The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1 – Comics Review
The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1 – James Tynion IV, Lisandro Estherren, Yanick Paquette, Patricio Delpeche, Nathan Fairbairn, Simon Bowland
Billed as an entry point to the seminal Sandman universe that originally sprang from the mind of literary legend Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1 is the tale of The Corinthian, the living embodiment of nightmares who has mouths in place of his eyes. Yes, you did read that right.
Horror!
The comic gives a brief introduction to the creation of The Corinthian, but weaves this in to the narrative of an artist named Flynn, and shows the way that nightmares impact on her life. Flynn paints the things that stalk us in the dark, the images we see in shadows, and the things that go bump in the night. But Tynion IV (Something Is Killing The Children, The Nice House On The Lake) wants us to know that there is more to these horrors than meets the eye, and begins to bring the darkness out into the light.
Tynion also weaves in other characters that will be familiar to long-term fans of the Sandman universe, but I would imagine they would be quite jarring to those not familiar with their past adventures. This is not a book for the faint-hearted, and readers who have followed Tynion from his run on Batman without seeing his indie work may have something of a shock.
Dread!
The art team is split into two pairs, each tackling a different aspect of the universe, with the book jumping from one pairing to the other and back again. Main art team Lisandro Estherren (Redneck, Catch and Release) and Patricio Delpeche (Angel, Dune: Blood the the Sardaukar) show us the ‘real’ world, following Flynn through a club, and into the following day. Their section of the book is dark, and brooding, with creeping shadows and imagined – or real – monsters.
This is in sharp contrast to the central portion of the book, where guest art team Yanick Paquette (Batman, Swamp Thing) and Nathan Fairbairn (Lake of Fire, Paws), where sharp lines and a brighter palette bring us into The Dreaming. This is where – for me – the book really comes into its own as an introduction to the wider world. This section is exposition heavy, and marked by panel breaks that are jagged red slashes, a sharp contract to the straight white gutters in the front and end of the book.
The lettering throughout the book is solid, and Simon Bowland (2000AD, The Modern Frankenstein) brings his usual high standard, switching fonts for the different sections of the book and using a scratchy, nightmarish font on mono-chromatically switched bubbles, when Mr Agony and Mr Ecstacy are speaking. Often under-looked as a member of the creative team, the letterer can make a huge difference to a book, and the work Bowland has done here pulls the entire issue together and builds on the work done by the rest of the creators.
Shock!
Without the central Dreaming section, I cannot help but feel that this book would be somewhat confusing to a new reader, and even with it I am not 100% certain it is a welcoming first issue. But it has made me want to dig out all of my other Sandman books (of which I am not ashamed to say there are MANY) so it has obviously done something right!
If you have even a passing interest in the wider Sandman universe, are a newer reader from the latest series of books, or have heard of The Corinthian and want to know more, then I suggest you grab a copy of this and dig in. But maybe not just before you need to go to sleep…
The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1 is available now from all good comic book shops.
Follow the creators on Twitter for more comics goodness:
James Tynion IV – writer
Lisandro Estherren – artist
Yanick Paquette – artist
Patricio Delpeche – colourist
Nathan Fairbairn – colourist
Simon Bowland– letterer
DC Comics – publisher
