Edited by Greg Morrow and Dylan Verheul
Issue 7: Sound and Fury (Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III)
Seventh part of first storyline, More than Rubies
Seventh story reprinted in Preludes and Nocturnes
"Sound and Fury" is a reference to a line from Macbeth. Here's a more complete excerpt:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been time for such a word.
To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.- Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5
These people are walkons.
Panel 2
Fundamentalists believe that at Armageddon, those who have been chosen to be with God will be taken up to Heaven in the Rapture, leaving behind the sinners.
Panel 3
First known appearance of Nan Fowler. She will make a one-
Panel appearance later in this issue.
The two people are Morpheus (standing) and John Dee. See previous issues for what's going on.
Panel 5
Death Takes A Holiday was a play during the 1920s and a black-and-white movie from the 1930s with Fredric March in the title role. Death appears for one night, during which nothing dies, as the "Prince Sirki."
Panel 1
Identifiable markings are a pentagram (often used in magical rituals), the anarchy symbol, and a variety of crosses.
Panel 5
The button "Norman Lives" is probably a reference to Norman Bates, a main character in the movie "Psycho" and its sequels.
Panel 2-3
Dee enters the Dreaming dressed as Julius Caesar; the three ladies are probably not the Hecateae, but are simply denizens of the dreamtime. The women could be wearing the face of Dee's mother (see picture on page 10). The dream mentioned by John Dee about raping his mother is mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar, at the end of Chapter 32: "It is said too that on the night before he crossed the river [the Rubicon] he had an unnatural dream. He dreamed that he was committing incest with his mother." (Penguin Classics, Plutarch, The Fall of the Roman Republic, p. 276.)
Panel 1
A larger bit of the title quote.
Panel 2
There is a picture in the background, probably of Ethel Dee, John Dee's mother. The inscription reads "To Roddy, [illegible] in love, Ethel 1927". There was a very similar picture in Sandman #1, with an inscription reading "To Roddy, Your slave in love, Ethel". If this is meant to be the same picture, then the year 1927 is wrong, since the picture in issue 1 was shown in 1926.
Panel 4
"Beware the Ides of March" is the admonition given to Caesar at the beginning of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. The Ides of March are the fifteenth day of that month, the day on which Caesar was killed by the conspirators. The women are now wearing Dream's helmet.
Panel 1
Dee is undergoing the free association often experienced in dreams as the phrase mutates from "Ides of March" to "March of Ideas" to "Brides of Frankenstein". The women now resemble the Bride from the movie "Bride of Frankenstein".
Panel 6
Dee is singing a line from the song "I think I'm going to like it here", from the play Annie.
Panel 1
"Stinkard lord of piss and mire" sounds like a quote.
Panel 1
It would appear that Eve is in fact the Raven Woman of issue #2. Note the raven. Eve has previously appeared in the DC humor mag Plop! in the 1970s, along with Cain and Abel.
Panel 2
"Rag-shag Lord of Nowhere-at-all" sounds like a quote.
Panel 3
These four characters are, left to right, Abel, Goldie (held by Abel), Cain, and Gregory, for whose descriptions see the annotation to #2.
Panel 4
"Spittle-arsed poxy-pale wanker" is a peculiarly British thing for Dee to be saying. An arse is an ass; poxy is probably related to the diseases of smallpox and chicken pox, or possibly to any of a variety of venereal diseases. A wanker is a self-important idiot; "wanking off" is masturbation, so a wanker is one who prefers masturbation to sex. A North American would probably use "asshole."
Panel 5
Destiny was the host of one of DC's mystery titles in the late 70s or early 80s. He has also appeared in Elvira's House of Mystery. Marv Wolfman used him for appearances in Superman and The New Teen Titans. In these, it was established that he was more powerful than Superman and not obligated to obey Zeus or Kronos. The character may have had his genesis in the 1960s edition of The Spectre. In issues #8-10, the Spectre made some grievous error and was chained by the mysterious voice that resurrected him to a "book of destiny". He was forced to follow mortals around and try to get them to change their destiny, which was written in the book. In effect, the Spectre was demoted to "pseudo-horror anthology host." It has been theorized that Destiny was created from inventory stories for this incarnation of the Spectre; all it would require was slight redrawing, some relettering, and a new color scheme. Destiny was mentioned in Sandman #1 as one of the "Endless", of whom we will see more later.
Panel 1
In the early part of this century, the sham magician Aleister Crowley revived the earlier alternate spelling "magick" to lend an air of mystery to his flummery. Crowley is roughly equivalent to Roderick Burgess, of issue #1.
Panel 2
This is the Scarecrow, Jonathan Crane, who was explained in the Annotations for Sandman 5. They are in an asylum for the criminally insane, Arkham Asylum, which also was explained earlier in this series.
Panel 2
"There's no place like home" is an obvious Wizard of Oz reference. Note that the Scarecrow, Dee and Dream (vaguely) resemble silhouettes of the Scarecrow, Dorothy, and the Cowardly Lion.
Panel 3
"Mister Dent" is Harvey Dent, the Batman villain Two-Face, a long-term resident of Arkham. Dent is a sort of multiple personality, and might easily decide to try to kill himself.
Panel 1
This is Nan Fowler again, whom we saw on page 2.
Greg Morrow wrote the first version of the Annotations. Jeremy Louis Billones, Viktor Haag, and Chris Jarocha-Ernst identified Death Takes a Holiday. Viktor thinks that Dee's appearance as Caesar refers to Shakespeare's play. And he defined "wanker". David Henry recalled the Bard's Caesar, and thinks that Dee's appearance has little to do with that play. Abhijit Khale and Chris delved into Destiny's background. Andrew David Weiland thinks "the pox" is VD. Ian Lance Taylor clarified "magick" a bit. Dylan Verheul corrected some minor mistakes. Ron Dippold, Don Macpherson, Ian O'Brien and James Heath noted the Wizard of Oz reference. Ron also commented on Armageddon and Barbara Wong's markings, and he noted Goldie. Christopher W Emerson, coreY klemoW (CompuServe ID# 76670,1123), Alasdair Montgomery, Nils Helge Kielland Brobakk and Jamie Pehling noted and commented on the picture of Ethel Cripps. Brodie H Brockie also commented on the picture, also noted the Wizard of Oz connection, and he identified the Annie song. Benjamin Jacob Blattberg gave the reference for Dee's dream about raping his mother. Katie Schwarz again corrected my English.