Island Spirit # 1 (illustrated by Anna Hybsier)

As William Shakespeare writes The Tempest, his final play for Dream and the final play of his career, he writes about imprisonment.

He writes a speech in which Prospero recounts the imprisonment of Ariel.

“Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
by help of her more potent ministers
and in her most unmitigable rage,
into a cloven pine,
within which rift
imprisoned though didst painfully remain
a dozen years."

This imprisonment mirrors that of Morpheus at the hands of Roderick Burgess, more than 400 years later.

This Island Spirit is one of the “more potent Ministers” mentioned in the play and appears in Sandman # 75, on page 17, in panel 1.

This is a wonderful portrait from Anna. I love the colors she used in this drawing. It feels very natural and gives this Island Spirit a strange sense of the super natural. I really like this creature’s hair. Anna’s line work flows smoothly, which really makes things feel natural and the effect is really beautiful.

Here is Island Spirit # 1…