10 Vertigo Graphic Novels You Must Read Before You Die
6. The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes
Moore and Gibbons' Watchmen played a major part in mainstream audiences' willingness to accept comic books as legitimate literature, to be sure. However, any comics historian would be remiss not to acknowledge the key role Neil Gaiman's Sandman also played in this shift.
The Sandman helped prove that comics didn't need to feature brightly-colored, spandex-clad superheroes in order to be successful. Rather, deeply atmospheric stories with more abstract characters and concepts could attract readers just as well, if not better.
Gaiman's expert writing, as well as his extensive arsenal of knowledge related to horror, fantasy and numerous different branches of cultural mythology, helped turn The Sandman into one of the best comics DC has ever published, under the Vertigo imprint or otherwise.
The first collected edition of this seminal series, Preludes & Nocturnes, established from the very beginning the absolute gold Gaiman and his collaborators had struck with the Dream of the Endless, with artists like Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg masterfully bringing Gaiman's genre-defining vision to life.