Homeless Man (illustrated by Anna Hybsier)

In The Kindly Ones, there is a homeless man who is featured throughout the series during several moments of the series.

He first appears in the first chapter of The Kindly Ones. He is handing out flowers to people as they pass and singing Hey Diddle Diddle.

He attempts to give a flower to Daniel as Lyta and Carla walk down the stree. Lyta freaks out and becomes violent with him, pushing him up against the wall. Carla scolds Lyta saying she overreacted as they continue on their way as the homeless man sits on the side of the street crying.

We see the homeless man again, in one panel singing another nursey rhyme as Lyta walks home from the grocery store.

Carla sees him briefly as she’s leaving the police station after trying, unsuccessfully, to try to get information on the two detectives who are supposedly working on Daniel’s abduction. The police are escorting this homeless man through the precinct. He calls after Carla saying “Hey Missy! Your Friend? The Mean One? I seen her. She’s got snakes in her hair. And she’s not alone in her head anymore.” Carla ignores him, although he is speaking the truth about Lyta.

The next time we see him, he is once again sitting on the sidewalk with a dog. Rose Walker walks past him and offers him a bag of groceries that were intended for Zelda, who had recently died. He accepts the groceries and begins opening the chocolate bar. As he does so, the dog next to him sits up and says “You’ll never be able to eat all these chocolates on your own, you know” revealing himself to be Barnabas, Delirium’s dog.

We see him one final time in the last chapter of The Kindly Ones. Delirium is walking down the street, sad that she has been unable to find Barnabas, when she walks past the homeless man and her dog. Barnabas jumps up and says “I will never ever—as long as I live—let you out of my sight again for a single solitary second.” Barnabas explains that he was lost and was nearly starved to death when this man helped him.

Delirium offered him a present for helping Barnabas, but the old declined saying “T’ain’t safe to ask favors of your kind, even if I earned ‘em. Otherwise I could find myself spitting out flower petals and silver dollars every time I speak. I’m happy with just A Thank-You-Kindly, and maybe sometimes the Barney-Dog can come find me and gab a bit.”

This man appears in Sandman # 57 (on pages 5-6), 59 (on page 18), 62 (on page 17), 70 (on page 11) and 72 (on pages 14-15.

Anna did a great job with his portrait. He is much more realistic in Anna’s portrait than in the published comic. I like that he seems like a very sweet man. His features really make him a sympathetic character and I think Anna’s portrait really highlights that fact.

Here is the homeless man from The Kindly Ones…