frustrating actually serves to create an effective atmosphere of mystery and suspense.  Running in parallel with the story of the Black Glove is Morrison’s thrilling reinvention of the Joker, a piece of character development which proves to be one of the highlights of the entire run.  After being shot in the head by a Batman impersonator at the very beginning of Batman and Son, Gotham’s most iconic villain undergoes one of his regular metamorphoses (a neat way of explaining the character’s changes in personality down the years), and emerges more dangerous and unpredictable than ever.  This new Joker proves to be a true wild card, and the fascinating direction in which Morrison takes him leads to some of the series’ most memorable moments.

Joker reborn

Given that one of the series’ collections is called The Return of Bruce Wayne, it hardly seems like a spoiler to note that, despite the ominously titled Batman RIP story arc, Bruce Wayne does not die during Morrison’s run.  Rather, it is Batman as a symbol which is in danger of being corrupted and wiped out, and this is indeed what Dr Hurt and his minions strive to achieve on their unholy crusade.  The symbolic power of Batman is one of the series’ main themes, and finds its fullest expression in the pages of Final Crisis, DC’s company-wide crossover which was scripted by Morrison and featured important story developments for his Batman series.  The confrontation between Batman and the alien god Darkseid elevates the character and his actions to the level of myth, and allows Morrison to cast Bruce Wayne as the thematic descendant of Greek demigods and Athurian knights as he embarks upon a fantastic voyage that will take him to the end of the universe and force him to confront dark secrets from his family’s past.  In his absence, Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne take over as the new dynamic duo in the Batman & Robin arc, which sees the introduction of horrifying new villain Professor Pyg as well as the return of the Joker and other, more mysterious enemies.  In Morrison’s hands, Grayson emerges as a worthy Batman who does justice to the cape and cowl without becoming a mere clone of his mentor, and it’s a shame that DC’s New 52 reboot has ensured there won’t be any more stories featuring his Batman (although Scott Snyder and Jock’s fantastic Black Mirror is highly recommended).  The explosive conclusion of Batman & Robin leads directly into the saga’s swansong, Batman Incorporated, a globetrotting adventure story in which Batman and his titular network of allies come up against an international crime syndicate called Leviathan.  Despite its epic scope, this final arc in many ways brings the whole of Morrison’s Batman story full circle, descending from the mythic heights of earlier volumes to tell a grittier tale of flawed parents and angry children, laced with a sense of tragedy that resonates with the very origins of the character.

Batman returns

What makes the entire saga such a rewarding read is that it can be enjoyed on more than one level; while a compelling story of dysfunctional families, dark conspiracies and the battle between good and evil unfolds, Morrison packs almost every panel with symbols and deeper meaning.  Several motifs crop up repeatedly, including the red and black colour scheme which takes on numerous meanings throughout the story; ominous references to “the hole in things”, hinting at a hidden, malign influence which manifests itself in various horrifying forms; and the character of Ellie, who, saved by Batman from a life on the streets, ultimately manages to return the favour more than once.  These myriad threads running just beneath the surface of the main narrative, along with Morrison’s penchant for distorting characters’ perceptions and playing around with the depiction of time (several characters and events are referenced dozens of issues before they become significant) make his Batman saga a rich mosaic of twisted storylines and striking, hallucinatory imagery which rewards multiple readings.

Professor Pyg

But the comic isn’t just a parade of big ideas and psychedelic visions, because characters are always at the heart of the story.  Morrison’s fresh take on familiar faces, and his introduction of some memorable new ones, works well, building on decades of character continuity to find new directions for a well-worn gallery of heroes and villains.  At the centre of the narrative, of course, is Bruce Wayne, the character whose personal journey drives the entire story.  Morrison riffs on almost every depiction of Batman from the last 70 years during his run, including Christopher Nolan’s recent film series.  Like those films, Morrison initially shows Bruce becoming lost in his Batman persona, before letting the character unfold and develop in ways rarely seen on either the page or the screen.  From Batman and Son to Batman Incorporated, Bruce goes from methodical crime-fighter to raving madman to Machiavellian tactician, his actions accompanied at all times by rather sinister undertones.  His eventual realisation that Batman’s greatest strength has always been his friends and allies leads him to create Batman Incorporated, but this bizarre surrogate family cannot replace the genuine emotional bonds which he seems unable or unwilling to form.  Although Bruce’s awkward relationship with Damian takes something of a back seat in the middle of the story, it holds centre stage at the beginning and end, giving Morrison another way to explore the deep and abiding emotional impact of Batman’s traumatic origin.

Batman and son

Morrison’s run on Batman was ultimately about reinventing the Dark Knight while still capturing the essence of the character, and in this he succeeded magnificently.  While the comic does stray a little too far into smug self-awareness at times (one battle, for example, takes place in a pop-art gallery with sound effects provided by the paintings), it remains an unashamed celebration of superhero comics rather than an attempt to alter them beyond recognition.  By stretching, but not breaking, the boundaries of what makes a Batman comic, Morrison proved once again that you can tell complex, profound and thought-provoking stories through the near-mythic exploits of superheroes.  In the process, he also managed to create one of the greatest Batman stories ever written.

Grant Morrison’s entire Batman saga is collected in the following trades (listed in reading order):

Batman and Son
The Black Glove
Batman RIP
Final Crisis*
Time and the Batman
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman & Robin: Batman Must Die
Batman Incorporated vol 1
Batman Incorporated: Demon Star
Batman Incorporated: Gotham’s Most Wanted

*Final Crisis is not technically part of the series, but features important plot developments.

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Neptune’s Brood’ by Charles Stross

Oct 272013
 

Neptune’s Brood is the latest space opera from Charles Stross, but as Stross’s work to date includes Lovecraftian spy thrillers, scheming corporate time-travel and internet-based detective fiction it’s safe to assume there’s a crossover at work here, too.  This time the competing strand is… banking and fraud.  I know, I know, you’re filling up with a sudden urge to run away and never look back, but Stross is a past master at incorporating unconventional subject matter, and – just like today – the lengths to which people or human-equivalent mechanoids will go are severe.

Neptune’s Brood is an intrigue that has satire and wit running deep in its veins, with a highly satisfying, bitingly sharp plot and some inventive hard SF universe-building.  The communist squid are the icing on that particular cake.  I’m afraid I can’t really say any more about them without giving too much away, but they’ve already taken a spot as one of my favourite SF concepts.  Characterisation is strong throughout, with each of the main characters well-written and fleshed out.  The lead, Krina, is a fairly sheltered academic who suddenly finds events racing ahead of her while on an academic pilgrimage gone wrong, but catches up admirably with the help of the nearest the plot has to a single honest main character – a pirate insurance investigator.  He provides the muscle, she the brains, as befits any character who directly channels Jane Austen when writing diary entries.

The only real flaw here is that Stross is currently putting out books at an awe-inspiring rate, which seems to have robbed him of the chance to properly finish this – the plot wraps up in less than three pages, with no denouement at all.  Ten or twenty more pages and this would have a place of high honour on my bookshelf, but it’s going to have to settle for four stars.  Life’s hard, eh?

Ryan S. Thomason

Tainted Pages: Should ‘Ender’s Game’ be boycotted because of the controversial views of its author?

Oct 142013
 

Published in 1985, Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game has been hailed as a modern classic of science-fiction writing, a reputation originally cemented by its winning both the Nebula and Hugo awards in 1985 and 1986 respectively.  The book has never been out of print, and such is its reputation even beyond genre circles that this year’s film adaptation seems a long time coming, although Card himself once dubbed the novel “unfilmable“.  A story of child soldiers, alien invasions and the moral ambiguity of warfare, Ender’s Game is a thrilling, if occasionally gruelling read, and the film, starring Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley and due to be released at the end of this month, is sure to be quite a spectacle.  But distributor Lionsgate’s pre-release promotional blitz for the film has been marred by calls for a boycott from activist group Geeks Out, who want movie-goers to, in their words, “Skip Ender’s Game“.  Their reason for advocating this drastic course of action is Orson Scott Card’s well-publicised opposition to gay marriage, a position which has been gaining him notoriety in geek circles for several decades.  Far from being just a minor inconvenience to the studio, Geeks Out’s campaign appears to have enough potential to affect the film’s box office for Lionsgate to start actively distancing the production from Card himself.  They’ve even gone so far as to get Harrison Ford to explicitly emphasise this distance at promotional events.

So what’s the rationale behind Geeks Out’s call for a boycott of Ender’s Game and its associated merchandise?  Boycotting a person, corporation or industry whose views or actions we find morally reprehensible is a time-honoured form of protest, one that aims to either force a change in policy or behaviour, or draw attention to the inherent ‘moral taint’ of anything produced by that person, corporation or industry.  It’s unrealistic to think that a boycott of Ender’s Game – however widespread – would result in the film being pulled from cinemas, so we must consider the moral perspective of such an action.  The book (and thus the film) could be said to carry a ‘moral taint’ of sorts because of the views of its author, even though the story itself features no homophobic material whatsoever*, and this perceived taint, rather than simply being a fanciful abstraction, has been real enough to inspire Lionsgate’s slightly panicked response to the attempted boycott.  But the situation is more complicated than if the book (or film) were mere produce, because it is a work of art, and thus a carrier of meaning.

In his landmark 1967 essay The Death of the Author, literary theorist Roland Barthes argued that authors do not have a monopoly over the meaning of any work of art they have created.  Once that work is out in the public sphere, people will begin experiencing it and forming their own myriad interpretations of it, none of which, according to Barthes, is any less legitimate than the author’s intended interpretation.  Another way of articulating this idea is to say that, once it is completed, a work of art exists independently from its creator.  It is for this reason that music fans can enjoy the work of Richard Wagner without sympathising with his noted antisemitic tendencies, and movie-goers can appreciate the latest Roman Polanski film without condoning his sexual assault of a 13 year-old girl.  Therefore, if one finds Orson Scott Card’s views on gay marriage reprehensible, one can still go to see a film adaptation of his work without feeling that they have somehow tacitly supported those views.  We find our own meanings in films, books, music and other forms of art, and unless unambiguously stated as part of a piece, any controversial opinions their creators might hold are – for the purposes of appreciating the work itself – utterly irrelevant.

There remains, however, one important way in which works of art can stay tied to their creators, underpinned by the institution of copyright.  Provided that the author is still alive, and still owns their copyright, they will receive financial remuneration for any public exhibitions and sales of the work in question.  What this means is that, as author of the film’s source material, Orson Scott Card will receive royalties from the box office takings and home video sales of Ender’s Game.  This is in fact one of Geeks Out’s key arguments, as demonstrated by their “Don’t Give the Bigot a Buck” petition; they do not want to, in effect, give money to someone whose political and moral opinions they find offensive.  This is a different argument from the concern about ‘moral taint’, because it is about the direct financial benefit of the work’s creator.  Likewise, it is distinct from the argument about meaning; although a work of art exists independently of its author in an artistic sense, it remains tied to them by the flow of money represented by royalties.  Those who find Card’s views repugnant but still want to see Ender’s Game will have to reconcile themselves to the fact that they will effectively be giving him their money.  This is literally the price one has to pay if one wishes to (legally) experience a piece of art which is still under copyright.        

While Ender’s Game (both book and film)as a work of art exists independently of Orson Scott Card, a man whose views many find unpleasant, he will nonetheless earn money from cinema screenings and DVD/Blu-ray sales of the adaptation of his work.  It would be a shame to miss out on seeing a movie because you don’t want to give money to one of its creators, but what can the morally conscious movie-goer do?  Either we deem it not too great a crime to give money to a man whose views are anathema to our own sensibilities, or we find a way to see the movie without buying a ticket or paying for a DVD, a choice which will punish others involved in the making of the film beyond just Card himself.  Ender’s Game, it seems, is free of ‘moral taint’, but a boycott of the film could still be justified.

*It could be argued that Card’s use of the term “buggers” to describe Ender’s alien adversaries is homophobic, but since the aliens in question are actually insectoid in appearance (and the word is in fact British slang, rather than American), I’m going to let this one slide.

Ender’s Game will be released in the UK on 25th October.

Neil Gaiman: “Sandman was impossible….but none of us knew it!” (EIBF 2013)

Sep 062013
 

As guest selector at the 2013 Edinburgh International Book Festival, celebrated fantasy author Neil Gaiman was the subject of no less than four events, each celebrating a different aspect of his literary work.  Geekzine’s final event of this venerable festival was the one at which he discussed his comic book masterpiece The Sandman, which originally ran from 1989 to 1996, and an elegantly crumpled-looking Gaiman gave a typically engaging and charming performance.

Gaiman made a perfect figurehead for the festival’s ‘Stripped’ theme this year, celebrating as it did comic books as a valid and distinct art-form.  Despite the disdain of his school teachers, Gaiman said that he grew up always considering comics to be as valid and legitimate a medium as prose fiction.  After being an avid reader of comics as a child, he moved away from them in his teens before being sucked back in, he said, by Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing in the mid-1980s.  It was Moore, in fact, who first explained the workings of comic scripts to a flummoxed Gaiman at a convention several years later!

Sandman, Gaiman explained, was a comic book that lived in constant fear of cancellation, at least to begin with.  Launched in 1989, this dark and ethereal odyssey chronicling the adventures of the anthropomorphic personification of dreaming must have seemed a strange proposition in a world of technicolor superheroes, gritty as many of them could be in a post-Watchmen world.  Slowly, and against everyone’s expectations, sales of the comic began to creep upwards, a trend that continued for years until the series ended in 1996.  It has since come to be regarded as one of the greatest comic books ever written, and has drawn praise even from literary icons such as Norman Mailer.  What’s more, it also revolutionised the way in which comic books are published.  When Sandman was named as Rolling Stone’s “hot” comic of 1989, DC (the title’s publishers) were offered premium advertising space at a knock-down price.  With nothing to sell but a prestigious marketing opportunity to take advantage of, the company decided to collect several issues of Sandman into a large-format paperback; it was the first ever collected edition.  The collection ended up selling incredibly well, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since Sandman was one of those rare comic books with a definite ending, were there any ideas left over that Gaiman always wished he’d gotten a chance to use?  Yes, he said, a few.  Chief among them was the story of what happened to Morpheus (the king of dreams) before the events of the series’ first issue, but this is a story that Gaiman will at last get to tell later this year when the first issue of Sandman: Overture will be published.  This new collaboration between Gaiman and artist J.H.Williams III will serve as a prequel to the series’ original run, and also celebrates Sandman‘s 25th anniversary.  How does he feel about returning to the world of the dreaming?  Nervous, says Gaiman!  When he first began the series 25 years ago the readership was tiny, but now he’s acutely aware of millions of people peering over his shoulder as he writes.  It will, he says, force him to do a good job.

A few days earlier at the festival, Gaiman was in conversation with fellow author Charles Fernyhough about his new fantasy novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  Their discussion focused mainly on the importance (and unreliability) of memory, the novel being based in part on Gaiman’s memories of his childhood in rural Sussex.  Even your horrible memories, said Gaiman, are an important part of who you are at a fundamental level.  Ocean also owes a debt, as does all Gaiman’s fiction, to the realms of myth and fairy tale, but the influence of these seemingly archaic institutions is, he argues, as strong as ever.  There will always be a yearning, even in adult fiction for the “shapes of myth” as he called them, even if they’re interspersed with “boring bits”.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is available now in hardback.  The first issue ofSandman: Overture will be published at the end of October.

Jim would like to thank Charlotte and the team at the Edinburgh International Book Festival press tent for their friendliness, their professionalism and – of course – their endless supply of free coffee over the last month.  See you next year!

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