Although I’ve been a long-time Twitter follower and distant admirer of Neil Gaiman’s for years, this is the first time that I have read any of his work–– or a graphic novel! Actually, I’ve skimmed through a little of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, but this was the first superhero-esque graphic novel I’ve really dived into. Anyway- both “firsts” were good ones, luckily. I read way past the 50th page of Dream Country last night, and had to convince myself to leave the end for next week. For anyone that has the glossy version of the book, can you find the page numbers??? I am lost. But maybe that’s part of the effect? Also, can anyone explain the differences between a graphic novel and comic book to me? It seems like a fine line of much contention that I’m too afraid and unfamiliar with to discern.
Like many people in class expressed (and as I would have if I wasn’t halfway in a dream country of my own this morning), I surprisingly found myself loving the stories and their formatting. I didn’t fully notice how much of the format evoked the theme and mood of the plot, such as the use of gutter spaces and jagged panel borders. I did pay attention, however, to the variety of women and female characters depicted in Sandman. The graphic abuse of Calliope was personally hard for me to endure, but I thought that the story made powerful insights into the facades and hypocrisy of male artists. The fearless mother/journeyer/prophet and preacher cat was truly an inspiring revolutionary figure. I found the kindness of Titiana (?) to Hamnet, Shakespeare’s neglected son, the most moving instance of honesty and humanity in that entire story. I am eager to see how the final fourth segment will add to this trifecta of women.
I think there are a lot of people who have little experience with comic books because they do not realize how diverse they can be. Most people just think of cheesy superhero comics aimed at children, when in fact they have the same diversity as any storytelling format in terms of their plots and audiences.
To answer your question, a “comic book” generally refers to a single issue that is just held together with staples, while a graphic novel is bound like a more normal book, and often contains many issues (sometimes as many as 48 or 60). Think of the comic book as the first edition, and the graphic novel as a reprint (though sometimes stories are never printed as comic books, only graphic novels). A lot of people just like to stick to the term graphic novel because there can sometimes be a negative association with the phrase “comic book”, but this is not always accurate.
I had not really noticed until you mentioned it, but Sandman does include an impressively diverse array of female characters. This seems to be best achieved by having Morpheus himself play a fairly minor role in these stories, only acting when he really needs to, and letting others do as much as they can. In fact, he does not even appear in the last story. It seems a bit like the Mad Max: Fury Road of graphic novels; even though that movie was named after Max, the main character was really Furiosa, the female lead who Max helps.