The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #4: All in One Place

It’s a great time to be reading The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country. This past weekend at SDCC fans saw exclusive first looks at the Sandman series coming out on Netflix next week. James Tynion IV also was named Best Writer at the Eisner Awards. It seems only appropriate that The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #4 is the best of the series so far. Lisandro Estherren’s art with Patricio Delpeche’s colors continues to blow me away. The original series utilized so many different art styles, and I have quickly grown to love Nightmare Country’s unique style for that very reason. Simon Bowland’s lettering ties everything together and does an excellent job binding the art and script together. 

The series has brought in guest artists to cover segments in the Dreaming. With issue #4, we don’t see the dreaming but we do get pages covering the backstory for Chaste magazine. The segment is illustrated and colored by guest artists Dani and Tamra Bonvillain respectively, and they are some of the series’ most chilling pages. When it comes to the current era of Sandman books, many writers have steered clear of retconning or inserting new ideas into the events of the original series. Writers mainly continue on from where things left off. Tynion did an excellent job covering the history of Chaste. It doesn’t retcon anything, but it does add another layer of creepiness to the early Corinthian appearances, and in turn strengthens the plot of The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country.