The Sandman

We don’t generally think of this as one of Kirby’s more notable works. When the character came back in the ’60s Earth-2 revivals, it was with the earlier gasmask costume, rather than the more conventional superhero outfit on show here. This work was just after S&K created Captain America. But it was a genuine hit – not only did it take over the cover feature of Adventure Comics almost instantly and permanently (and Adventure also featured Jack Burnley’s Starman, so it wasn’t that the rest was rubbish), it was a big enough deal that S&K got their names on the cover, which was surely the first time a publisher had given any comic creators that kind of accolade and prominence.

Obviously work that is almost 70 years old looks crude in a lot of ways today, and this was very early in Kirby’s magnificent career, but even so, you can see why this had such an impact. From the very beginning, it’s full of dynamism, with huge punches and insanely extended strides. The stories are inventive and very varied (though there are a couple in a row where the villains – Thor, then a bunch of talking animals – are obvious fakes), covering tough criminals, cunning plots, mad people, crazed scientists and more. As it moves on, sleep and dreams become major motifs, used in all sorts of clever ways. Parts of the writing are hideously overcooked in the pulpy manner of the day, but there is plenty of drama, twists and action, and the storytelling is terrific. I was particularly delighted by the introduction of a millionaire character: a quartered page, very rare then but evocative of his Thor (the Marvel one) work, with fabulous architecture and decor, telling you instantly who we are seeing in a way that all but renders the lurid captions redundant.

The inking, generally assumed to be Simon’s work, is hugely variable here: often overdone and kind of ragged, occasionally clean and sharp. I certainly associate the former with Simon, but I don’t know if the cleaner style is down to Kirby inking himself or if they were already employing others at this stage – I thought that came later, but I am no expert. I know they were very active around this time, even by their standards, the early stories overlapping with work on Cap and so on, so maybe the variability is partly down to both having a go and partly down to it sometimes being a rush job. The covers have obviously had much more care and attention, and some are inventive and absolutely magnificent – John Morrow’s intro rightly highlights #84’s grabber, with Sandman pointing out at us and saying “Nobody leave this magazine – a crime has been committed!!!”, despite some clumsy inking and dismal colouring.

After a while, there is a run of covers without stories, then #100, behind a beautiful and rather Ditkoish cover (but almost a decade before Ditko debuted), surely with Kirby-inked aliens, we get a story (with no aliens of any kind) that I am convinced Kirby had little or no involvement with – this features some genuinely terrible drawing. Were there Sandman stories in 92-97 and 101? If they were reprints of S&K stories, the covers don’t suggest that. New S&K stories, but the editors realised they had no Kirby? If so, why the hell did they think #100 was the real thing?

We close with the 1974 Sandman #1, reuniting Simon & Kirby (but with Mike Royer inking) on yet another new Sandman character, this straddling the sub-Batman superhero and the later Gaiman lord of dreams. This is completely mad, but rather spectacular.

An extra note: I was intrigued by a story centring on a man who can’t sleep. I just checked, and Lawrence Block would have been barely four when that appeared, so probably not the inspiration for his Evan Tanner series.

Anyway, yes, this is mostly of historical interest, but there is real excitement in many of the stories, and an energy in the artwork that no one else could come close to at the time.