which one would it be?
i am facing this dilemma at the moment.
it can only be one issue because i'm sending it overseas and i don't want to pay exorbitant mail fees. and i have to know if the person likes it...although i believe he will...because he's a great fan of graphic novels.

Issue or trade paperback/volume?

trade paperback/volume...sorry, should have clarified that.

I would recommend, as my top 3 choices:

1. Season of Mists (my fave, everyone i ever gave this to read got hooked on Sandman)
2. Fables and Reflections (just an incredible array of stories and art)
3. Dolls House or Brief lives

I wouldn't recommend the Worlds's End, the Kindly Ones, or the Wake. it isn't that i don't like them, quite the opposite they are fantastic, but i think they are too near the end of the epic. better to start nearer the beginning.

i also wouldn't recommend preludes and nocturnes, they are great stories but i think they don't quite have the qualities the others do.

thanks for the suggestions.

i was thinking maybe The Dream Hunters?
(even though it's not traditional Sandman)

I've used Dream Country for this purpose myself.

All 4 of the stories stand alone really well, and one of them is the World Fantasy Award-winning "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

- Cho

Don't discard 'A Game of You' -I know a lot of fans don't rlal ylike it but I think it's an amazingly beautiful story. And it's pretty much a stand-alone adventure, anything that happened previously is explained anyway.

Dream country or Fables and reflections, both are collections of stand alone stories.

Dream country does have Midsummernights dream...which is absolutely awesome, but I still love the story with Emperor norton 1st of the USA - think that steals it for me

I started with Fables & Recollections, and I'll agree with renton that I also like it better than Dream Country (which is still excellent.) Norton, August, Soft Places, Parliament of Rooks, what more could you want?

If you were sending two, I'd recommend the obvious pairing of Preludes & Nocturnes and The Doll's House, as I think both make a great introductory arc (imagine that!) But P&N isn't strong enough to stand on its own, and Doll's House is too narrow in focus to really give a good impression of the series' range and depth.

well...i decided to send him Preludes and Nocturnes...since it is the beginning...and probably will get him hooked...and then he'll have to get the rest.

but i'm also going to send The Dream Hunters along with it...because i know he will love its style.

the only thing by Gaiman he has read is "Death: The High Cost of Living"...and he wasn't impressed by it. he considered it to be too "teen emo" for his taste. i told him that he hadn't seen Neil's best work yet.

If it's individual issues we are talking about, I'd say either a Dream of a Thousand Cats or Ramadan. Fables and Reflection as a Collection.

can you even obtain individual issues anymore?
that's how i read them originally...but that was years ago? i would think they are only available in bookstores as collections now.

Sure you can still find individual issues. My local comics shop in town still has plenty of them. Any store with an extensive collection will have them. But it might be hard to find one particular issue that you're looking for.

I quite like A Game of You myself, if I were to pick one book. It's also a self-contained story, no need to know anything else that happened before.

quote:

Originally posted by thegirlthattimeforgot:
thanks for the suggestions.

I also like Homer's--"Ohh you can use statistics to prove anything...90 pecent of people agree on that."

just thought i'd give an update...he received the package with the two volumes today...is eagerly "devouring" its contents...and will give me personal reviews as soon as he is finished. i might have just created another Gaiman fan.

he LOVED "The Dream Hunters"...said it was magical...and i agree with him. he enjoyed "Preludes and Nocturnes" too...i told him that he definitely had to read the rest of the volumes to get a sense of the impact of the series.