Season of Mists

[jazzfish]

In which Morpheus goes to Hell to free his lover, and receives an unexpected gift.

• Harlan Ellison's introduction adds nothing. Oh well.
  
• Okay, it looks like I just don't like anyone's Morpheus-faces except for Sam Kieth, and sometimes Mike Dringenberg (honorable exception for Charles Vess). I can accept that. *checks wiki* I'll just spend the rest of the series grumbling that Morpheus looks wrong.
  
• This just overall feels like a Sandman story. P&N has a quest narrative that doesn't fit with the general mood, and Doll's House... it's good but it flails around a lot. Season of Mists has a coherent narrative and an appropriately mythic scope, and the telling of it feels complete and tight. Like the loose ends are deliberate choices rather than everything getting out of hand. I appreciate that a lot.
  
• I think this is the first time I've really noticed the lettering. I mean, Morpheus's white-on-black is blatant enough that you can't miss it, and Matthew the raven's caws fit him so well I hardly saw them. Here, with all the deities and entities in one place, with their varied fonts... it's a lovely effect.
  
• The various resolutions are, I think, perfectly done. The disposition of Hell, the reunion with Nala, Loki... and as I recall, Nuala the fae remains a minor character, which is nice.
  
• I wonder if Loki turns up again? I don't remember him doing so but that means very little.
  
• Now I want to reread Lucifer. Unfortunately, those trades were Emily's.

Comments

[davidgoldfarb]

First, kudos for spelling "Kieth" correctly.

I'm pretty sure that Sam Kieth had some uncredited art assists on "The Doll's House", so some of those faces you are attributing to Dringenberg may have been Kieth after all. For myself, I decided a ways in that Morpheus could have a variable appearance, so different artists making his face different was okay.

I was kind of annoyed at the way the oral tradition story about Dream and Nada passed down through generations remained accurate in every detail.

Did you notice that the green glass fragment was shaped like a heart?

Todd Klein won a bunch of awards for his lettering on Sandman, and imo all well deserved.

The plot twist when Dream arrives in Hell absolutely blew my mind. Ever after, when I thought I knew where one of Neil's stories was going, there was always that nagging doubt that maybe he had another one of those in store. A good thing.

The Learned League (an online trivia competition) had a question a little while back about where Livonia was. I got it wrong. (Not far wrong, but wrong.) Ack.