Dust Covers III

The Mystery of the Missing Dust Covers has been solved. My granddaughter who lives in our attic and is a keen artist and interested in Dave McKean's work had borrowed it ages ago. But now where is Black Orchid, Volume 3? There is always one book missing.

I had correctly remembered the incidents recorded in the Dust Covers comic strip: encounters with Constantine, Choronzon, Death and Dream. One detail that I had not remembered was that Dream's cloak was the reflection of the room in the window.

It is interesting to learn that Gaiman was told about the Sandman by his mother and that he relayed the story to his daughter. Thus, this story was in the family before it was in the comic.

Gaiman swore as a child that he would remember what it was like to be a child and he vividly presents children's points of view in his fiction. It is a point of view that I am glad to have got away from. I would wish for early maturity or "great wisdom from birth" in any future rebirth. Maybe I would feel differently if I had had a childhood in which we were helped to mature instead of condemned for immaturity. But the point here is that Gaiman displays enormous insight and empathy when he successfully writes childrens' povs.