An obsessive collection of portraits from the Sandman comic series.
She does not approve of her husband’s desire to go into the marketplace dressed as a beggar.
Lady Livia appears in Sandman # 30 on page 2.
Ron said that he was experimenting with brown ink when drawing this character. I really like this portrait. I think the brown ink really works with her character and I think that his line work for her is amazing!!!
That night, Roderick Burgess attempts to capture Death, but instead accidentally captures Morpheus, the King of Dreams.
After that night, Unity finds it difficult to stay awake and often sleeps 20 hours a day without dreaming…until she does not wake at all. She is one of the victims of the Sleeping Sickness that spread across the world affecting countless people.
In 1932, Unity was raped. Nine months later she gave birth to a little girl, who was adopted. She slept through both the rape and the birth of her daughter.
In 1955, Unity’s parents died and she was put into a nursing home. She would sometimes wake briefly and would never remember where she was.
In 1988, Morpheus escapes from his glass prison.
Unity, now 89 years old, awakes. She recalls having a dream that she had a baby. A year later, Unity manages to track down her daughter and asks for her to come to England.
Miranda Walker and her daughter Rose visit England and meet Unity, who explains the situation about being ill and tells Miranda that she is her real mother and Rose’s grandmother.
Rose returns to the United States to look for her lost brother Jed and Miranda stays in England with Unity.
Not long afterwards, Rose has a very strange night where she enters The Dreaming and is told, by Morpheus, that she is a Dream Vortex that threatens The Dreaming and she must be killed to prevent the destruction of the barriers between dreaming minds and causes all dreamers to be caught into one huge dream until the vortex collapses into itself destroying the minds of the dreamers and damages The Dreaming beyond repair. Rose accepts her fate and agrees to sacrifice herself.
Unity, who is very ill and dying, falls asleep and enters The Dreaming. Unity tells Morpheus that she will accept the role of the Vortex from Rose to save Rose’s life, because she should have originally been the Vortex if it hadn’t been for Dream’s imprisonment and her Sleeping Sickness. Unity then asks Rose to give her her heart, which she does. Once Unity accepts Rose’s heart, in the waking world, Unity’s body dies and the Dream Vortex is eliminated.
This may seem very confusing and really the best thing to do is, if you haven’t, go read The Doll’s House storyline. It’s a fantastic book.
This portrait was drawn by Ibrahim Moustafa and it’s one of my favorites he’s done so far. He makes her seem really elegant and self-assured, which I like. This is a very strong portrait for such a strong and important character in the Sandman universe.
This is one of the ghostly patrons.
He is visible in Sandman # 54, page 2, panel 1.
This is another great portrait from Lars. I really like the details on this character. The line work really stands out for me on this portrait. Also, I really like just about any portrait with books in the background it seems…
This man is walking through the courtyard in which al Raschid makes his proclamation ensuring Baghdad’s longevity.
This Citizen Of Baghdad can be seen in Sandman # 50, page 29, panel 1.
Isabelle did a wonderful job with this character. I really like subtle things like the line work of his hair. Things like that always impress me because it’s the little details like that which really give the characters life.
This Newspaper Salesman is seen in one panel in Brief Lives (Sandman # 43, page 2, panel 3).
Bernie Capax buys a newspaper from him before being crushed under a falling brick wall.
Here is the Newspaper Salesman…
Marco and his father travelled to Asia in 1269 and returned to Italy after 24 years abroad. When they returned Venice was at war with Genoa and Marco was captured and imprisoned. While in prison he told his exploits to his cell mate. These adventures are recounted Il Milione (the Million, in Italian) or The Travels Of Marco Polo.
Within the Sandman Universe, Marco Polo, while travelling to the Empire of Kubilai Khan is lost in the desert and encounters a Soft Place, which is an area where the borders between Reality and The Dreaming have eroded or are not fully formed. In Soft Places, time loops around itself and dream geographies intrude on reality.
It is in this Soft Place that Marco Polo meets Rustichello of Pisa, who is his cell mate in prison 24 years in the future, and a nice gentleman named Fiddler’s Green. They sit around a camp fire and drink wine and Marco tells the story of his travels and how he became stranded in the desert.
As the night passes Fiddler’s Green leaves and Marco Polo discuss dreams briefly. It is brought to Marco’s attention that while he is in the Soft Place he is simply someone’s dream. Perhaps he is only the dream of Rustichello, or perhaps someone else entirely is dreaming of their visit together. Rustichello leaves Marco Polo in the desert alone.
Marco Polo encounters a tall stranger dressed in black who has just escaped from captivity. He tells Marco that his name is Dream. Dream is tired and thirsty and Marco offers Dream his remaining sips of water.
For his kindness, Dream helps Marco Polo escape the Soft Place and he is later found, lying face down in the desert by his father and their caravan, having just awoken from the strangest dream.
This was one of the first portraits that Lars did. I think he did a great job with the character.
Scroyle is a citizen of the Necropolis Litharge and he came to live in the Necropolis when he was eight years old, after his father died.
At the air burial, each person attending the burial must tell a story and Scroyle told the story of the day he met a stranger, who, unbeknownst to him was Destruction, told him about an older Necropolis which is no longer named and how it was destroyed because there was no care, no respect and no love given to the dead from the citizens of the Necropolis. Once this old Necropolis was destroyed, Litharge became the new Necropolis.
Scroyle was drawn by Max and he did a wonderful job with the character. He captured the eerie presence of this citizen of the Necropolis.
