Sandman - The Dream Hunters
"it was unquestionably true
that the fox was in love
with the young monk.
"And that was to be
the cause of much
misery and heartbreak...
"...And of a Strange Journey."
These words give just a brief overview of Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell's mini comic series Sandman - The Dream Hunters. This commemorative 4 part series celebrates the 20th anniversary of Gaiman's ground-breaking Sandman, and the 10th Anniversary of his collaboration with artist Yoshitaka Amano for their illustrated book The Dream Hunters. The fairy tale follows a bet between a fox and a badger over who can make a humble monk leave his temple. The badger uses aggressive threats from a group of demons to try and get the monk to leave, but the monk is unafraid of their attacks and forces the badger away. The fox tries to use its cunning to trick the monk from the temple, but the monk is too wise. Consequently, the fox falls in love with the monk. When the fox overhears the badger's demons plotting on killing the monk in his dreams the fox is determined to go into dreams and save her love.
This first issue of the comic adaptation is brilliantly illustrated by P. Craig Russell (Sandman - Endless Nights) and plays well to the dark fairy tale. With three more issues, I think Russell is the perfect artist to complete some of the more fantastic parts of the story. The original Gaiman & Amano version of The Dream Hunters is also available.
-Jon
posted by Star Clipper at Wednesday, November 12, 2008
2 Comments:
I love the original Dream Hunters. It's a gem of a book. I'm curious, though, do we really need this? It's not like the original was simply prose, then I might get having a graphic depiction. But we've already got wonderfully rendered images from Amano, why do we simply need another artist's rendition? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for adaptions if they add something - the four-part Stardust graphic novel into the prose novel into the movie adds something at each step. This, to me, is simply DC going to the well again, and as much as I love P. Craig Russel's art, and I've no doubt this will be beautiful, can it be as good as the original? We'll see. I'm sure I'll still thumb through it, but I'll have to be truly captivated to buy the mini.
But what's your take? What's different? How is the original being added to? Why would I buy this when I can buy the original? (I suppose if the original was out of print this would be a superb way for new people to get their hands on a quality version.)
JP - Sorry I just caught your comment and am just now responding. Until the whole series is complete I think it is unfair for me to say one is greater than the other, but what makes this Dream Hunter worth checking out is that this adaptation is a full comic. That in-and-of- itself offers a big enough difference for me to argue it warrents your attention if you are a fan of the orginal illustrated novel.
Thanks for posting
-Jon
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