Edited by Greg Morrow and Dylan Verheul
Issue 6: 24 Hours (Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III)
Sixth part of first storyline, More than Rubies
Sixth story reprinted in Preludes and Nocturnes
"24 Hours" is a song by Joy Division (see page 2, panels 6-7).
Panel 2
First known appearance of Bette Munroe. She does not appear in other than this issue.
"Betty Munroe" sounds an awful lot like "Betty Monroe", the friend of Brad and Janet that is mentioned in the song Dammit, Janet at the very beginning of The Rocky Horror Show. In the movie version (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Betty Monroe makes an actual appearance.
Panel 4-5
These are probably motion lines; if Bette's hands were shaking like this, she'd be spilling coffee all over the place. Also, she has no reason to be nervous, since she is just doing her normal job, "pretending to be a waitress".
Panel 2
The woman is Judy, we will find out shortly. She is wearing a number of pins and buttons. One reads "Rude Girl," another consists of an "A" inscribed in a circle, which is a symbol of anarchy. This is Judy's first known appearance. "Rude Boys" and "Rude Girls" were members of the late 70's, early 80's punk and/or gay scene in Britain. In particular, fans of two-tone or ska music, originally from Jamaica, were referred to as "Rudies." Also visible among Judy's buttons are a smiley face, and the two interlocking "female" symbols that are more clearly visible on the back of her jacket in panel 7. The smiley face is pretty common as a button, but it might also be a reference to Watchmen, or to Boss Smiley, who we will meet in the World's End storyline of Sandman. A normal smiley face has no "cheeks" at the ends of its mouth, while this one has, and so do Boss Smiley's face and the Comedian's smiley. Watchmen is an excellent (and that's an understatement) limited comic book series written by Alan Moore.
Panel 3
Dear Abby is a syndicated advice columnist. Earl Wilson was a gossip columnist who focused on the entertainment field. He had been dead for a while when this story was published, although his column might have been continued under his name. Jackie Collins writes trashy highly unrecommended novels.
Panel 4
Johnny Carson is a late-night talk show host. Note the sheep picture in the upper right corner.
Panel 5
Another sheep picture.
panel 6-7
Judy is a lesbian and Donna is her lover; they've had a fight. Joy Division is a techno-punk/New Wave/gothic band from the late 70's-early 80's. They have a song titled "24 Hours". The lead singer killed himself, and the rest of the band formed New Order, which further engendered Electronic, Revenge, and The Other Two! [sic]. The symbol is actually two traditional female symbols interlocked. The male symbol is a circle with an arrow pointing about 30 degrees clockwise of vertical, like the second female symbol on the jacket. This is clearly a lesbian symbol. Bette's expressed attitude (disapproval but tolerance) toward lesbianism is one shared by a great many Americans (generalization: typically small town Christians). Donna will appear later in the series. There is another sheep picture in panel 7.
Panel 2
First known appearance of this young man, named Mark. Also another sheep picture.
Panel 4
First known appearance of Kate and Garry Fletcher (named explicitly shortly).
Panel 5
Again a sheep picture.
Panel 1:
First known appearance of Marsh. Note the sheep picture. Bette is singing Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, from the Disney movie The Sog of the South. This is ironic foreshadowing, since the complete lyrics are:
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my what a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ayMister Bluebird on my shoulder
It's the truth, it's actch'll
Ev'rything is satisfactch'll
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!
Needless to say, it won't be a wonderful day for Bette and the others.
Panel 3
The cast is complete, with one small exception.
Panel 5
The man in the corner is John Dee, also known as Dr. Destiny, as explained in previous annotations. He possesses Morpheus's ruby, which has great power over dreams, and over reality. Note that he does not get a sheep picture.
Panel 6
Bette and Marsh are lovers.
Panel 6
The object to the right of the ruby is the amulet of protection originally obtained from the demon Choronzon in #1. Note that it never gets used that we are made aware of, and we do not learn what becomes of it later. It is possible that Morpheus' recovery of his helmet has nullified the trade, and so rendered the amulet powerless. Dee might be holding onto it for sentimental reasons.
Panel 1
Another sheep picture. By now we can be sure that the recurring images of sheep, present whenever we see the Dee's prisoners, indicate them as victims to be. The caption describes them as flies, analogous to flies in a spider's web of course.
Panel 2
Rose will appear later.
Panel 3-6
"Secret Hearts" is a fictional soap opera, a genre of American daytime television primarily concerned with overblown romantic activity. Soap operas are serial in nature. "Secret Hearts" actually has antecedents in the DC universe. It was the title of an old DC romance comic. Later, Supergirl acted on the soap opera "Secret Hearts" while her strip was running in Superman Family. This was pre-Crisis, of course. The balloons in panels 4-6 are parodies of soap opera dialog. If one Siamese twin becomes HIV positive, the other one by necessity is as well. The illustration in panel 6 is an example of how sex is used to advertise everything, even canned peas.
Panel 7
Mrs. Cavanagh has not yet appeared again. Cavanagh is more typically spelled "Cavanaugh".
Another fictional example of an American television genre, the children's variety show, typically featuring humans interacting with puppets, interspersed with cartoons. There is also a cultural fascination with dinosaurs that unfortunately does not extend to fascination with accuracy.
Panel 7
The instructions on how to cut one's wrists are traditional; it is allegedly easier for the paramedics to stop the bleeding if the wrists are cut straight across. Cutting down the wrist opens up the veins and arteries along a greater portion of their length.
Panel 7
Donna and Judy fought at least partly because Judy struck Donna.
Panel 1
Mark is the young man who was waiting for the interview.
Panel 2
Garry is the male half of the Fletchers.
Panel 3
Kate is the female half. Note the Marilyn Monroe pictures in the background. This would play nicely with the infidelity worries - the late president of the United States John F. Kennedy cheated on his wife with her, and Marilyn often symbolizes the kind of woman wives worry about their husbands getting involved with. Note the four sheep.
Panel 3
Stephen King is an American best-selling writer who popularized the horror genre in the last two decades. One of his famous novels, It, was seen in Sandman #1.
Panel 4
One of the buttons on Judy's jacket appears to read "Sex Pletch", but was probably meant to read "Sex Pistols," one of the early British punk bands.
Panel 1
This is a double page spread. Dyke is slang for lesbian.
Panel 3
Marsh's attitude is also the same as a great many Americans.
Panel 4
Another sheep picture.
Panel 5
Mark is cutting off his left index finger. The word "GOD" has appeared on Dee's chest.
Panel 6
This is a right hand passing the severed finger to Dee so it might be Mark's hand. Notice, however, the placement of the fingernail on the hand's index finger, an anatomical impossibility.
Panel 8
Mary Gentian's name is a poke at Neil Gaiman's friend Mary Gentle. Mary Gentle is the author of several fantasy novels. TV journalist Mary Gentian will appear again in the Sandman series (#37, #68).
Panel 9
Fundamentalism is a sect of Christianity which believes in the literal word of the Bible. Armageddon is the prophesied end of the world.
Panel 10
First known appearance of "The Amazing Herschel and Betty".
Panel 12
"Rays" (from outer space) are a popular component of many crackpot conspiracy theories.
Panel 13
It is generally perceived that local television news broadcasts are light and fluffy, with no concentration on hard news, where a transition from an end of the world story to a tap-dancing duck story is neither ironic nor unnatural.
This is Kate speaking. Sex with dead people is called necrophilia. A male corpse cannot have an erection, however, as illustrated by the quote below, an erection is not required for a female necrophiliac to derive pleasure from a male corpse.
From an interview with Karen Greenlee, a necrophiliac, in the book Apocalypse Culture (1987, 1990, Feral House) edited by Adam Parfrey:
Interviewer: The question I am most often asked is, "How does she do it?"
Greenlee: Yes, that's THE question! People ask questions like that--even people who seem pretty cool, seem to have open minds--then when you tell them, they say, "That's very interesting," then don't want to have much to do with me. I don't mind telling people how I do it. It doesn't matter to me, but anyone adept sexually shouldn't have to ask. People have this misconeption that there has to be penetration for sexual gratification, which is bull! The most sensitive part of a woman is the front area anyway and that is what needs to be stimulated. Besides, there are different aspects of sexual expression: touchy-feely, 69, even holding hands. That body is just laying there, but it has what it takes to make me happy. The cold, the aura of death, the smell of death, the funereal surroundings, it all contributes.
Interviewer: The SMELL of death?
Greenlee: Sure, I find the odor of death VERY erotic. There are death odors and there are death odors. Now you get your body that's been floating in the bay for two weeks, or a burn victim, that doesn't attract me much, but a freshly embalmed corpse is something else. There is also this attraction to blood. When you're on top of a body it tends to purge blood out of its mouth, while you're making passionate love... You'd have to be there, I guess.
In panel 8, it is to be assumed that Kate tasted or drank the corpse's blood, while kissing it.
The theme music is indeed correct for the 60s television show "The Addams Family"
Panel 1
The hammer and nails will become important shortly.
Panel 4
Since we do not see what is going on here, almost every word balloon could belong to anybody. Most are miscellaneous love-making grunts. Note that the word balloons are coming from both sides of the partition; we seem to have more than one couple here.
Panel 4-6
The text in the background is mostly unreadable except for occasional short words like "BIG". At the bottom, the text reads, more or less "...sheep come walking [scratched out misspellings of "knocking"] knocking toking on my clocking electric dreams of t.v. screens fiends of chiefs and cheese and late-nit[e]/commercials that don't make sense walking in electric dreams and robots dreams of comic book canibal [sic] sheep/wolves emty [sic]/ ...coats...tether [?] and wandering floors with water and silks" This could be an allusion to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (basis for the movie Bladerunner). Another sheep reference, this time without a picture though.
In this sequence, the three women take the roles of the Hecateae, reintroduced in issue 3. Dee repeatedly demands a prophecy until he hears what he wants to hear. All prophecies are true though. Notice that Judy has lost her shirt, which is consistent with Judy being involved in the sex scene on the previous page. Also note that the women are arranged in a maiden/mother/crone order.
Also note the clock in panels 2 and 4: it is the exact same clock we saw on page 11 of issue 4. The clock will return again this issue. It appears that a xeroxed copy of the same illustration has been used, since only the coloring and the size seem to vary. The clock might serve as a link between the literal Hell of issue 4 and the Hell on Earth that the occupants of the diner are forced to endure in this issue. If the clock is intended to mean that Lucifer has anything to do with the affairs in this issue (which I do not believe), we have an inconsistency with a future appearance of Lucifer (Sandman 23, page 18, panels 1-3 (Lucifer referring to mortals): "I have never made one of them do anything. Never.").
Panel 3
Kate seems to be referring to Arkham Asylum here, where John Dee just came from. Bette is in the role of Atropos, who cuts the thread of each person's life as it ends, in Greek mythology.
A lot of sheep pictures in the side gutters.
Panel 5-7
No one dies here. We clearly see all six people in the diner alive on page 19.
Notice that Bette is holding the nails while Marsh does the hammering, with his left hand.
Panel 3
Marsh confesses to providing an alcoholic with an almost unlimited supply of alcohol. He is correct in saying that this is tantamount to murder.
Panel 8
Marsh confesses to having purchased Bette's son while in jail for purposes of sodomy.
This page more or less describes typical mammalian pack behavior. Note the sheep pictures in the left side gutter.
Panel 6
The television quote is the radio tag for "The Wolfman."
Panel 2
It appears that Mark is really dead.
Panel 3
Dee is recounting the fairy tale of Snow White. He has regressed the audience to childhood. Perhaps it is interesting to know that Neil Gaiman has written a new version of Snow White, called Snow, Glass, Apples. This story was published as a fund-raiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
The last sheep pictures appear on this page. Also this is the last page where any of the victims are still alive.
Panel 1
The song is named something like "Spread a Little Happiness;" it is an old British popular song from the interwar era. It's played on BBC radio 4 and used in a commercial for butter. The rock star Sting later recorded a version that appears on the soundtrack to the movie _Brimstone and Treacle_. Bette has cut Marsh's hand off with the cleaver, which is why it is bloody.
Panel 2
Judy stabs herself in the eyes with cooking skewers.
The sign in the upper left reads "Please and Thank You are the magic words." All the victims appear to be dead, with the possible exception of Kate. Dead or not, she seems to have finally gotten what she has wanted from Garry, considering their positions and Kate's professed necrophilic nature. Also note the clock.
Panel 2
The skewers are no longer in Judy's eyes.
Panel 4
Morpheus has recovered from his trauma in the previous issue and has made his way to where his ruby is.
Greg Morrow wrote the first version of the Annotations. Tom Galloway identified Earl Wilson and previous DC incarnations of "Secret Hearts." Viktor Haag identified "Sex Pletch" and the cooking skewers. Theresa Martin pointed out the young/mature/aged roles of the three women on page 16. Col. Sicherman identified the "Wolfman" quote. Michael Seymour Collins and Ted conspired to identify "Spread a Little Happiness." Michael even claims to be able to sing it, so be sure to nag him about it next time you see him. Hey, can we get him a gig with "Seduction of the Innocent"? Rob Bakie, Viktor, Michael, Eddy Current, and Lima Bone combined to educate us all on the nature of "Rude Girls", the British punk scene and ska music. Theresa Martin transcribed the words in the vertical gutters of page 15, but Greg discarded them as being devoid of import. Tanaqui C. Weaver speculated about the uselessness of the amulet. Ron Dippold commented on the motion lines and noted the sheep pictures. coreY klemoW (CompuServe ID# 76670,1123) noted the the smaller buttons on Judy's jacket. Dylan Verheul speculated on the smiley face and noticed the possiblity of a Bette Munroe/Betty Monroe connection. Don Macpherson wrongly identified Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Dylan corrected the title and looked up the lyrics. Brodie H Brockie also noticed the sheep, and spotted the clock from Hell (literally). He also commented on the text balloons on page 15, Kate's not necessarily being dead and what she is doing with Garry on page 22. Michael Robinson noted that "24 Hours" is a Joy Division song. Marc Singer commented on the Mary Gentian/Mary Gentle connection. David Roel found the interview about necrophilia.