Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 1-1-2007 I Am Prosper, I Am Ariel, I Am Caliban: A Metatheatrical Approach to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman Leah E. Haydu Follow this and additional works at:http://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of theAmerican Material Culture Commons, and theLiterature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Haydu, Leah E., "I Am Prosper, I Am Ariel, I Am Caliban: A Metatheatrical Approach to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman" (2007).Theses, Dissertations and Capstones.Paper 630. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please [email protected]. I Am Prosper, I Am Ariel, I Am Caliban: A Metatheatrical Approach to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman Thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English by Leah E. Haydu Dr. Mary Moore, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson Dr. Timothy Burbery, Ph.D. Dr. David Hatfield, Ph.D. Marshall University May 2007 ii ABSTRACT I Am Prosper, I Am Ariel, I Am Caliban: A Metatheatrical Approach to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman By Leah E. Haydu In this paper, I use a primarily close-reading approach to examine the metatheatrical elements of William Shakespeare’s representation in Neil Gaiman’s comic book series The Sandman. This involves examinations of individual panels throughout three different issues of the series in order to uncover how Shakespeare is presented, as well as how he, in turn, affects the presentation of other characters, and how these both affect the view which the reader might form of not only Shakespeare, but of Gaiman himself. In doing so, I establish the existence of a new, related genre: metacomics. Similar to metatheatrics, this approach relates to the control Shakespeare and other characters within this comic exert on each other above and beyond that specifically dictated to them through Gaiman and his artists, and is carried out predominantly through the interplay between text and artwork which is the main focus of my discussion. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In writing this paper, I enlisted the help of many people throughout its creation, without whom I would still be staring bemusedly at piles of scattered notes. I would like to thank the members of my committee, particularly Dr. Moore, for taking the time to work through my various drafts and sometimes nebulous ideas with me, Mick, Jessica, and Elaine for the constant encouragement and reminders to breathe, Jeff for all the proofreading and telling me when my sentences sound dumb, John at Purple Earth for digging up everything on comics and Shakespeare that I could possibly want, and finally, DC/Vertigo Comics for producing this incredible series. Without any one of these links, the chain would have fallen apart, and I am more grateful than you all could possibly know. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract............................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................iii Chapter One: An Introduction to Comics and Metacomics..............................................1 Chapter Two: Character Introductions and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”...................15 Chapter Three: “The Tempest”......................................................................................37 Chapter Four: Conclusion..............................................................................................51 Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………..54 Bibliography...................................................................................................................74 Haydu 1 Chapter One: An Introduction to Comics and Metacomics Comic books have been around since quite early in the twentieth century, and while their status as a literary form has been hotly debated (and often outright dismissed), it cannot be denied that comics, especially in recent years, have been able to tackle material far more sophisticated than their detractors might expect. One particularly fertile area of emphasis has been the plays of William Shakespeare. Many writers of comic books have chosen Shakespeare, the man as well as the plays, as particularly deserving of attention, and have attempted, as a director handling one of his plays might, to use those nigh-universal words to tell countless different stories. Shakespeare’s involvement in these innovative books comes in many forms, ranging from passing comments and references by characters who may or may not even realize where their words originated to entire reproductions of the full texts of certain plays; these, too, are spread over a wide spectrum, in which an interested reader may find anything from traditionally faithful representations seemingly ripped straight from the Elizabethan stage to decidedly less conventional fare that shares little with the original idea of its parent play other than the words. An example of a comic which contains a smaller, more passing reference may be found in the current Vertigo series Y: The Last Man, whose title character is named Yorick; his sister’s name is Hero. In Alan Moore’s graphic novel V For Vendetta (recently made into a major motion picture), the title character quotes from Macbeth, As You Like It, and King Henry VIII, as well as clearly displaying books of Shakespeare on the shelves of his home. DC’s collection, Justice League: A Midsummer’s Nightmare, despite the obvious reference in its title and the Shakespeare-like figure on the cover, has little if anything to actually do Haydu 2 with the plays, but Marvel’s current miniseries, 1602: Fantastick Four, is one of the few to actually feature Shakespeare (as well as King James) as a character. The aforementioned full- or near full-text reproductions are somewhat rarer, but they do exist; a company called the Graphic Shakespeare Library has so far released both King Lear and Macbeth in full-text versions, each accompanied by some very interesting artwork; in perhaps the most eclectic version of graphic novel Shakespeare in existence, Puffin Graphics offers an adaptation of Macbeth that features space-faring characters and a robot dragon in the role of Hecate (Appendix 1). Clearly, the variety of usage that Shakespeare’s life and work have found, for better or worse, in the medium of comics is quite impressive. Before we may explore the specific case of Shakespeare in comics, however, a brief explanation of some of the facets of this particular art form is in order; given the seemingly near-constant tension between those who believe comics should be relegated to the rooms of young children (if, in fact, they are even permitted to be there) and those who defend them as staunchly as any literary scholar would defend his or her personal field of study, such an explanation will shed some light on the reasoning behind my choice to side with the latter camp, and at the same time, will give the casual reader of these works a better grasp of the intricacies displayed therein. Perhaps the most comprehensive study of comic books in print today is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art–a book which is, itself, written in the form of a comic book. Logically enough, McCloud begins this study by asking one very important question: what exactly is a comic book, anyway? He first cites this view: “When I was a little kid, I knew exactly what comics were. Comics were those bright, Haydu 3 colorful magazines filled with bad art, stupid stories, and guys in tights. I read real books, naturally. I was much too old for comics!” (2). However, he concedes, this dismissive attitude, shared by many more traditionalist scholars, was quickly overcome upon reading an older friend’s collection and realizing that while comic books often had the tendency to manifest as “crude, poorly-drawn, semiliterate, cheap, disposable kiddie fare[...]they don’t have to be!” (3). From here, McCloud posits many different possible answers to the above question, beginning with “sequential art” (5), or simply pictures placed in a sequence to form some sort of story, and expanding slowly until he ends up with the more wordy “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (9). Even this, however, is not really the definitive answer, as he notes; many other factors can and do come into play, and many people have their own differing definitions which may or may not match up with what he has proposed. Perhaps the most important facet, however, is the lack of focus on content in this definition. As he states, “our definition says nothing about superheroes or funny animals. Nothing about fantasy/science fiction or reader age. No genres are listed in our definition, no types of subject matter, no styles of prose or poetry” (22). Comics, then, can be many different things, and should not be constrained by their popular portrayal; as McCloud suggests, they can and do successfully cover a much wider spectrum of roles than simply following the latest adventures of masked heroes and villains in bright spandex. If we cannot satisfactorily nail down a concrete definition of a comic book, however, the next best thing is to be able to detail some of the typical characteristics utilized by their writers and artists, and McCloud accomplishes this admirably. The Haydu 4 most important visual aspects of comics, and the ones on which I will be focusing much of my discussion herein, are line, color, and transition. In a comics panel, the lines used carry a particularly important burden; not only do they set the whole tone of a panel by their quality and direction (Appendix 2), they also stand in as symbols for things that cannot normally be seen (for example, wavy lines above a boiling pot to symbolize steam) as well as forming the very words which comprise a significant part of the comic as a whole. The way in which words are depicted visually can change the entire meaning of a character’s speech in a comics panel; for example, if words are presented in boldface, like this, they appear to be emphasized, and may give the impression of being spoken louder than those in normal lettering, whereas words presented in italics, like this, seem more urgent, perhaps even frantic. Color, similarly, can dramatically affect the presentation of a panel; not all comics, of course, are presented in color (except for the chapter on color, McCloud’s book is solely in black-and-white), but particularly as the printing technology surrounding comics has grown more advanced and less expensive, more and more artists have chosen to use color to further communicate the ideas behind their work. Both color and the lack thereof have their places, however; as McCloud puts it, The differences between black-and-white and color comics are vast and profound, affecting every level of the reading experience. In black and white, the ideas behind the art are communicated more directly. Meaning transcends form. Art approaches language. In flat colors [those with little or no shading, looking less realistic] forms themselves take on more significance. The world becomes a playground of shapes and space. And Haydu 5 through more expressive colors, comics can become an intoxicating environment of sensations that only color can give. (192) Finally, the concept of transition, or “closure” (63), as McCloud refers to it in the third chapter of his book, is a topic with which every comic consisting of more than one panel must contend. Essentially, the main issue is that no comic can show every moment of every story that they tell; something must happen in the spaces between, which is where the reader must do his or her work. An artist does not have to illustrate every act, but may assume that certain scenarios will provoke certain responses, and thus may decide what he or she may leave out and still have the comic itself make logical sense. McCloud perfectly illustrates this by showing two panels that are set so as to take place one directly after the other; the first contains two men, one chasing the other with an axe, and the second shows only the outside of a building, with a terrified scream ringing through the air. Although the actual act of a murder taking place is never shown, he knows precisely what a reader will envision, given the connection implied between the two: “I’m not the one who let [the axe] drop or decided how hard the blow, or who screamed, or why. That, dear reader, was your special crime, each of you committing it in your own style. All of you participated in the murder. All of you held the axe and chose your spot” (68). Comics, then, are “as subtractive an art as [they are] additive” (85); the truly successful ones will rely on the reader’s mind as much as on their own pictures and words. These definitions, while they have established perhaps not quite what a comic book definitively is, but at least what it might be composed of, still do not answer the big question that many people still have about comics: why are they important, and why