There is a saying that goes "I don't know if it's art, but I like it." The Sandman: Endless Nights inspires in me a feeling based on a reversal of that saying, which is "I know it's art, but I don't know if I like it." Or, to be more precise, I don't know if I like all of it. This is a long-awaited project, as the creator of one of the most award-winning and well-regarded comics projects, one that can be credited with expanding the boundaries of comics, serving as a foundation point for DC's Vertigo imprint and legitimizing the medium in the eyes of some, returns to the medium for new stories featuring his best-known creations. He brings with him a fantastic stable of artists, some of them legends in their own right, and each one probably an ideal choice for the tales that he has crafted. There can be no doubt that Endless Nights is a well-crafted hardcover, and it is a treasure to those who loved Sandman and wanted more as well as to anyone who enjoys quality comics... and yet, it's not quite as purely entertaining as the best Sandman volumes were, and so not as perfect as I might have hoped for.
Probably the strongest story in my point-of-view is the one that has been released already, the story of Dream that was presented in the Endless Nights Special. I've said enough about the story already, in THIS REVIEW, so all I will add here is that I think that this collaboration from Gaiman and Prado stands out as my favorite of all the stories in this volume. Running a close second is the tale of Destruction by Gaiman and Fabry, which reminds me of the best Sandman tales. It is built on big ideas and wild concepts, but it has a down-to-earth quality as well, with the approachable and surprisingly human Destruction meeting up with an equally likable, intelligent and principled young woman. It has a straightforward quality that I found lacking in many of the more high-concept stories in the book.
In the same way, I enjoyed the brief but powerful story of Destiny, which makes a nice capper to the book and sort of says everything you need to know about who the Endless are and what they do. It will surprise no one to hear that Quitely's art on this story is beautiful to look at. Quite possibly the most beautiful story in the volume, though, at least from my point-of-view, is the story of Desire with art by Italian legendary artist Milo Manara. Perhaps the best illustration of a perfect match of artist and subject, Manara's sensual artwork is perfect for a tale of a beautiful maiden who gets here desire and then learns to use desire as a weapon, and Gaiman's story captures the beauty and terrible power of Desire of the Endless perfectly.
While my favorite stories were told with an eye toward the imaginative ideas but one foot firmly on the ground, some of the other stories drift off much further into the area of surrealism and border on the pretentious, reminding me of the Goth movement that sprung up around Sandman and its ilk and which tends to bug the hell out of me. I won't deny that Bill Sienkiewicz's strange and erratic style is a perfect choice for the twisted worldview of Delirium, or that Barron Storey and Dave McKean give us a bitter look at what it means to Despair. What I will say is that the abstract nature of the art, along with the stories, just didn't click with me, and while Gaiman and his artists definitely evoked a mood and a feeling, they didn't tell a story as so many of the other tales in the book did, and so I was left wanting. Gaiman is a talented enough writer to be able to bring across the ideas of Despair and Delirium while keeping a coherent narrative going (he does so with Delirium in the Destruction story), and I found these strange stories to be mildly intriguing, but ultimately somewhat frustrating.
Then there is the tale which opens the book, as Gaiman tackles the most popular of the Endless, the cute goth girl incarnation of Death, with his previous collaborator P. Craig Russell. The story jumps around in time, which turns out to be perfectly in tune with what the story is about, but it does make for a somewhat confusing read upon first blush. The story is about death and killers, youth and the pursuit of eternal life, Venice and a pseudo-Victorian place and in trying to be all of these things, it sometimes feels as if the true meaning of the story lies just out of reach. However, it is a thing of beauty, and is certainly more coherent than the more abstract tales of Delirium and Despair.
Overall, I'm happy with Endless Nights, and certainly it's a great value, an oversized hardcover created by numerous talents at a very reasonable price. However, given the many great stories that were told over the original Sandman run, and the impressive stature the series has gained in my mind and in the minds of others, I'm not sure any new stories with these characters can ever hit those expectations again, and while these are certainly great stories, I don't see any of them competing with my favorites from Gaiman's previous Sandman stories.
