Fredric Wertham taking the stand to say that Batman and Robin were turning little boys gay. When we talk about the 1954 senate hearings that indirectly lead to the creation of the Comics Code Authority, it can be fun to dwell on the salaciousness of Dr. Horror is not the most forgotten lost genre of American comics - that crown goes to the almost entirely lost field of print romance comics - but it’s the only one that the rest of the industry once tried to eradicate. After their initial boom in the days of World War II, newsstands diversified into a number of pulpy varieties of fiction - science fiction, crime fiction, regular old “adventure” fiction - and even true crime.

Let not the Cryptkeeper fade from your hearts It’s the c-c-c-Cryptkeeper! Image: EC ComicsĪlthough it seems impossible to imagine in the 21st century, superheroes have not always been the primary force in American comics. Until then, they were doing their best to keep a once nearly extinct comic book tradition alive: pulp horror. That’s the story that The Sandman becomes over its 75-issue run.īut when The Sandman kicked off, it took Gaiman and his collaborators a few dozen issues to really wade into the seas of anthropomorphic figures. It’s sold as the story of the king of Dreams, a flawed immortal coming to terms with his indifference to the mortals he both serves and rules.

The Sandman is famous for how it plays with mythology and history, with characters like the Christian figure Lucifer, Norse god Loki, and the folkloric Robin Goodfellow as recurring characters. And each time, I’m blindsided when I run into The Sandman #6, titled “24 Hours,” one of the most harrowing 24 pages of horror storytelling you can find in the comics format. I’ve read DC Comics’ epic The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman with art from dozens more talented people, more times than I can count.

The sandman neil gaiman omnibus