The Vertigo line of DC Comics that produced Transmetropolitan is a serial offender, its "Mature Readers" stamp being the hallmark for comic books that suggest a sort of literary quality that many of them cannot hope to live up to. That's not for want of trying in many of their cases, and especially not in the case of Neil Gaiman's magnum opus Sandman. Perhaps even more than Warren Ellis and Transmetropolitan, Gaiman and this series inspire a fanatical devotion which will see great vengeance and furious anger rained down upon any heretic who suggests they aren't perfect. Which they're not, obviously. Nobody's perfect, least of all Gaiman, who very much suffers from the same affliction of his main comics writing influence. Alan Moore's penchant for florid prose - by which we mean, loving the sound of his own voice - has been kept alive by writers like Gaiman, and nowhere is that more clear than in the 70-issue run of Sandman. The series has its many accolades, and many of them well deserved: it does well to weave a hitherto-unseen mystical element throughout mainstream DC history, ably juggled a rotating series of artists according to storylines that played to their strengths, and is one of the best examples of a single, complete story told through long form comics. Still, 70 issues is a long time to tell any story, and Gaiman frequently ducked into narrative side streets and dead ends that were fun to explore, but a little inconsequential. His writings on the fantastical and the strange are still difficult to process at times, if you've not an intimate knowledge of folklore from around the world, or ever seen a James George Frazer book. The Sandman is hamstrung too by the era in which it was produced, the primitive printing and artwork of the eighties and nineties making what's supposed to be a timeless tale hopelessly dated. In comparison to what came after it, Sandman also pales in comparison. Not only the Vertigo series (and otherwise) which have been inspired by it - Fables, The Unwritten et al - but also the spin-offs from Sandman itself, like Lucifer, which have all taken the groundwork Gaiman and his artists laid and vastly improved upon it. The series was influential, and another which was read widely by people who otherwise had no interest in comics, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily amazing.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
