Bender’s book is typical of a non-scholarly work of criticism. This is not to insult it, but to identify some of its primary characteristics, which are, ironically, indicative of a ‘pre-theory’ perspective on literature itself. That’s a roundabout way of saying that Bender’s book focuses itself on the singular genius that is Neil Gaiman. There is certainly more than a little discussion of Gaiman’s collaborations with his various artists and even his editors, but information about them comes from Bender either Gaiman himself, or in the form of text boxes that are tinted and separated from the rest of the text. Criticism directly on P. Craig Russel’s art for “Ramadan” or McKean’s covers are, then, visually different (it’d be going to far to say ‘Other,’ but one gets that sense reading through the book).
The book consists of, in equal part, Bender’s own fairly transparent summaries of each story arc or story collection in Sandman, and his interviews with Gaiman in which he asks the writer to expand on various reasons why he wrote this or that. There is also, comprising something like a tenth of the book, the aforementioned interviews and/or commentaries on other artists, including Alan Moore’s musings about a young Neil Gaiman asking for advice on how to write comics. These short sections are, however, like structural parenthesise; what’s inside them is clearly optional, not the main attraction at all.
The most interesting thing about Gaiman, as opposed to his writing, is that he is the perfect, humble, faux-bashful, rock-star for comics. He dresses in black. He’s young and bookishly cute (a fact not lost on the unprecedented 50% female readership of Sandman). He has that charming English accent that always gives the impression of intelligence and sophistication to Americans and Canadians. He loves collaborating and is quite humble about how talented all his collaborators are, but he’s also encyclopaedically knowledgeable about Sandman, quoting lines from memory (which he identifies by issue, page, and even panel position), and pointing out exactly what books he got what ideas from and why he chose them. He’s the perfect artist, in Wordworth’s sense from “The Preface to The Lyrical Ballads,” someone with a singular vision of universal humanity who then presents that vision to the world.
It’s media hogwash, of course, but it works. I don’t say that to imply a slight against Gaiman. His work is wonderful and sophisticated, and he’s quite aware of the tools and tropes he uses to screw with his readers’ heads. He’s a writer’s writer. He does his research and he has struck upon a beautiful, unique narrative voice. What’s fascinating is how he’s constructed as an author, as opposed to a writer. Larry Niven, in the forward to a book of short stories that I’ve long since lost, once said that he knew a lot of people who didn’t want to be ‘writers.’ They wanted to be ‘authors,’ they wanted to ‘have written.’ They wanted the prestige without the work.
Gaiman is a writer; there’s no question of that, but he’s been built up as the media-friendly spokesman for comics, like the all-new Stan Lee for the 21st century. Unlike Moore’s threatening spiritualism and his crazy attack hair or Ellis’ constant barrage of sarcastically-worded diatribes, Gaiman is someone you feel like you could introduce to your mum (and he would call her your ‘mum’), despite the fact that he’s also the lord-high author-god for a generation of Goths. He seems to hold the same kind of position as John Lennon. He has some things to say that are very threatening to the social order you’re familiar with, but he says it in such a charming way that it’s hard to be afraid of him for it.
And Bender’s book does everything it can to contribute to the construction of Gaiman as the Friendly-Neighbourhood Radical Comics Author. Bender doesn’t really consult any sources for his discussions other than Sandman and its author. Ironically, Gaiman cites dozens of texts he used as source material, for various kinds of mythology, for French Revolutionary history, etc. For me, there are two possible uses for this book. First, as a reference book, since it conveniently summarises each story arc/collection, and contains some quick, rather pithy remarks by Gaiman about his creation.
Second, and possibly more interestingly, as an example of how Gaiman is constructed not as an artist, but as a media personality, as a face with which many comics readers, and people who don’t read comics but did read Sandman, have a relationship. Given that Moore has no relationship with fans to speak of (he doesn’t stay in touch), and Ellis has a daily email he sends out to his, not to mention a web forum specifically set up so that we can ask him questions, the three of them might represent an interesting array of reader-artist relationships within a cultural studies framework. Do fans consider themselves consumers of a product? Does the persona of the artist have anything to do with it? Ellis constantly talks about the industry, his deliberate pricing of Fell at US$1.99 so that anyone could afford it, for example. Gaiman is perfectly willing to talk about the industry itself, but is mostly asked about the creative process, “Where do you get your ideas?” Ironically, Gaiman has only one comics creation to his name, Sandman, whereas Ellis and Moore have both written literally dozens (plural) of comics series since the 80s. The fact that Gaiman is so strongly associated with Sandmanmight have something to do with his recognisability.
Finally, I just want to note the ironic titles of a couple of non-scholarly critical texts on Sandman. Bender’s is The Sandman Companion, and it locates itself, specifically, as a book about the series. It is physically arranged to aid in your reading of the series, and it sticks to that topic. It even has a bit of Dave McKean’s artwork on the cover. This book’s innards, however, are mainly focused on Gaiman’s interpretations of his own work. Joseph McCabe’s Hanging Out with the Dream King, however, is a collection of interviews with all of Gaiman’s collaborators and has very little of Gaiman in it at all (nine pages out of 297). The content of the book, if we can extrapolate a meaning from its structure, implies that ‘the Dream King’ is the product of a collaboration between all of these artists, pencillers, inkers, letters, visual artists, other writers, etc. However, McCabe’s book has Gaiman on the cover, thus implying that he is in fact ‘the Dream King.’
Posted by orion at January 11, 2006 4:58 PM