Endless: A Sandman Podcast

Welcome to Endless, the Sandman podcast from Chipperish Media. I'm story expert, and Roger Bacon's mechanical head Lani Diane Rich.

And I'm writer, erstwhile DC comics editor, and raven of action Alisa Whitney today on Endless, we're going to be talking about chapter one of Season of Mists issue 22 from the Sandman comic book series.

Sandman issue. 22 was written by Neil Gaiman, drawn by Kelley Jones and Malcolm Jones III. Colored by Steve Oliff and lettered by Todd Klein. This issue was edited by Karen Berger assisted by Tom Pyre. Cover by Dave McKean.

They were all agreed on one thing. This was as bad as it got it. Couldn't get any worse time to wake up.

We begin with a quick tour of. Then pay a visit to Lucien's library where Lucine is shelving new additions and Matthew the Raven is doing his best Peter Lorre impersonation. Morpheus summons the pair to the great hall where all the Dreamings denizens are gathered. Dream gives a deeply felt complete recital of his wrongdoing against Nada followed by a vow to do whatever is necessary to rectify that wrong.

He explains that he will be absent on a diplomatic mission to hell. And that if there is a repeat of the kind of renegade nightmare shenanigans that occurred last time he was absent, he would be most displeased. He makes it clear that this visit could end in his imprisonment. And that Lucifer is far stronger than he.

In hell, two demons alert Lucifer that an envoy has arrived from the Dreaming. Any other emissary would have surely had their face eaten by the enthusiastic Mazikeen, but Cain marked by God is protected and conveys his message that the dream king is on his way. Lucifer who was embarrassed by Morpheus during his last visit is pleased as punch that he will have the chance to destroy Dream. Dream pays two visits, one to Hippolyta Hall and her week old son gestated in dreams. Lyta, terrified and furious tries to chase Dream away, but he touches the baby on his forehead like Samuel the prophet and tells her the baby's name is Daniel. 'God is my judge' in Hebrew. The second visit is to Hob for a drink just in case Dream says he cannot make their usual appointment.

In hell, Lucifer torments Cain with a hellish tour. And gloats with anticipatory glee over his foes demise and then Cain returns and Sandman takes his leave of Cain and Lucien, fully aware that he is taking a journey from which he is not likely to return.

All right, Alisa here we are Sandman a Season of Mists chapter one. We're getting into the story, but first, before we get started, I want to talk to our listeners a little bit. Alisa and I are both in, like, times of like huge amounts of stuff going on. So I just wanted to remind you all that on occasion, an episode will not drop. Like last Tuesday, we just were not able to get together in time to do it and so we just didn't drop the episode. So when a week skips, there's nothing wrong with your feed. It is that we just didn't get to it, but we are working to do this every week as we can, sometimes we can't. So I just wanted you guys to be aware of that and to moderate your expectations accordingly.

Actually, it's a really subtle plot because we are with this random reinforcement of reward we're making you even more addicted. No, that's, I'm just kidding.

That is not our intent, but it is a nice side effect. All right. So Alisa, Sandman Season of Mists, Chapter One, what's your overall response to this issue?

I really love what this issue does and what this issue is because it really establishes the stakes for this journey, the emotional stakes, and also the life or death-ness stakes, and reminds us about why we should care. It's the bit that's left out of all modern disaster films. But if you go back to the 1970s before all the action in mayhem, there's always, you know, we get to see, oh, look the store. This is having an affair. And she really hopes that the pilot will leave his wife. Oh, look, the wife is drinking heavily and she's miserable because she's suspect something is up and you start to care about everyone.

And this issue also kind of toggles between humor and and drama. A flavor I particularly love, but the cool thing, as you know, we'll talk about this more is this, this was not necessarily Neil's master plan for, for how the pacing of this storyline would go. But I think it works really well. How about you?

I like it, this is a preparation for the journey story where we're on a quest and we're going through this like mythical progression, this hero's journey where we start by preparing for the journey and anticipating what will come. And of course, dream is going through to everybody being like, Hey, just wanted to let you know.

I might die. I might legit bite it doing this thing that I'm going to do. But I love that it comes with, you know, this acknowledgement of the people that dream feels important enough to, to receive a goodbye, including the Paula hall and her son, Daniel, which we will be talking about in a little more detail, because I was very angry about that.

I've kind of changed some of my feelings about that, that situation. I like that. He's preparing everybody for the eventuality that he might not come back. I love that he's like no more bullshit shenanigans, seriously. I like that, you know, he talks about about if he comes back, you might be in a different form and that you should, it's both him and not him because he's like, you should treat me and make it an easy adjustment, but also, you know, so he's preparing them for all of that.

But I also like the confession. I like the, he is sitting down in front of everybody and saying, this is where I done fucked up and I'm going to go make it right. And this is more important than this stuff that I do, which is hugely important. And he goes to see these people acknowledging the importance of that friendship, acknowledging the importance of Daniel, the baby, acknowledging the importance of hub.

There is something ritualistic. In this issue in this preparation for the hero's journey. And I'm really, I enjoy that element. I usually am like, all right, let's get going. Let's tell the story, let's move, but I'm actually really enjoying this because what it does, right. It sets up the stakes, it sets up, you know, what this journey means and how incredibly important it is and how seriously dream takes that he done fucked up, you know?

So yeah, all of this stuff I'm really, really enjoying. I am very excited to see where season of miss goes. So as you're, you're saying this. I'm realizing that this story works two ways because it's the beginning of a storyline, but in terms of the overall arc of the Sandman, we're not at the beginning, beginning.

And I had these associations that what he does is similar to what in romance, Landia is called the grovel. Maybe, I don't know. Can you describe the gravel for our listeners who might not be familiar with romance? Yes, the grovel is a trope. And a trope is basically just a repeated, you know, writing device, storytelling element and people go back to tropes for a reason.

Tropes in and of themselves are not bad. I explain all of that in my book, how story works. So go grab that if you want to learn more about stories, but basically what the trope is, the gravel trope is somebody does something terrible that it causes usually in the second act, this disillusion of the relationship they break up.

And then the person who did the terrible thing realizes that they did a terrible thing, realizes what they have done and goes back to the offended party and begs and begs for them to take them back. I know what I did wrong. I am so, so sorry. And they bake for them to take them back. It's a begging for forgiveness.

But usually in romance, the gravel is not just about forgiveness. And please forgive me and I'll go about my business and leave you alone because I still don't deserve you. The romance grovel is about, please forgive me and take me back because I cannot live without you. And it has, I would say probably like a 30% success rate as far as how it plays for readers.

But I forgiveness Gras. You know I think is, is probably a little more effective than a forgive me and take me back into your bed please. Now grovel, because the forgiveness gravel is I am going to lower myself and try to make things right, because I know I did wrong and I don't deserve you. And the police take me back in your bed.

Gravel has some selfish overtones that don't really feed into the proof of love that you need in a good romance story. I mean, yes. Yes. I also think like Tessa Bailey does a good grovel and it's usually followed by either the hero or the heroine taking lots of actions to. You know, to show this contrition.

And I've just been thinking in two ways that this works one is that we, once again are having a lot of sympathy and empathy with Morpheus instead of him being autocratic and kind of asshole ish, suddenly we're, we're feeling for him and the risks he's taking, but it also sets him up nicely so that you don't just hate him as he goes to re-address this, this wrong with nada, because if we hadn't had this issue, you know, it sort of desperate desire told Morpheus that he'd been an asshole and then he was defensive.

And when death said, DOE desire has a point it's still, it was still an external motivator. This is where he kind of really owns it and says, I, you know, this was my doing, this is my, he, you know, he he's digested that criticism. Which is very important and the confessional going in front of everybody, God, and everybody, and saying, I done fucks up Murph pumpkin big deals, especially, especially for somebody like, like dream.

But before we get too deep into the story elements of chapter one let's go ahead and discuss the cover art. Once again, here we go. Celebrating. This is our, our moment of McKean that we have every week because the, the artwork is always so deep and there's so much there. And it's really, really fun to kind of like, I honestly spent probably as much time diving down this cover rabbit hole that I'm going to go into in a minute as I did with everything else this week in the, in the in the show notes.

But anyway, so from Dave McCain's dust covers, he said, I forget why nada was on the cover of this chapter, probably because she wasn't inside. So that identifies the face that's on the cover, which is this this image of a face very tight within the square. As a matter of fact, that square like cuts off the top of the head a little bit.

We've got purple-ish red Hughes, which are reminiscent of bruises. Right, which is like what's left over after something offensive has occurred. Right? Her eyes are blank and white, no pupils, no irises, nothing. Just this blank stare. And the, the purple square itself is inset on old yellowed paper with German, text art all over the place.

Now, before I go in. To my crazy rabbit hole that I fell down this morning. Let's go ahead and talk about this cover a little bit. How do you feel about this cover? What did you, what did it evoke for you? You know, I think it evokes a feeling of, of someone haunted and a bit lost and. If it weren't for the cover.

And I have to say that I, I, I think I didn't take as long as you did this time and looking at the cover and I wasn't completely sure who it was, you know, but that haunted loss now that I'm knowing that it's not I feel that it really brings her out of just being an object of a quest, just a grail that doesn't really signify and it grants her more personhood.

And it reminds me that when it comes to modern art and contemporary art, we often have to supply some of that context that it's, you know, the, it enriches it when you are able to, to dig deeper and to know these things, I used to go to museums and say, you know, oh, well, I don't really know how to look at modern art or contemporary art.

And I think it was only in the past five years that it occurred to me. Well, this is not. Permanent condition. I can always D ignorant to find myself and, and I, you know, and I discovered that abstraction. I think we talked about this way earlier that abstraction was partially a response to the world wars to world war one, to world war II in the use of, of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction.

And it was a way of saying that that innocent way of looking at the world is no longer enough to convey the fracturing and the loss. And so I guess that. Part of me, that's thinking that that is part of what this abstraction might be about, but I am most excited to hear about your deep dive, because before we sat down to her car, she said to me, Lisa, I've gone on a very deep dive.

And I have to say that deep dives of research are just my favorite thing. So yeah, it's so delightful and such a fun experience. Well, okay. I was looking at this cover. Right. And the thing is that we've got not a, you know, inside this, this purplish red box. Right. And, and so constricted, like her whole face can't even fit in it.

So there's that sense of claustrophobia, but there's also all this text, like old, you know, medieval look in, you know, calligraphic, I guess is a word text. And I was like, I wonder what that text is from, you know, so anyway, my first stop was to just do a quick Google search on the Sandman cover for this and be like some fan somewhere has figured this out and it'll be two seconds and then I'll be able to draw on all of their hard work and get it.

So I did a search and I was shocked. I have literally never found myself in a position where I'm the first person to ask a question. You say, you're like that kid that goes strolling down the beach and finds like, you know, a complete, you know, buried city or dinosaurs.

Well, I have to say, as soon as I found out that nobody on the internet had answered this question, I was like, well, I have to figure it out. So I started looking at the words, but the thing is that, like, I couldn't see them clearly enough. So I took a picture. I have the dust covers book. So I took my camera.

I took a picture. And then within my photo app, I blew it up. So I could try to read all these words and they were, I know just enough about German, like seriously, just enough, you know, it's basically Zen Titan, that's it to figure out that it was German. Right. So we can concentrate is enough German to figure out that this is German.

I guess, I mean, like, basically, really when I think about it tonight is basically the only German word I know. And it's funny cause I come from like German stock, so like, yeah, it's, it's, it's nuts. I don't know anything in German. So anyway, I started like trying to pull out the words that I could read, but I mean, between the fact that a, I don't know, German and B, I don't know how to read, you know, medieval calligraphy, which is, you know what this is.

I pulled out a couple of words that I thought might be a thing. I put them into Google translate. I'm like, oh, this means, I guess, horse or something or whatever. And then I put those few words in and it led me to Chaucer's the Reeves tale, but that wasn't, it, it was a dead end. And I was like, oh no, I found it and I am going to okay.

Anybody out there who knows German, here's what I want. I will put this in the show notes, and then I want you to like like read this for me and actual German because the way I'm going to say it is going to be completely unknowable. The source is digress, collected wound, tales, dirt days, Lovekin stride, Barton and London health, and Richers torn docs.

So don't take this way. A really bad, terrible. Oh, I wasn't even trying. That is a lady from New York state trying to read German very, very terribly. That was horrible and offensive to anybody who knows German. And I apologize. But what it, what it basically translates to as far as I can tell is the secrets and part of the stories of the commendable and highly acclaimed hero and night to Turin docks by the holy Roman emperor.

Maximillian one printed in 1517, the Nobel torn doc. This is what, okay. This is the mix of my Google translate skills and the words that I could not figure out that were in German. Let me just, let me just, I think it's what he has. I just think that the C K H thing is like Toro does. You got it? Yeah, probably.

Probably. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm very bad at this. So there's a point where I'm not sure. I think like for me, usually I will err, on the side of. I'm doing it wrong because it's more genuine to reflect my actual ignorance than try to do something that I have. Absolutely no idea how to do. So I do apologize to anybody who's offended by that.

No way, but an attempt is an attempt to acknowledge and own my own. I am way out of my ch and a bunch of things you can do. Okay. I can just clear my throat on it. It'll be fine. All right. The noble torn doc guts, vine F. On a mediocre play and alone, blah, blah, blah, something fine. Live white. That was all I could get can get anything else.

But it led me to Sotheby's that has a, a copy of this on sale for about 43,000 pounds or thereabouts. And here's the description. This is one of three works commissioned from the leading artists and scholars at the time by the emperor Maximillian to glorify himself and his reign. The story tells of the.

The word, Inc, which is now that I've got an English like expression of the name, the third anchor trials on his journey to claim his bride representing Maximilian's marriage, to marry a burgundy by which the Habsburgs came into possession of the rich lands of burgundy. The first edition was issued in probably 300 paper copies and around 40 copies on vellum for distribution by the emperor and not all of these contain the Clavis or key to the illustrations.

They've got all the details and information really, really interesting, but I did not stop there. Oh no, I did not. The description had the English spelling of the name. And when I searched on that, I discovered it's Maximillian story. Although it is said to be fictional and probably a lot of it is fictional and tour dank, roughly translated or tore dot dunked.

Whatever roughly translated is noble Knight. So Wikipedia says it is the story of the noble Knight who goes out to rescue princess Erin rank, which is Marriott burgundy, but must go on a crusade before he can marry her. So seems on theme, which makes me think that Dave McKean deliberately chose this obscure medieval text about a noble Knight going to save a princess that that's why he decided to use it on the cover.

And I find that fascinating. I still have not found. A, like a literal translation of the section of text on the cover that I was like, where he's he uses a mediocre plate for something like, I haven't been able to figure out like, find that I was, I was interrupted by the fact that the time came for us to actually record this thing.

But it was so fun doing this. And I am dying to ask Dave McKean about this, about like, was this deliberate? W how did you know about this medieval texts? Like where did you encounter it and what made you think about using it here to kind of use it as an analogy for dream going to save nada? I have a million questions, you know, and I just want to say that we, we just are going to have to assume, you know, that, you know, when you're in a relationship with someone for a long time, friendship, romance, whatever, and you're like, Hey, remember that time.

And they look at you blankly, and then there comes that moment when they say yes, I think I do. And you know, so it's, it's possible of course, that this has been lost to the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. And I, you know, I forgot to say also. Neil had had said in a couple of places that he always misremembered that quote as a, of a season of mellow fearfulness.

And so I think sometimes of course there's the value of, of misremembering, but yes, I'm dying. We, we must talk. I did have a conversation with Dave so I can, I can bring little insights. Maybe I'll save some of that for Lucian's library section. But I want to say that your deep dive has already made this.

Now, one of my favorite episodes to do with you, because that's so cool. I love so fun to find it. When I found it, I felt such this like victory and that's the fun of research, you know? It's like you find these little things and it really opens up a whole, the space for you. And the fact that you found it, like the kid on the beach, Hey, what's this sticking up under my tub.

Exactly. But but let's, let's also talk about the interior art a little, because I found cool stuff about that. So you know, when Kelly Jones who's, who's the illustrator here is going to town on all of these Denisons of hell Denison's in hell, just cause I don't know. Do you say Denison's of anywhere else?

It's always denizens of hell. No, pretty much just how. Well, anyway, he, in the, in the script notes, Neil had some very specific suggestions. One was, he said to look at Joel, Peter Wiccans book of, of artistic photography, gods of earth and heaven. And let's see. And I think now I think that one of them was the invention of milk and a more, and there were some others.

So some of those monsters and monstrous critters that we see beginning were inspired by this book of both beautiful and and freakish I, that's probably not the right word to use anymore, but I think it was sort of embracing and playing with the whole idea of monstrosity and eroticism and venturing into the realms of taboo.

So that's that's one of the. The things that I thought was very cool. There is so much specificity in the, in the art descriptions. And I, I thought it was really interesting. One of the comments that Neil made is that, you know, he had really liked how CRISPR chollos interpretation of the sand man's helm had had a bony or more vertebrae look.

And it's, if you look at the evolution of the salmon's helm in the series, it starts out being more gas masky gas mask, adjacent, and becomes more and more for typically. Ha yeah. And it kind of has a feel like those medieval plague, mass doctors, man, the plague masks, it's half plagued, mass calf, you know, alien creature that's attached to your face.

And I think that he really wanted Kelly to push it even further in that direction. And clearly Kelly has And another thing that Kelly pointed out in his notes and high benders book is that he deliberately, because this is a very still and talky issue. So he really is drawing sand man's Cape as if it's alive and it's ripples and florals are meant to evoke his interior emotion.

So his it's like, we all have a tail. And so the way Kelly has drawn Sandman, his cloak is his tail, which I think is very cool. Oh God, I love that. Yeah. The artwork in the. Was kind of astounding to me that when, you know, every, every week we pick our favorite page and I struggled, you know, cause there were so many different things that were done in.

And, and the thing is that it's, it's all different kinds of styles, but every page had such harmony. And that's one of the things that I really love about the way comic books are done is that there's, there's the panels and everything, but there's always a consciousness of how each of those panels plays in the page in the moment of story that is happening and how they all work together.

So a panel, maybe a panel or whatever, but it's, it's part of this page. It's part of this whole, you know, movement of story and it's such. A unique expression of story that I think only happens. I mean, you know, film and TV are visual media, but they work differently. There's something about the ways in which the art has its own visual harmony and the way it has its own kinetic CISM, as it moves through the story itself, it does feel the art in this story feels to me like dream moving through people's dreams, you know, to get somewhere.

And it's just, it's such an incredibly effective and, and wonderfully evocative expression of the story. And I. Absolutely love it. But one of the things, of course we love is Lucy library, you know, and all of these stories that were dreamed, but not written. And they end up being kept in his library and a section of his library.

He also has the real books, the books that were published and experienced by everybody, but he has all the dreams too. And and I see in our notes here that you have a couple of, of entries for Luciens library. I love the fact that, you know, in the script Neil does, and I, you know, I forgot to actually compare the art to the script to see how many were were illustrated.

And, but I think Laura had done sunny and I'm suddenly spacing on Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle, Conan, Conan, Arthur, Arthur, Conan, Doyle and oh God, there were, there were a bunch of other titles and then these wonderful, I think there was another Lovecraft. Casula you know, son of Gulu, not Senator through a lupus holiday or something like that.

It was something yeah. Springtime for good food. So I was thinking, okay, let's let me think. And and we had talked a bit about like, what titles would you add? So my father went to science fiction convention. My father, the was the science fiction writer, Robert Checkley. So he went to this big science fiction convention in 68 and he was carrying a portable typewriter and his manuscript to what was according to him and my mom.

It was sort of, they, they, he thought it was the best book he ever wrote. It was a little leaving straight science fiction, more into maybe Kurt Vonnegut, territory of literary science fiction. And it was called LA. And this, the typewriter was stolen. And along with it, the only copy of the book. So I thought, okay, lotta by Robert Shaklee, then there's Olivia Goldsmith who people know.

Romantic, I would say social satirist. She did, you know, a lot of revenge of the first wives kind of books and all her characters, you know, played around with plastic surgery, but unfortunately she died at 54. So I think her, did she die while getting plastic? Yes. Wasn't that the story with that?

So I want her book revenge of the wrinkled ladies. And and finally my, my thought was, you know mark Twain famously said about Jane Austin, that if she weren't already dead, it'd be necessary to club her with her own shinbone until she was dead. And and so I thought Austin and Twain a love story by Nora Ephron.

Like the movie. I would be so into that. That sounds wonderful. The only one I came up with was a reader. I left him by Charlotte Bronte because Rochester is nuts and yeah, Jane Eyre is a mess. It's just like, I mean, it's, it's a classic piece of literature and as literature, it is very interesting as a romantic story kind of scary.

So anyway, yeah, I would like to see that story when she wakes up and just goes elsewhere. But another thing with getting back to Sandman seasonal Ms. Chapter one actually I have, I've changed my mind a little bit as we go through this story. I, when, when dream said to Hippolyta hall that this is my baby and I will be back to take him I was personally like, oh, bite my ass.

I was very much with with Lita on that. But when he goes back to see her now, And to say goodbye to the baby and to say goodbye to her. He's no, he's not really, I, I would say a lot more gentle with her. He's like, I'm here, let's just deal with it. Like you can be upset or whatever, but I'm not concerned with how you feel about this, you know, but at the same time it felt to me, like I understood, you know, because he was talking about how this child was, you know, just stated in dreams, right.

And that his sense of responsibility toward this child Is it about the fact that this is a kid that was, was conceived in dreams, conceived in the dreaming. And so he has a responsibility for this kid and this kid is going to need him. And so I felt, it felt more to me like less, like he was like, I'm gonna take your son away because I've decided this kid is mine.

And more of, I have a responsibility to this kid and I am failing in my ability to explain that to you. So he's still screwing up. He's still being a jerk, but like I understand that relationship a little bit more in that he cannot just let this kid, you know, with roam free without the guidance that this child will probably need, because there is going to be something special about this kid.

I, I think you're right. And I think there's this for me, having gone to a traditional Hebrew school, there's this very strong resonance with the story of the prophet Samuel. So I'm sound. In fairytales and in the Bible, all the wonderful heroes are not born out of a typical pregnancy. So either the mother has trouble getting pregnant often it's just, the mother can't get pregnant.

So you think about snow white and thumb Belina and that whole idea of somebody who wants a baby, but can't through the normal course of things, have a baby. And so magic has to intervene. And and so Samuel's mother, this feels a little off the chorus here, but Samuel's mother is crying and upset.

The high priest thinks she's drunk and she explained she really wants a baby. And he says, go, you will have a baby, but you have to bring him to be raised in the high priest's house. And you know, and I think about that whole idea that. As a kid, I think I interpreted he was just being an asshole, but I seem to have said the word asshole so many times during this PO I have to stop.

I have to find another word, but now I think it's one of my favorite words I say, go for it. But if you feel like you want to, you know, I just feel we're including, you know, the, the, the highly functional and important body part that it is. But anyway, I yeah, so I think that there's a point that you're, you're looking at where it's not necessarily that this being is in power and saying, this is my choice.

It's more, I am articulating for you, something that exists and is a fact. And I have, you know, and I'm bringing it to your awareness, not choosing it. And this, now that I'm saying that out loud, there's so much about choice in this. There is a lot about choice in this issue, but back to quickly your, your story you know, you're not going too far off the beaten path when you bring in the stories of the world and of people, right?

Because everything that gaming does again, is pulled through the centuries. Like every part of the pig, like he goes in and not just the comic book pig. Can't talk about the pig. We're talking about the old Testament. There we go. Say every part of the gut, we can do that now, but when you're doing work with.

With something like this, with stories like this, that pull from mythology and, and, you know, stories and places. I think that everything then that comes deeply from the stories that we pass from generation to generation, these stories that have become basically the core of our spiritual existence, whether or not we are religious, they are the core of our spiritual existence.

I don't think there's anything that's irrelevant. And I love that you bring that perspective into these stories because those are old stories that really do have deep, deep meaning. And I think that they absolutely apply to everything that we talk about here. So please, I would love to encourage you to bring those stories in whenever you've got them, because I love love going off on those kinds of tangents.

But one of the things of course that I want to talk about with regards to this is something that I talk about on listening to eight holes, which was the Marvel podcast that I did with the super hero scholar, Joshua Unruh. One of the things that I learned is that our superhero stories tend to be very much about identity, right?

You've got Tony Starkey, you've got Ironman, you've got these two identities and you're trying to figure out where they merge what they are. And who is he when he is each of those things? I think that there is there's a huge I don't want to say obsession, but like fascination with identity. In like the superhero genre, which is a lot of where comics started out in this like super hero space where we're talking about identity.

And what I find really interesting is that even as we move over into this more fantastical horror type space in these comics, we're still having a lot of identity stories, which I think are really interesting. We have this moment with Lucianne where he says, I am the keeper of the library, Matthew, without.

I am nothing where it to be destroyed again, it would destroy me as well. Right? So we have this sense from Lucien that if that there's something that's staked, not just for dream, you know, but for him as well, that, that if things go bad, if wild shenanigans should happen in Morpheus, his absence there's a real risk for Lucy and not just losing his livelihood in his work, but his own existence, his own identity.

And there is this sense of the, the sloughing off of identity and how that transforms. And yet doesn't transform. We have from dream where he's talking about going to, to hell. If I am destroyed, another aspect of dream will fill my shoes. So just talking about another aspect of dream as though it's not him, but then he says, right, immediately afterwards, I trust you all will make my re assumption of the role, an easy one.

So it is both him and not him. It is Dr. Right. It's Dr. Dream, you know he is himself and yet not himself. He is himself and yet a a transformed version where he has some of the same essential things, but is, is something new is something else. I also find it really interesting that we've gotten to the endless can die, but they can't, but it appears they can die, but they can't end.

And what does that mean? Right. And you think is that how delight became delirium? Did she die? You know, and death, as a concept of transformation is a very old idea and present in the death card, in the Tarot. The death card of the Tarot does not mean you're bad to get hit by a bus. It means that that things are better.

That's the tower

...huge transformative thing. Oh, the tower is the metaphor. We gotta have a whole Tarot conversation I'm telling you. I don't know if that's true. I, I, it's been a long time since I dabbled in Tara. Oh, I've got a whole thing with the tower. We will talk, we will talk, I wrote an entire book about the, what it means to be towered as in that concept with the with the Tarot

it's really, really fun. But anyway, so when the new dream comes in that will they be an evolution of. Changing the very nature of the dreaming, like what would happen? I presume we never find out, but I think it's an interesting question. And by having dream presenting this hypothetical about how things may be, if he does not come back it does, it gives us a little more of that.

World-building yeah. You know, I, I think that, well, I react to this in a different way now than I did years ago, because now I see that over time you really do change. And I think whatever, the economic incarnation of Alisa that was, you know, assistant editor and later editor at DC in my twenties and thirties is both me and not.

Yeah, absolutely. It is both you and not you. And if you think about that, like, you know, I think about my kids and like the toddler, that was my daughter who is now in college and going off and doing her own thing. That toddler does not exist, but my daughter does. So what is it that makes the essence of my daughter?

What is it that makes the essence of that toddler, how is the same essence of a person so completely transformed? And that is a death process and we have all been through that death process multiple times in our lives. And it's, it's just, it's always really interesting idea to me. And so to bring that into dreams, personal identity story, as he moves through this, that even if he comes back as dream as.

I believe that in this process, even if he survives and isn't taken away and it doesn't have to come back in a new type of dream, that he will essentially be transformed, that this is a death story for him, that he is going into the other world and going through that death process and being transformed by it.

That is my expectation of season of miss have not read it yet. And I'm very excited. The last identity story that we have here, a little bit of identity story is with Kane. He comes in and Lucifer immediately identifies him as the first man born of woman protected from death by the only being more powerful than Lucifer, which is, you know, God.

Right. But now for. To commit murder over and over and over again, because let's not forget when I first read this, I was reading Cain as Abel, because he was afraid because he was cowering. And because he was in the position that Abel usually is right. And Abel is in that position because of Kane. Kane is a murderous son of a bitch, but he comes in here, he's in hell, he's scared.

And the abuser becomes the abused and immediately breaks down. Not to mention the fact that nobody touched him. Like, I mean, aside from the fact that like, you know, Lucifer for flew around holding him by his hair, which I'm sure was on. Yes unpleasant, but nobody killed him. Nobody beat him. Nobody did the horrible things that he does to able on a daily basis.

Right. And here he is cowering and crying and all of this stuff, and I'm looking at him and I'm like, abusers, there you go. Like just cowards to the one, you know? And I do wonder, I highly doubt it, but I do wonder if this experience is going to change Kane's behavior with Abel. If it's going to change the way that he deals with Abel, or if he is he going to be kinder to able, I have a feeling that's probably not going to be something that we see on the page.

But I'd like to. And at any rate, there is a certain amount of justice of karma in Kane having this experience after what he does to able on a regular basis. It's interesting because as you're talking, I'm thinking about how Cain and Abel like dream and death are they're archetypal beings. So in Hebrew Cain's name is Kane, which is, I think a spear and Abel's name is avail, which is grief.

And so it's, if you, if this is in your language, it's like we call our older son spear and our younger one grief wonder what's gonna happen. And I, you know, I, and I've heard some people say like, careful, if you call your dog, low-key, don't be surprised if it turns out to be, you know, kind of a. Trickster because dogs sort of take on the attributes of their name.

And I was thinking I was listening to one of Glen's drinking podcasts, this, yes, Glen McDorman who is one of the hosts of hanging out with a dream king, which is a Neil Gaiman podcast, not just salmon, but they are talking about salmon now from clay temple media, and you were on his show recently, everybody should go out and listen to that.

It's a really, really fun. It was wonderful to listen. Oh, thank you. Well, Bring myself to listen to my episode. I know it's really hard. I'm going to, I just, sometimes it feels like a lot to listen to your voice because if you say something stupid there's no taking it back now. But so I listened to the following episode which was I think the title was something like October's turn in the chair and it was a deep dive into this story of Neil's where there are these gathering of, of 12 in a Grove of trees.

And they each have, you know, October, November, December, and and so they are both beings and they are all saying. Presumably the months of the year. And I think that there is something lovely about that way that, you know, Neil plays with, you know, the anthropomorphization of, of things. And it makes you think about that relationship between task and identity when you're the mother of a young child, that very much informs your identity.

If you happen to be the month of October, that would have a lot to do with, you know, your sense of self as well. Yeah. All right. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about in this story which was really a moment that, that hit me was this confession. Right. This confessional moment for dream, when he is, he seems like ordinarily like keep yourself to yourself, kind of guy, you know, dream does to have him stepping up in front of everybody and confessing his sins.

You know, and, and the thing is that there is, there's a real value to that. I mean, part of that, like, you know, it goes to like the Catholic tradition of, you know, confession, it speaks to a therapy and the way that therapy works, that you, you speak your issues, you address them consciously you shine, light on your shame.

And the thing is, is that shame cannot survive empathy. It cannot survive empathy. If you speak your shame and someone gives you empathy, I get that from Bernay brown, highly recommend all of her work fabulous. Her 10th anniversary book yesterday. Yes, it's fabulous. It's fabulous. The gifts of imperfection, that one, I just bought that really, really great.

She's got fabulous work, but one of the things that she says is that shame can not survive empathy. And so by speaking your shame by shining light on it and somebody else showing empathy for whatever that is, that is a healing process. That is part of why confessional, you know, works so well. That is why confession works so well.

So here we have, you know, dream taking part in this, this very ancient ritual built of knowledge from human beings that that to speak your shame gives you a place to go to resolve it, you know? And so like, I love this whole thing that he understands what he did wrong. He is stating what he did wrong, which by the way, for anybody who is in a position where you need to apologize, and many of us.

Are in that position all the time. Right? Because we make mistakes. We're human. This is the process, right? You look at what you did. You acknowledge that you did it specifically you state. Yes. This is the thing that I did. You state why it was wrong. And then you go about your business promising that you will try to do better next time.

Right. You know, that you will learn from this experience and try not to repeat it. And so here we have dream in this highly, you know, formal ritualized space, you know, the leader of this, this space, this dreaming this country, you know can you imagine getting a genuine, heartfelt understanding of what they did wrong apology and promise to fix it from a politician?

I mean, good. Right. But there is something about this, which it, it serves on a number of levels. There's the, the ritual nature of it, this sense of confessing. There's also the statement, the clear statement of here's my goal. Here's why I'm doing this. This is the launch of the hero's journey. Okay.

So I have this probably inappropriate association right now, but as we were saying this at this particular point in history, prince Andrew has just there's a civil law case against him in, in an American court. And he has just been stripped of all his military honors and the styling, his Royal Highness.

So, so far he has been completely defending himself. Do you think it would have been better for him if a year ago, whenever he had that sit down interview, he said I did something truly wrong and I can never atone for, you know, would, if he had a toned would that have been. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if he's, he wouldn't have had the consequence, you don't atone and apologize to avoid consequence, consequences, consequences going to happen.

You would tone and apologize because you've done. And you want to acknowledge that you've done harm so that the people that you have harmed can heal and move on, and then that's the purpose of it. So a genuine apology and that's, you know, we go back to the grovel trope, right? The, the benefit of the, like the, the genuine grovel is one in which there is nothing like the, the person groveling has already lost what they're going to lose.

Right. They're not getting it back, but they apologize anyway, cause they know it's wrong. And here we are, you know, with, with dream apologizing or trying to explain what he did wrong and why he's going to the people, the person who was harmed by this is not in his audience, but he is stating I know what I did.

Here's what I did. Here's how I'm going to fix it. And he's not expecting anything. He's still going to have to live with the consequences of what he did. And you have to live with the consequences of what you did. It's done the harm is done. Right? So I think that Andrew, I'm not apologizing, not acknowledging.

I don't know that it would have gotten him a lesser consequence. It shouldn't, but he should have done it anyway. He should have how you grow as a human. That's how you grow as a human, you, you screw up, you harm people, but then you make it right. You know, I think it would have helped his reputation.

Infinitesimal amount. Oh, I think it would, yeah. I made it would have helped. Like we would probably respect him. It's a tiny bit more, you know? But the, the thing is that the benefit that he would have to himself is within his soul. Right? Because like the thing is, is that everybody carries around the bad shit they do with them.

You carry that around inside of you. So there is no such thing as no consequence when you harm people, you carry that around inside of you. And eventually that bill is going to come due. It'll come due on the day. When you go to have a banquet with your family and your sister sits your ass down and says, Hey, right.

And then the weight on your soul, if you did not consciously acknowledge it before is there and you have to make it right. And the fact of the matter is that eventually we all have to make things right. Eventually we have to do battle with ourselves and what we've done. Prince Andrew's heartfelt confession is one of the books in Luciens library, never to be written, but perhaps perhaps dreams.

All right. So I think we are ready for Lucy ans library heads up, everybody. This might be a little bit spoilery, but this is where we get deep into the background of everything. So go ahead and take us into Lucien. Ah, let's see. Well, one of the things that I touched on a little earlier is that this was not an issue that was originally part of Neil's master plan.

And I, and again, this is before my time, so I delved into a high benders book too. And so originally. Neil was just wanting to go ahead and have this issue be filled with the content that is now going to be in the following issue. But Karen said you have to slow down because there's a big hierarchy of hell takeover, a situation going on in another book called the demon written by another British author, Alan Grant, and Neil was initially giving some pushback.

He thought that this was silly and, you know, comic book continuity was not his first religion. And I think he, you know, kind of ticked Karen off a bit and he didn't want to do what he was thinking of as filler issues. And she pushed back against his pushback and he apologized and went ahead and wrote this.

This, you know, I think really wonderful issue that enhances rather than detracts from the E you know, the, the saga overall. And it reminded me that Donald Moss has written a bunch of books about writing and writing the best seller. And he has a category. He calls scenes, summaries and postcards, and I always thought this was really interesting.

So to him a scene is obviously, you know, unified in action. Usually one location, a summary is how you cover a lot of time quickly and Conflate a bunch of things and make the time pass. And a postcard is a moment in which nothing much happens that moves the plot forward, but you staying still and doing a deep dive into the character's thoughts, emotions and reflections on their situation.

And so in a book like all the light, we cannot see, there are a lot of pros, postcards moments where the plot isn't chuntering along, but we're taking a deep dive into the situation and. It can be easy to think of those as moments in which nothing happens. And I think that it is maybe more of a hallmark of literary fiction or psychological fiction.

You also get a lot of it in a certain kind of romance they're often deeply erotic and they don't have a lot of external conflict and you get these deep dives into the characters neuroses. It is one of my favorite flavors of, I just love that deep dive into someone's thinking and reflection about their situation.

Obviously it can be overdone, but I think it is intrinsically interesting. And that's, to me a lot of why this, this episode works. Yeah. I mean this episode, like I said, like I'm very much of the, you know, tell your story, walking, you know, kind of writer like I am, when people stop to sit and smell a flower and think I'm like, oh my God, the sitting and thinking, I have no patience for it.

That's me as a reader. I just have no patience. Like I get it. But that said like in this moment there is stuff is happening. Like we are taking, this is the deep breath that leads us into this space and understanding the consequences and the stakes and all of these things. And we get this ritual confessional.

We get this visitation, this goodbye. This issue actually is basically. It's showing us the value of ritual. There's the ritual visitations with all the people that matter. There is the goodbye. There is the preparation for the journey. There is the reason for the journey stating what it means, letting us know what the stakes are.

There are a lot of things happening here that are essentially ritualistic in nature, and there is a reason why ritual matters to people and having that as part of your story. I think a moment to breathe, you know, when you're moving through, it is telling your story walking. I don't feel like this is a filler issue.

I think that there are things happening. It's just that we have this internal struggle. For dream. And we are telling that internal story struggle for him as he is moving through all of this stuff. Which if, you know, dream, I think is all stuff he would rather not be doing. Yes. But he's choosing to do it.

There is an internal conflict at play there and I say, That's a story. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So, well now the other thing I wanted to mention is Al Chino and Meza Keane who are two of the demons. So Al Chino, I think I'm pronouncing his name, right? He is he is one of, I think Dante is Inferno demons.

I was so quick in my notes that I didn't write down. I'm like, surely I'll remember this, but I, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was. I can't remember which part of Don days you can look him up, but he's one of whatever circle he is. Mazza Kean who I think comes out of the Arabic legends. I loved her so much, so I was very attached to Mazza keen.

And if you read her a dialogue, it all makes sense. As the keen is the one we used to have face. Right. So, you know, there's like, , you know, it's, it's all, if you read it phonetically, it all does make sense. So long, long time ago, there was a party of God whose house was it at? I'm having a moment, but I remembered that I went with Shelly and Shelly was a ferry.

I think maybe she was Noah. I can't remember. I think she was new Allah who will meet, or maybe she was somebody else entirely. Shelley always has these incredible, you know, obscure and esoteric references. So I probably am missing the boat by a lot. Is Shelly. Oh, sorry. Yes. Shelly bond, who became she was Shelly.

Robert then became Shelly bond. When she married Phillip bond, she was the assistant editor who came after Lisa often anger who came after me, I think that's right. Okay. And so th there's a whole, but anyway, she's a wonderful editor. She stayed with vertigo for ages. We've worked together in lots of different ways and we remained friends, but at this point, You know, young and going to a Halloween party.

And I decided to dress as mad as a keen. And so I just did makeup. So it looked like half of my face was a bloody mess. Like I couldn't quite do the skull showing through, but I there's a picture somewhere. It looks pretty bad. And I remember that, you know, as we were walking to the party, people were like, oh God, what happened to her?

You know, like I've just been enough. She, she is, I think there was one of those, you know, Sam and Twitter things like who's your favorite non endless character. And I just always, like, there was that little romantic thing between mezzanine and Lucifer that I was just really there for. Oh, I like it. I like it.

You also have a little bit here on hubs toasted, you know, dream and hub have this lovely bottle of wine together. And dream is like, we're not due to meet for 96 years, but I might be a little late, which I adore. Yes, yes. Or, or never, you know? Yeah. I love that. And I read in the notes that that toast was inspired in its rhythm, by hope Merlis book Lud in the mist, but I'm also just having this random thought, like, you know, these days with weed being legal, it'd be, you know, hop was in another incarnation.

Like, ah, you know, the, whatever, the skunks misery road, weed that exists only in, you know, One garden plot and, you know, Fiddler screen. Yes. The waist small. Yay is right. You know, that shit's happening. You know, there are people out there who just know all the strains and what's good and what's not, and as we legalize, you know, the stuff that's going to be really interesting is the fancy wheat comes out.

All right, let's move on. Oh, Alisa, what is your favorite page? Oh my God. Okay. I think Lucien and Matthew in the library I love it. You know, there used to be a program called upstairs downstairs which Fay Weldon, the writer wrote some of, and it laid down to nappy. You would have the risk to Kratz and you would also have the servants.

And I have always been a sucker for servant stories. You get me below stairs. I am just there for it. And I just love the whole Matthew, you know, everyone who is so formal and Victorian. And then you got Mackey that Raven and he's, you know, I was stewing. What is it? Roger Corman. I was doing Peter Lorre from a corpsman movie.

Yes. So I, I really love that. I think that the lowbrow Raven is, is true. Something really nice to, to match him up with, with Lucien, but, you know, I mean, and he, I mean, if you end up doing something about swamp thing, I have to at least visit to talk about Matt Campbell. Yes. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. What about you?

What is your favorite page? You know, once again, I have to say this is very similar to, I think it was a 24 hours when we had dream traveling through other people's dreams, you know, and there's something about these pages and the way that they are drawn. And again, like, you know, talking about that beautiful harmony between the panels and that, that kinetic CISM of story, as it moves through the page I nearly picked up a page.

It, you know what, there are so many good pages in here that it's really, really hard to pick a favorite. I have to say, like I struggled for a little while, like going back and forth between all the different pages, but it was just, there's so many beautiful ones, but this was the one that when I just like what I do when I can't decide what my favorite pages is, I just flipped through it really, really quickly.

And the one that where my heart goes, that's the one that I call as my favorite page. And so that's what happened with this. What about your favorite part of the story? Oh, I, I think I can, I love the Hebrew Bible old Testament bit where we get, you know, Kane being all Victoria and my right trustee, you know, servant or whatever, reading the formal.

And then we get Lucifer, you know, saying like skip the fancy stuff and just get to the point, get to the point. I think that, that toggling back and forth between humor and darkness between, you know you know, Cain is usually so arrogant and stuffy and, and you know, so to see him humiliated a little, there, there was a little shocking footage, fun at that point.

And then it becomes something far darker. So I liked that a lot. How about you? I love when dream pops into say goodbye to hub, like this was something that had, had we not had that, you know, in this issue, had we not had that in this moment? Like, we wouldn't have missed it, you know? And nobody would have been thinking, well, what about hub?

Like, you know, but the fact that he takes the time to say we have a date in 96 years and I might not show up. So let's take a moment to share this rare bottle of wine and hanging out. And be buds. And I love, and especially because when you think back to I believe it was men of good fortune, right.

Was the hobgoblin one where he's so dream is so offended by the thought that he might just have needed a friend. And then this feels like kind of a lovely Coda to that where he is acknowledged of course, the friendship as he did in, in men of good fortune. But now he is actually needing that friendship.

He needs to go to his friend. He has confessed his sins. He's going to like right. A wrong that he has done carrying this weight. And now he has this moment of respite with a friend where he can just sit and have a bottle of wine and let that friend know that he matters. You know, like there was something about that, that I felt was, was not just a sweet moment, but also like a movement in dreams, character development, and his development as a, you know, we can't call them people, but again, all characters that are sentient and have wants and desires are coded as human.

And it does bring in a level of, of love and humanity into dreams, character that we wouldn't have missed in this episode, in this issue. But which lands really nicely. I really like it. Yeah. It it makes everything feel so much more important and real as we take ourselves into the trip to hell.

All right. If you enjoyed this conversation would like to join in connect with the show on Twitter, follow at chippers and use the hashtag endless podcast, or send your comments or questions to Atlas. Ed shippers.com. This episode of endless was brought to you by the Chipperish Media producers who support us on Patreon at the power producer level.

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Show support, read a great review on apple podcast. Tell your friends about the show or take the Envoy out and destroy. This episode of endless was edited by chippers content editor, Jack Kramme, Jack. Alright, trustee and well beloved cousin. We will be back next time with Season of Mists Chapter two, issue 23 of the salmon series until then I trust.

I shall see you all again. Thank you. You may go.