Re:Pardon my Ignorance.... (Score 2, Interesting)

I know that this has been answered by quite a few people, but I haven't seen anyone who has mentioned this aspect of the Sandman series.

Gaiman's Sandman is all about storytelling. Gaiman used the comic to explore what exactly storytelling is and what it means to humans. This is why there's so many references to so many different mythologies (Judeo/Christian, Greek/Roman, Egyptian, Norse, etc.): because myths were the dominant way to transmit stories before the printed word was cheap.

It also explains his inclusion of two issues dealing with Shakespear. Most of Shakespear's plays are derivatives (i.e., Romeo and Juliet originates in Greek mythology, ). However, two of them, Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream, are orginal stories, which is why Gaiman chose to deal with them.

The character Sandman (i.e., Dream, Morpheus) is by his nature a storyteller. Dreams are the stories that he gives us (and cats, according to one story in the series).

So basically, the Sandman is a story about stories. At one point, just to try it out, Gaiman experimented with going something like five levels deep (i.e., you're reading a story about a guy telling a story about some people telling stories, where one person tells a story where one of the characters tells a story).

It's this investigation of storytelling that is at the core of Sandman. While I'm also a big fan of TDKR and Watchman, I have to say that Sandman has thus far been the high water mark for literature in comic form.

BTW, another, albeit less prevelant, theme of Sandman is nature of rules. Should rules be followed blindly? What are the consequences of doing so? Can making the best choices within a set of rules lead to the worst consequences? Can storytelling die?