Quest for Christmas: The Sandman

Of all the posts, this one will perhaps be the most left of field. By itself there is absolutely nothing Christmassy about Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series. It's dark, it's moody and it's pretty graphic in places, but it's that contrast between the tone and content of the story with the usual smiles of the outside festive season that pulls me further into the world of The Sandman.

I first read the books around 7 years ago, and I have this distinctive memory of reading the first one while going out to get the Christmas tree one year.

The chapter I associate most with Christmas is also one of the nastiest. A deranged lunatic used an ill-gotten power to slowly drive the customers of a drive-thru diner to madness over the course of 24 hours and eventually they end up murdering each other. I read it just after we put the tree up so I got to experience this fun little juxtaposition wherein the story of the world is so dark, yet I was sat next to something so cheerful.


Reading that chapter now next to the warm glow of our current Christmas tree makes me feel like everything is ok in the world. I pull this book out ever other year or so and just flick through the artwork to get a sense of what I felt like when I first read it many Christmas' ago.