"Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days"

Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days (Neil Gaiman - who else were you expecting?)

A collection of short stories. Two of these tie in with Alan Moore's "Swamp Thing" run, which I admit I've never read and know nothing about; I guess Swamp Thing is a good guy, but I keep thinking he's going to go Creature from the Black Lagoon and start killing teenagers.

Anyway! The first story, "Jack-InThe-Green" has Swamp Thing tending to one of his dying friends, and then burying him. Not very exciting. Neither is the second short, "Shaggy God Stories", where a sentient tree wanders around talking to a houseplant. Not off to a good start here. The book gets more interesting if not nessessarily much better in "Brothers", where Gaiman takes a looks at "Brother Power, The Geek", a legendary, horrible-looking comic from the 60's about a doll that gets dressed up in water and blood-soaked clothes, then he gets hit by lightening and comes to life with a million swinging volts. This story is a hot mess, and I guess I applaud Gaiman for trying to do something interesting with such a ridiculous charecter, but some ephemera really are better left forgotten. (See also his attempt to rehabilitate "Prez" - the teen-age president!!!!! - in the Sandman books.)

Next up is "Hold Me", a John Constantine story where John Constantine meets a ghost who wants to hug people, and hugs him, and the ghost vanishes. It sounds about as exciting as it is. Gaiman says in his introduction that it has some of his favorite comic book art and all I can say is that it may not be faithfully reproduced here, because unless you're looking at it under a powerful light it looks horribly dark and skritchy.

The last story and as far as I'm concerned the best is "Sandman Midnight Theatre", featuring the pulpy 30's noir Sandman - a guy with a gas mask, big trench coat, fedora, and gas gun - meeting the other Sandman, the Gaiman-created embodiment of mortal dreams. Now don't get too excited - the actual meeting takes place in a two-page spread and is more of an interesting pit stop, since the Gaiman-created Sandman is currently enclosed in a glass prison that he will not escape until his own series starts proper; He actually plays no part in the story and is just a neat little cameo. With that being said the actual story itself is very interesting, and the artwork - although at times almost becoming as dark as "Hug Me" up above - is very evocative and sets the mood very well.
So "Sandman Midnight Theatre" is very good, but is it worth buying the whole book for? Probably not. Even if you're a Sandman completest, he's in the book for two pages and doesn't do anything. Interesting read for Gaiman or, I guess, Swamp Thing completionists, but otherwise you're probably safe taking a pass.

Grade: C+