The Dreaming (2018-) Vol. 2: Empty Shells

Riveting second parter which Sandman fans will enjoy. But don’t expect a tidy straight line of a story. If anything, the tale takes faster twists and turns than volume one. The artwork is gorgeous, the characters similarly vivid but there’s the constant dark thread of the Sandman novels lurking under every page. I loved it yet feel non fans may not be so taken - as with volume one, the headline character takes somewhat of a backseat. Roll on volume three...

Both volumes 1 & 2 are very solid rich characters, a fantasy world in chaos trying to understand what it truly is.

“The Dreaming – Empty Shells” collects issues #7-12 of this refurbished series about the Sandman’s old home.I can seldom remember what happened in the previous volume of a graphic series, but when I started reading this I felt like I was coming home to something. The opening story in the first two issues felt like I was back in the good old Vertigo days – the good books, too – so when the regular story from the previous volume picked up in issue #3, I happily went with the flow, and it STILL felt like the good old days, even though it is a completely (well…) different world and world-view, and thirty years of stuff have flown under the bridge.This is not Neil Gaiman’s comic book, but it is definitely a continuation of it, as all good comic-books are (continuations, that is), because they are part of a tradition, and good writers can take stuff from old stories and build new worlds on top of them, without having to spoil the old stuff (hey, Alan?).Just like Al Ewing has found the key to Lee-Kirby and Lee-Ditko’s worlds recently, now Simon Spurrier and the aptly-named Bilquis Evely have fond the key to Neil Gaiman’s old one, and have renovated and redecorated it to a new world of their own.