The Sandman Vol. X: The Wake by Neil Gaiman [FIRST EDITION PAPERBACK] 1997 • Vertigo

The Sandman X: The Wake by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by  Michael Zulli, Jon J. Muth & Charles Vess  [THE SANDMAN Volume #10]

FIRST EDITION [1997] VERTIGO • DC

Third printing of this Trade Paperback variant First Edition. 

Book is in excellent condition. 

Light shelf wear to cover.

Reads like new.

 ⚜︎ ABOUT THE BOOK ⚜︎

Sandman: The Wake is comprised of the last six issues of the regular Sandman comic book series. The first three cover the actual wake of Morpheus, King of Dreams. In this story within a story characters from the series meet to remember and pay their respects to the fallen immortal. In eulogies which alternate between respect, praise and villification, the Dream Lord's character is summed up and his flaws laid bare to, literally, all the world.

In the final chapter of The Wake the reader is returned to an earlier time in the saga of the Sandman, when an aging "William Shekespeare" having just completed his final play "The Tempest," commissioned at the bequest of the Dream Lord, reflects on his life, his struggles, tragedies and a bargain for greatness he made with Morpheus many years earlier. In perhaps the series' most poigniant line, a statement which ironically becomes the Sandman's own epitaph, Morpheus reveals that he made the bargain because  "...I am the King of Stories, but I have no story of my own."

Carefully balancing melancholy and tragedy with hope and determination the beautifully illustrated and even more beautifully written Sandman: The Wake stands counter to Morpheus' own words and serves as an extrodinary ending to one of the most incredible stories in the history of comics.