The Sandman is the realization of what comics can be: complex, beautiful art and literature combined together to create a story that could only happen with words and images sharing a page. Gaiman, along with a bevy of artists, uses the medium of comics to relate the story of Dream, an anthropomorphic personification of consciousness, in particular, of our dreams.

First, a summary of the Sandman collection. It exists across 75 issues that were released monthly (and one special edition released during this run) that were later collected together into 10 graphic novels that housed the various longer storylines as well as the other shorter individual stories. There also is a book collecting the art from all the covers that includes a short Sandman story, as well as a recent illustrated prose Sandman story published on the tenth anniversary of the launch of the original series (all told there are more than 2000 pages). For sake of clarity, I am going to discuss the overarching story grand and also go into some specific details to illustrate the wondrous narrative evoked in this medium of comics.