The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Neil Gaiman, �Sandman: A Game of You�

Started January 26 � Finished January 26, 2003; 192 pages. Posted 28 January 2003

Holy hell. I don�t know what the hell I did to my eye, but something happened and it now hurts like fire. It feels like there�s a tiny filament wire in the back of my eyelid and every time I blink, it�s slowly scratching into my cornea. I�ve rinsed it out several times, I�ve used eyewash, I�ve used eyedroppers and it only feels better for a short while.

When it does start up again, it�s bad enough to make me wince and sometimes even whimper out loud. The white in my left eye is nearly completely replaced by red, enough to make some of my stoner friends consider making me an honorary member. That eye has watered up several times today, causing people to think I was upset about the Raiders game.

Not that this pertains to anything. I just thought I�d mention it, because it hurts like fuck.

School started up, and this just happens to be my �keep the creditors off my back� semester. I don�t need any of these classes. I could turn in the paperwork and be officially graduated — or at least I could if I could find the fucking paperwork, all of which disappeared when I moved.

One of the classes that I enrolled in was Fiction Writing, since I thought it might be fun to be able to do some writing. I have strange ideas of fun.

But anyway, Gaiman�s Sandman series as a whole has to be some of the best writing I�ve ever seen for a graphic novel, especially considering it lasted for ten years. I don�t really like admitting that, because I�ve seen a lot of really lame people obsess endlessly about how great this series is, and I don�t like acknowledging that they have a point. Some time ago, Gaiman won some big honking award for Best Fantasy Writing, and it was the first time a graphic novel won the award.

The straight writers went nuts, furious that a funnybook had beat out their endless barrage of Tolkien knock-offs. Due to the vehemence of some of the writers, the award committee changed their regulations in order to exclude graphic novels from competition...

Ow!!! Fuck!!! My eye!!!

Anyway, what I think a lot of these hoity-toity sci-fi/fantasy authors don�t realize, is that people that plot graphic novels have to write both dialogue and setting when they plot these things out. They can�t spend four pages of prose describing a landscape setting, and so I think they have a harder time than novelists, because they have to describe the setting and the look for every panel.

On top of that, they have to adhere to a set amount of pages for every issue, so they have to keep the story moving fairly quickly. And so, reading this, especially after reading so many poorly plotted novels over the last year, it�s no wonder this won. I can�t believe how well this flows to tell a complicated story all within the constraints of the comic book form. All those �serious� authors who bitched about losing to a comic book could learn a thing or three from Gaiman.

There�s more I could say here, but I really feel like taking a cue from Gloucester from Shakespeare�s King Lear right now, so I�m going to bed.


Rating: Worth new! Ow!

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