The Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman and various artists

 

(1991-2, 2011: graphic novel, collects issues 32-7 of the comic book The Sandman. “Introduction” by Samuel R. Delaney. Sixth book in the thirteen-book Sandman graphic novel series.)

 

From the back cover

“The imagined landscapes of childhood from set the stage for A GAME OF YOU, the [sixth] volume of the complete run of THE SANDMAN. In a long-forgotten corner of the Dreaming, cracks appear in the wall that shields the waking world, and through those gaps a group of young New Yorkers is drawn inexorably into a realm that is both eerily familiar and disturbingly malignant.”

 

Overall review:

Game centers around Barbie, a character last seen in The Sandman: The Doll’s House, two years after the events of that book─it seems that Barbie and her apartment complex neighbors are being stalked by a reality-bizarre “Cuckoo,” whose identity is shrouded in dream-mystery, and whose presence predicts malicious deaths.

Once again, the artists, letterers and colorists who bring Gaiman’s transcend-the-genre writing to vivid, distinctive representation are top-notch and genre-defining. Worth owning, this. Followed by The Sandman: Fables & Reflections.

 

Review, issue by issue

Caveat: possible minor spoilers for those who have not read these Sandman comics.

“Slaughter on Fifth Avenue” (#32): Barbie (The Sandman: The Doll’s House, issue 16) has not had a dream in two years. She lives in New York City, walks around it with her roommate (Wanda, born Alvin Mann) and encounters a huge, doglike creature (Martin Tenbones), triggering long-forgotten memories and a dread of “Cuckoos,” something her creepy neighbor George might know about.

 

“Lullabies of Broadway” (#33): Barbie’s lesbian neighbor (Hazel, live-in girlfriend of Foxglove) reveals an embarrassing life-altering secret to Barbie.

Barbie dreams for the first time in two years, entering a fantasyland where she’s “Princess Barbara” to Luz the female monkey, Wilkinson (a beaked creature in an overcoat) and Prinado, a strange  bird.

Meanwhile, Barbie’s neighbors─except for George─have nightmares. Thessaly, a downstairs neighbor, shows that she knows how to protect herself.

 

“Bad Moon Rising” (#34): Thessaly, with help from her neighbors (Wanda, Foxglove and Hazel), draw down the moon (a witch-ritual) to try and help Barbie, who dreams.

 

“Beginning to See the Light” (#35): Barbie continues to dream. In it, she and her talking animal friends (Luz, Wilkinson and Prinado) hide from the tall, scary Black Guards and escape the spine-shivery, whispery Tweeners, with help from the Porpentine. Then hammers come down.

“Over the Sea to Sky” (#36): Barbie, still dreaming, meets the malicious Cuckoo. Thessaly, Hazel and Foxglove force their way into Barbie’s fantasyland-skerry, far older than she is. Morpheus shows up while Wanda, Maisie Hill (issue 32) and everyone else in New York City, batten down because of Hurricane Lisa, a strange event.

 

“I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying” (#37): Morpheus tells Barbie about Alianora, the woman (seen in the previous issue) for whom Barbie’s fantasyland-skerry was created.

Rose Walker, (The Sandman: The Doll’s House, issue 16) and Judy (The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, issue 6) are mentioned in a conversation between the Dream King, Foxglove and Barbie, who knew them.

Barbie, Thessaly, Foxglove and Hazel return to their waking-world lives. Barbie attends two funerals.

In the Flesh, by Clive Barker

(pb; 1986: story anthology)

From the back cover:

"In the depths of an abandoned steam bath, strangely beautiful women seduce two businessmen into a ritual of macabre sexuality; in a Greek asylum, wise men race frogs to decide the fate of the world; a petty convict's cellmate reveals to him the gruesome birth of evil; a young woman's slum research leads her into the hook-handed grip of The Candyman, a vicious supernatural killer."


Overall review:

This is one of the few perfect anthologies I've read. Barker's writing is word-tight, character-memorable and idea-wild, its themes relevant and relatable, with many of its lines quotable.

In the Flesh is easily one of my all-time favorite anthologies, as well as one of my favorite Barker reads.

Worth owning, this.


Review, story by story:


1.) "In the Flesh" - Cleve Smith, an incarcerated felon, gets a new cellie (Billy Tait), a young man whose quiet manners conceal a harsher, gorier world.

Perfect, gripping, exemplary read that references one of Barker's other stories, "The Books of Blood" (collected in the anthology Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume One).


2.) "The Forbidden" - A woman (Helen), writing a sociological theme paper, happens upon a shadowy urban legend that may be far more relevant than she ever imagined.

Thought-provoking, wise (in its roots-of-fear way), exciting and unique - not to mention (again), perfect.

Two directly-linked films resulted from this story.

The first, a 36-minute short titled after the story, was released in 1978.

Peter Atkins played Faust. Doug Bradley, Julia Blake, Phil Rimmer and Lyn Darnell also acted in the short, though their roles aren't named on imdb.com.

Clive Barker, who scripted and directed the film, also acted in it.

#

The second version, Candyman - this one a full-length work - was released stateside on October 16, 1992.

Virginia Madsen played Helen Lyle. Tony Todd played The Candyman (aka Daniel Robitaille). Xander Berkeley played Trevor Lyle. Kasi Lemmons played Bernadette 'Bernie' Walsh. Vanessa Williams played Anne-Marie McCoy. Ted Raimi played Billy. Rusty Schwimmer played "Policewoman".

Bernard Rose scripted and directed the film.

Two sequels, both of them starring Tony Todd, followed: Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and the direct-to-video Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999).


3.) "The Madonna" - An abandoned bathhouse is the site of damnation or salvation for two men, a wealthy thug (Ezra Garvey) and his business partner (Jerry Coloqhoun).

Gripping, distinctive and science fiction-wild take on the themes of masculinity/femininity, religion and motherhood, with a story finish that is reader-resonant.

In 1989, Eclipse Books published a comic book mini-series, Tapping The Vein, that is based on Barker's writings.

Fred Burke adapted, and Stan Woch, Fred Von Tobel and Mark Farmer illustrated "The Madonna" in issue #4 (its front cover is seen below). This same issue contains an adaptation of one of Barker's other stories, "Hell's Event" (published in Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume Two).




4.) "Babel's Children" - Vanessa Jape, an insatiably curious, roadtripping woman, stumbles upon a long-held, world- and life-changing secret on a backroad.

Fun, relatively light work, that's as fascinating and relatably weird as the other stories in this anthology.