Dream Hunters (The Sandman)

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Come si apprende nella postfazione, Gaiman si era documentato sulla mitologia giapponese mentre si occupava dei dialoghi della versione inglese della Principessa Mononoke. E durante questa fase di documentazione si era imbattuto nella storia "La volpe, il monaco e il mikado dei sogni di tutta la notte", rimanendo colpito dalle similitudini con la storia che aveva scritto in precedenza, Sandman.

The Sandman: The Dream Hunters is a standalone story in the universe of The Sandman (1989), written by the comic's author Neil Gaiman. It was originally published as a novella in 1999, featuring painted illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano. In 2008 a four-issue comic book version with art by P. Craig Russell was released. Multiboobage: The Mother (of the Sandman's Three-In-One) has several pairs of breasts extending down her torso. The narration compares her to a female pig or rat. Bold Inflation: In the original novella, Morpheus's speech is rendered in bold text to emphasize his power.

Just be careful about trusting that Gaiman guy. He’s a writer—an author, and if you study the origin of the latter word, you’ll know that it comes from the Latin auctorem, which translates as “magnificent liar.” There are two versions of this story available in print: the graphic novel version, illustrated by the amazing P. Craig Russell ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), and this one, published as an illustrated novella. I am a huge fan of Russell’s style, but there is something darkly haunting about Yoshitaka Amano’s work, which suits my current mood a little better than Russell’s whimsy – and I love this little fable so freaking much that I just wanted every version of it that was out there. Besides, this illustrated novella format means we get more of Mr. Gaiman’s beautiful words, which is something precious that I can’t get enough of. Edit: dopo avere letto il fumetto che adatta la storia in prosa, si scopre che Gaiman si era totalmente inventato la genesi di questo racconto, dovendo riempire diverse pagine di postfazione poi diventato un trafiletto scritto piccolo piccolo per via della mole di illustrazioni. Years after Neil Gaiman had concluded the Sandman series, after all the epilogues and Death-sequels, after Dream joined forces with his gas-masked Golden Age namesake, and after the writer had moved on to such things as the work that would become American Gods and the English-language dub of Princess Mononoke, he was asked to return to his comic book creation to commemorate its tenth anniversary.

While the artwork is lovely and complements the story, I’m detracting a star because I didn’t really get anything new from this version. The original novella is already beautifully illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, and while Sandman was always at home in the graphic novel world, I find that the original format chosen for this particular story works better. This story, The Dream Hunter, is a wonderful Japanese-style folk tale, conceived by Neil Gaiman using his known characters of The Sandman, and while you’ll enjoy to recognize the used characters here, you really don’t need have read previously the series to understand and appreciate this stand-alone book. So he took versions of the old Japanese story from the likes of Reverend B. W. Ashton and Y. T. Ozaki and pulled in some of the familiar Sandman components like Dream’s raven and a brief cameo from a pair of famous Biblical brothers. Sandman: The Dream Hunters ended up as a prose story retelling of that foreign tale, with the great artist Yoshitaka Amano (who you may know from such character designs as Gatchaman anime and the Final Fantasy video game series) providing sumptuously painted illustrations.

Tropes:

Meanwhile, in a house in Kyoto, a rich onmyōji is consumed by a nameless fear, and consults three women living at the edge of town. They give him instructions to alleviate this fear; the result is that the aforementioned monk will become trapped inside a dream, and his body will sleep continuously until it dies.