Yesterday I finally found the time to read the recently-released Sandman: The Dream Hunters # 1, the first in a 4-part miniseries in which artist P. Craig Russell adapts into full comic book form the illustrated prose novel of the same name that Neil Gaiman produced with Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano about 10 years ago. It's a testament to both the incredible quality of Gaiman's original, 75+-issue run of Sandman as well as just how much we miss it, that even a "re-telling" like this can serve as such big (and welcome) news to his fans. And indeed it is a huge, hairy deal that there's "new" Sandman material to enjoy, and I, for one, loved every panel of Sandman: The Dream Hunters # 1.
But that happy reaction isn't really what this post is about. Instead, it's the afterword that Gaiman provided for the issue, in which he admits to sending researchers on a wild goose chase when he included a faux-historical basis for the original Sandman: The Dream Hunters. He had preposterously claimed, a decade ago in the back page of that production, that the story was based on an actual Japanese folk tale, and had expected that everyone would see right through it straight away. Instead, he's had to endure 10 years of people asking him to help them find the original source material, because they're having the darnedest time locating it!
Which was pretty funny (and not the first time I'd heard the story), and put me in just the proper mindset to read this hilarious post by Eddie Campbell on his blog. I won't steal his thunder by recapping it here, but suffice to say that anyone who remembers those Sea Monkey ads from old comic books should definitely check it out. Campbell's hoax puts Gaiman's little joke to shame!
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