Platypus of Truth

Neil Gaiman's worlds are not nice worlds. That's not merely true of his dark epic,  Sandman , but also of his children's tales. The Graveyard Book  opens with the brutal murder of the protagonist's family, including his infant sibling. Troll Bridge  is a clear metaphor for sexual addiction with its origin in childhood trauma. The Ocean at the End of the Lane features a father attempting to drown his seven year old son and a nanny threatening to accuse the same boy of indecently exposing himself to her if he won't keep silent about her plot. I have to confess that it's shocking. Then I remember all the stories I've encountered as a teacher, and I of all the children I've encountered for whom these things are a part of their lives. Gaiman specializes in reaching out to those dark places. His fictional narratives create safe spaces for trauma to be processed and his narrators provide a reassuring "me too". I've found more than a few famili

I'm almost done with volume 4 of The Sandman  and I think that's about as far as I got in grad school. Volume 5, however, will require more cash or a library hold. We'll see which comes first. In the meantime, here we have the siblings Dream and Death done in brush marker with a little Gustav Klimt intruding on the left a la Overture .

I had some time to kill yesterday and so I turned to doodling two of the lead characters of Niel Gaiman's Sandman . I'm always late to the party, but I finally figured out this year that Liz always dresses like Death. Sorry guys! All three drawings are freehand without references. I wish I had Dream's wardrobe. I don't think it would look as good on a short, stout, bald, Irish-Quebecois-Italian though. Ah well...