Rating: 
Summary: Shallow portrayal of death
Review: Death is portrayed as a teenage American girl with a gen-x vocabulary. Such a shallow treatment of the nature of things undermines the world he has created.
Rating: 
Summary: There is a Comic for us all.
Review: This was the beginning of a Neil Gaiman masterpiece. His work on the Sandman is great. It's a comic that all who love fantasy can enjoy. Personally I had never ventured into the world of comics until I heard about the Sandman. The characters have some aspect we can all identify with. It's a definite have to read.
Rating: 
Summary: I agree with the humble beginnings review.
Review: While this is a great book, it is certainly the weakest chapters of the entire series in my opinion. Neil was certainly a bit unaware of the direction he wanted to take with Dream and added other personas of the DC Universe heavily. I just didn't like the crossover. The most interesting is likely the opening chapter a reprint of the first issue with Roderick Burgess.
Rating:
Summary: Humble Beginnings
Review: After enjoying Neil Gaiman's weblog for a few months, I decided to give the Sandman series another shot. The first time round, I found it to be ill-suited for the comics medium, lending itself more to a novel setting.This first graphic novel seems unaware of its future, and seems rather ordinary. Particularly amusing is Gaiman's attempt to integrate into the DC universe, including visits to John Constantine and JLA's Mister Miracle. This is funny because of how I had always considered Sandman's greatest strength to be how far away it seemed from all of DC's other comics, the exploration of a previously unseen world. The story itself is sharp, well thought out and still very modern. I had remembered the writing being top heavy, but for these first issues, I see no sign of it. I found the art to be muddy, but tolerable. An excellent read, blissfully ignorant of its coming success.
Rating: 
Summary: I really cant get the graphic style of american comics...
Review: I bought this one because i've read one Gaiman before (American Gods) and i though it was fabulous... I only had been exposed to american comics before only through some old, translated, x-men comics which i figured where for kids. I was expecting a much higher quality for the graphics. The storys good, but i'd rather read a book if the visual are not the main attraction in a comic. I also bought neverwhere at the same time, and still think that Gaiman is a great author.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite as good as it's cracked up to be...
Review: I picked up "Sandman" on a whim, after hearing its name mentioned with such titles as "Watchmen" and "Preacher". After reading the first volume, , I must confess I'm a little disappointed. Niel Gaiman is a great writer. I have to mention that first and foremost. When he cowrote a book with Terry Pratchett, the world must have rejoiced. Unfortunately, the start of "Sandman" leaves some to be desired. It's not that it's a bad storyline or anything. It's simply that it's not a gripping enough introduction. The following tales, with a special note to "24 Hours" are much better. The real problem, that which really cost the work a star, is the art. Stopping just shy of hideous, the art is sloppy, badly planned and bemusingly arrainged on the page. I'm thankful that other artists come on in later volumes. While the drawings themselves don't improve much, their arraingment does, so much so that it's not a trial to read a single page. "Sandman" is definitely worth buying. It's good enough to buy a second volume and perhaps even more than that. "FAT PIGEONS!"
Rating:
Summary: In the beginning
Review: These first 8 Sandman stories establish the character, how he came to be incarcerated through most of the twentieth century - and some of the damage resulting in the mortal realm. Don't be put off by the early artwork; Sandman's artists took time to catch up with Gaiman's writing, and began to mesh properly towards the end of this volume. This incarnation of the Sandman is *the* Sandman: Dream of the Endless, the king of the realm of dream and nightmare. Seeking to capture Death, an order of magicians in Wych Cross, England accidentally snare Death's younger brother, Dream, in "Sleep of the Just". They seal him within an airless glass cage, then attempt to parley: his freedom in exchange for immortality, power, and his promise not to retaliate. But Dream is of the Endless; while time passes no more quickly for him than for mortals, he has *all* of it at his disposal - and a temper like an angry god rising from the bottom of the sea. The artwork has weaknesses, particularly in depicting Dream himself, but Gaiman's writing is magnificent, opening deeper mysteries in passing. For the elements of his spell, how did the magus steal a song from dirt, or a feather from an angel's wing? How did Dream come to be in such a weakened condition that a petty spell could snare him? Gaiman's excellence as a writer shines through, as he creates depth with layer after layer of consequences to actions, planting the seeds of future stories as he does so. The damage done to the mortal realm is unfolded gradually, by showing several people who had unusual qualities as dreamers, and what happened to them in the years after Dream's capture in June 1916: a real-life "sleeping sickness" epidemic; a thirteen-year-old who lied about his age to enlist, and now in Verdun cannot sleep; Unity Kinkaid, who falls into near-endless sleep. Gaiman even fits the first Sandman (Wesley Dodds the crimefighter) into the mosaic, as the universe, knowing that *someone* is missing, attempts to replace him. We also see the changes in the magicians' order over the decades, as the magus' son and heir carries on. Naturally, damage was also done to Dream's own realm, which we see both in this volume and the next. The next few _Preludes and Nocturnes_ deal with Dream's return to the Dreaming: taking stock of which dreams have escaped into the mortal realm (later tracked down in _The Doll's House_), then going after the tools stolen from him by the magicians, lost decades before when the magus' mistress Ethel Dee ran away with 200000 pounds, several powerful artifacts, and the second-in-command. Dream inventories his realm in "Imperfect Hosts"; many of the dreams correspond to other Marvel comics, such as the brothers Cain and Abel, who are also an interpretation of the figures of legend. (In the mortal realm, Ethel Dee seeks out her son in none other than the Arkham Asylum.) The artwork on Dream is still finding its way. The one-who-is-three - maiden/mother/crone - enters the storyline here, but her/their graphic depiction is *AWFUL* (*all* other issues of Sandman in which they appear have better treatment), although their shuffling positions between frames is established here. (That would have been Gaiman's script, though, not the artist.) They give Dream enigmatic clues to the whereabouts of the pouch of sand (last purchased by John Constantine); the helm (traded by the renegade magician to a demon decades ago); and the ruby (passed by Ethel Dee to her son, long since captured by the League of Justice). Still debilitated from his long imprisonment, and wanting more information about the more-than-human Justice League before confronting them, Dream begins by seeking out John Constantine, in "Dream a Little Dream of Me". Even the pouch of sand, the least powerful of Dream's tools, has destroyed more than one mortal life. Constantine's viewpoint carries an undercurrent of music, all songs with dream imagery, beginning days before Dream crosses his path. We also meet Mad Hettie for the first time, a street person who knows far more than most about *real* life, and who really *is* 247. Dream's graphic depiction begins improving a little here as Gaiman experiments a little, with Constantine rather than Dream narrating. In "A Hope in Hell", Dream confronts the Morningstar, in our first encounter with Gaiman's take on Lucifer. The distortions in mythology - Lucifer's "co-rulers" - weren't Gaiman's error, but were introduced for consistency with another comic that was to be set here. Gaiman managed to square this with Lucifer's character development later on. Here we first encounter Nada, Dream's unforgiven ex-lover, imprisoned for 10,000 years - something we understand better after "Tales in the Sand" in _The Doll's House_. Hope is the major theme running through this issue: Dream's hopes for the meeting, Nada's hopes of freedom. The quest for the ruby, the tool into which Dream placed the greater part of his power long ago, runs over 3 chapters, beginning in "Passengers". Dream only deals with two members of the Justice League, 'Scott Free' and the last Martian; the latter's perception of Dream underscores his standing outside humanity as an entity known to all cultures. Nevertheless, Ethel Dee's son retrieves the ruby before Dream does. "24 Hours" is both horror story and character study; the ruby's power not only permits Dee to torment the diner's customers, but to force them to reveal their deepest secrets. Dream's battle for the ruby forms the chapter "Sound and Fury". While ordinarily no mortal could stand against Dream, the ruby allows Dee to turn Dream's own power against him. "Sound of Her Wings" was first advertised as "A Death in the Family", as we finally encounter the one of the Endless the magi *really* wanted to trap: Dream's elder sibling, Death, as he walks beside her through a day of *her* work.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful.
Review: I haven't felt this way reading a comic book for a long time. Sandman, the Lord of Dreams; Morpheus as he is known, is a silent character that somehow seems to exude a power that many have dreamt (ahahah) of. The art is terrific, portraying powerful images with exquisite detail.
Rating:
Summary: A Spectacular Read
Review: This was a very good book that I would recommend to anyone. As of writing this review I haven't read any of the later volumes, but based on how good the first one was, and some of the other reviews here, I can't wait.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, And Awesome!
Review: Gaiman's incredible Sandman series starts with this collection. While trying to capture the personification of Death (a tried and true fantasy convention) a magician captures instead the King of
Dreams, who remains his prisoner for seven decades until he (Dream) is finally given an opportunity to escape. Comic book conventions come into play at the beginning with guest appearances by John Constantine and Etrigan as Dream pursues his lost tools of office. But when Dream finally confronts the man,(a minor DC villain,Dr. Destiny)who possesses the last of these tools the series enters a different realm far from the typical comic book. Taking his lead from Alan Moore's work on Swamp Thing, Gaiman creates an atmosphere of real horror as Dr. Destiny warps the lives of a few unlucky diner patrons, driving them to madness before he is finally stopped by Dream. It is in the scenes at the diner Gamain's talent really comes to the forefront and you realize that this is no typical comic book experience. By showing the gradual destruction of these characters Gaiman give the reader a peak at what becomes the theme of the entire series; the power of dreams in our lives.
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