Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Sandman Mystery Theatre

I've been enjoying volumes of  Vertigo's Sandman Mystery Theatre, by Matt Wagner of Mage fame. I didn't know anything about it till I picked up a couple of volumes from my new best friend, the Wells Branch Community Library, which has a great selection of graphic novels. 

I have to ruefully admit that I thought these had something to do with Neil Gaiman's Sandman series when I picked them up. Instead of being about mythological characters, though, these are about a pulp-era crimefighter who uses a gun that fires sleeping gas, and wears a gas mask. I knew this character existed, but not much else; it turns out that this is a very old DC character who was resurrected in 1993 for this series. 

What's charming about the series is the fact that it's set in the 1930s, the art suits the story well, and the main character spends a lot of time worrying about his relationship with his girlfriend and maintaining that while crimefighting. The characters are none of them the buff figures of superhero comicdom, and I like that as well.  

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