Thoughts on winding down my 'Sandman' journey
Over the weekend, I picked up Overture, the six-issue miniseries that serves as a prequel to the greater Sandman series.
I started reading the Sandman comics in September last year, when my plans to buy the 30th anniversary box set finally made the jump from my to-do list to reality. As my journey in the world of Sandman winds down, my feelings have been conflicted, due to the horrifying details of the abuse perpetrated by Neil Gaiman.
The allegations against him paint a harrowing and horrifying picture and it personally felt wrong to even continue to read the comics, at a point. I felt shitty because I had genuinely enjoyed reading the Sandman comics and his other works ⸺ I had a re-read of American Gods lined up for 2025. It was difficult to reconcile that someone who had written these books with these rich worlds, these warm characters, and these dark, twisted, funny, and hopeful stories could inflict so much pain on his fellow humans.
But I guess being able to separate art from artist is a part of growing up/maturing/adulting. “You have to learn to enjoy the good parts from the books that this terrible man wrote” is what I told myself, eventually.
A good Tumblr post on this topic.
