The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1: Bump In The Night

This is a good time to be a Sandman fan. There is a Netflix series coming soon, a stellar audiobook series, and now The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1. I was happy to see that The Sandman Universe survived the jump from the rebooted Vertigo to DC Black Label, and Nightmare Country might be one of the strongest entries since the switch. James Tynion IV is a great fit for this universe. Neil Gaiman’s distinct voice shaped the original series, and Tynion is a great choice to build off on the mythos. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with the terrifying Corinthian plus the equally terrifying Mr. Agony, Mr. Ecstasy, and whoever the other mouth-eyed nightmare is. There are enough pieces from the original series that longtime readers won’t feel alienated or lost. The same goes for new readers, whether this is their first taste of The Sandman or have been reading since the launch of The Sandman Universe in 2018. 

The entire creative team knocked it out of the park. Nobody is trying to replicate or emulate what came before them; they are continuing it. You can’t have a series about nightmares without some haunting visuals. Lisandro Estherren and Patricio Delpeche haunt the issue with their art and colors respectively. The images are constantly changing, shifting, and creeping like a shadow on your wall. Halfway through the issue, there is a cut to The Dreaming signaled by a change in the art. Yanick Paquette’s art and Nathan Fairbairn’s colors provide a nice contrast to Estherren’s and Delpeche’s. The Dreaming sequence is closer to what we have seen in the other Sandman Universe series. Just as haunting, the art change is somewhat grounding and makes the nightmare-like art even more haunting.