I’ve always been at least a casual fan of Neil Gaiman’s original Sandman series, but then, who hasn’t? Dream’s intrigues with his family, the crazy art, the way it leaves you often thinking at the end of an arc, the little stories nestled away, just stellar stuff.

Sadly, the original coloring doesn’t live up to the discerning eye of today’s comic reader (at least, not mine); plus, it can be difficult to pickup an old issue for the sake of one-shot enjoyment without having to be intimately familiar with every ounce of backstory that has happened before.

This is part of what makes this comic adaptation of Gaiman’s novel “Sandman: the Dream Hunters” so wonderful. Starting as a simple Japanese fairy tale about a monk, a bold badger, and a wily fox, the tale time-releases mood and energy with fantastic lines, color, and page design by P. Craig Russell.

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