The Sandman: Act II by Dirk Maggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Graphic Novels Are Still Better, But-- The Sandman Act II (2021) is Dirk Maggs’ audio adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s graphic novels Season of Mists (issues 21-28, 1990-91), in which Dream tries to right a 10,000-years-old wrong done to a former lover and ends up becoming the reluctant new owner of Hell and A Game of You (issues 32-37, 1991-92), in which Barbie’s dream world begins merging with NYC, leading to some complications and adventures for her, her dream companions, and her real world neighbors. Both story arcs are moving, frightening, funny, imaginative, original, and unpredictable. Wanda is one of the first sympathetically depicted transgender characters in popular culture (though in the early 1990s Gaiman couldn’t get past biological gender as determining destiny). Before and after A Game of You come seven of the fine stand-alone short stories from Fables and Reflections (issues 29-31, 38-40, 50, 1991-93): “Thermidor”: Lady Johanna Constantine, Dream, the head of Orpheus, and Robspierre converge during the French Revolution’s Reign of Reason. “August”: Augustus Caesar does some pleasant slumming and some unpleasant reminiscing, while planning the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. “Three Septembers and a January”: Dream knows better than his siblings Despair, Delirium, and Desire what a failed entrepreneur in 19th century SF really wants. “The Hunt”: the virtues of staying with your own people in/from the old country pale for teenagers in contemporary New Jersey. “Soft Places”: young Marco Polo is lost in a desert where “the geographies of dream intrude upon the real” and meets Rusticello of Pisa--who is dreaming whom? “A Parliament of Rooks”: Cain, Abel, Eve, and a special baby enjoy a storytelling tea party. “Ramadan”: Haroun al Raschid wants to preserve Baghdad, the Heavenly City, the jewel of the Arabs, forever in dreams. The long story arcs and short stories are imaginative, funny, moving, and unpredictable and express important themes (e.g., we carry our own hell with us; we should accept people who are different from us; the world of the imagination is real). To adapt the graphic novels to a radio drama, voice actors, sound effects, and music are employed. The text is virtually identical to that of the graphic novels, the main differences being that some descriptive text, especially at the beginnings of scenes, has been added to compensate for the lack of pictures in the aural medium, as when Loki’s wife is said to be “thin to the point of emaciation” and the Perth beach on which Lucifer is reclining is described. Interestingly, some of the imagery in the audio adaptation is stronger than in the graphic novels, perhaps because of early 1990s censorship. For instance, the original picture of the total-body pierced demon of hell doesn’t reveal his pierced double penises, but Gaiman the narrator relishes relating that detail in the 2021 audiobook. Most of the voice acting is excellent: James McAvoy as dry, wry, and gloomy British Dream, Kat Dennings as perky punky American Death, Michael Sheen as jaded Lucifer, and the demons of hell, Cain and Abel, Barbie and her friends, and Eve. (I do wonder why the Aesir have Gaelic accents.) As for Gaiman as narrator, I like his manner and voice, BUT I did notice that he tends to pause oddly (almost distractingly) in places where no commas appear in the text: e.g., “since his father [pause] left the country,” “reading a tattered copy [pause] of The Scarlet Pimpernel,” and “The school [pause] is in the south of England.” There are plenty of effective sound effects: Thor smashing a boulder, Dream cutting off Lucifer’s wings, a mother bearing a baby, etc. But there is also plenty of overdone music, especially the Tim Burton movie-type synthesizer stuff that tries too hard to enhance moods and introduces each chapter. One of the most visually impressive features of the graphic novels that the audiobooks cannot approximate is the varied fonts and balloons for different characters: Desire’s erotic font, Dream’s gloomy black speech balloons, Lucifer’s elegant demonic font, the angels’ angelic cursive fonts, Delirium’s giddy colored speech bubbles and font, Matthew the Raven’s jagged caw-like font and balloons, Order’s computer font text, the “Arabic” calligraphy of “Ramadan,” and so on. Some other things are also more impressive visually than aurally, like the dramatic double page spread depicting the shattering of the Porpentine, with small figures dwarfed by a blinding blast of yellow aurora borealis and stars, or the page where a shooting star morphs into Morpheus’ eye close-up, and he’s there with Barbie et al in the Land. Some things are better left to the imagination than physically heard, as when in the original “Thermidor” the story and pictures potently evoke the strange power of Orpheus’ song, while in the audio version, we hear a Greek voice singing a timeless kind of song, but then in the conclusion it’s replaced by soaring (overdone) synth movie score music. The song in the graphic novel is more marvelous in my imagination than actually hearing it is. And *seeing* Wanda looking beautiful and natural and happy with a cheerful goth Death at the end of A Game of You moved me more than listening to the scene. A last example: all the sound effects and pseudo-Arabic music of “Ramadan” can’t approximate P. Craig Russell’s beautiful art in the graphic novel, and the ending shift to present day Gulf War ravaged Baghdad is more potent visually than aurally. All that said, imagining sublime or horrible things by hearing them described by excellent voice actors may be more affecting than seeing them depicted by mediocre graphic artists. The art quality in Season of Mists is not SO great, so some images of hell or of Dream’s castle, etc., don’t look awesome enough. Finally, both versions are excellent in their own ways. Dream’s incantatory words to unmake the Land are left to readers’ imaginations in the graphic novel, as Barbie says, “I don’t know what language the words were in, but it felt like I ought to have understood them—or rather that part of me did understand them, on some deep, buried level.” In the audio version Dream directly says, “Land, I unmake you.” It’s a powerful moment, but the graphic novel leaves more to our imagination aurally while providing much visually. As the audio version leaves more to our imagination visually while providing much aurally. Why not read the original graphic novels first and then listen to the audiobook adaptations if you want to hear a visual medium adapted into an aural one? View all my reviews
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