The Sandman 19 p. 16 by Charles Vess

I don't know where to begin on this one, folks. Maybe if I just type some stuff it'll make sense when I'm finished.

Let's see, the first time I read Sandman 19, I knew I had read something magical. It was one of the four standalone stories that are now collectively known as "Dream Country." It was entitled "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and it featured some of the best art of Charles Vess' career.

Spoilers ahead! The plot was deceptively simple: A traveling roadshow of actors led by William Shakespeare presents the titular play on Wendel's mound in the English countryside to a mystery audience. The play, we discover, is one of two plays commissioned by Morpheus as part of a bargain he made with Shakespeare in issue #13 of the series. (The second play, we will learn in the last issue of the regular series, is "the Tempest.") The mystery audience turns out to be none other than Titania and Auberon, queen and king of the fairy realm, and a number of their subjects, including Robin Goodfellow (AKA Puck).

What else can I say about it? It is one of the key issues of the Sandman run, and it is often cited as the best in the series. It gained further fame for being the first (and, so far, only) comic book to win a World Fantasy Award. Furthermore, it is, dare I say it, a masterpiece of fantasy fiction, and, for my part, one of the best single issues of any American-produced comic book, period.

When I first began collecting comic book art as a serious hobby, I naively put together a dream list of pages I hoped I would one day own. High on that list was a page from this very issue. However, as all the stories in the Dream Country collection point out, dreams have their cost.

Early on, I lucked out and managed to win a page from Issue 75 (which you can look at in this very gallery) in an auction for what seemed then like an exorbitant amount of money ($700!). It features a much older Shakespeare and Dream discussing the final play of their bargain. When I acquired it, I still dreamed of acquiring a page from issue 19 as well, but the chances seemed to dwindle with each passing year and I had all but given up on that particular dream.

Then, unexpectedly, toward the end of last year, a fellow collector contacted me. He had a page from issue 19 and circumstances required that he sell it. Would I be interested?

When he showed me a picture of his page, I saw the perfect companion to my page from issue 75. It shows Will discussing his bargain with Morpheus and learning of the death of his friend and rival, Kit Marlowe. From this conversation, Will begins to suspect that the price of dreams may be higher than at first he thought. It also shows Titania taking an interest in Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who has tagged along with his father at the behest of his mother, Anne (a crucial element in the story).

Aside from the wonderful content, artistically, it is simply a gorgeous page. The costuming is exquisite, the details are fine and the inking superb. Arguably, it is one of the finest pages from the book (not to mention, Vess' comic book career).

However, as I suspected, the price of this dream was, indeed, very high, daunting even. During our bargaining, I somehow managed to make it slightly less daunting, but only a smidgen. So, yes, I wanted the page, but how could I possibly afford it?

At first, I thought the only way to do it would be to sacrifice either my Ditko Spider-Man or Miller Daredevil page. However, nobody I discussed the matter with thought that was a particularly good idea. So, though it would be a much longer and more difficult road to take, the only other way to do it would be to sacrifice many pages for the one.

After thinking it through, I came to certain conclusions. One of them was that I knew I would need to choose at least 20 pages or possibly more, that I would have to be conservatively realistic as to their value and that I would have to pick high-quality pages with both popular characters and interesting content that were drawn by top-notch artists. I also knew that I would need to control the pricing to a certain extent and that I would probably need help to be able to maximize my chances. Auctions seemed to be too risky, so I contacted Will Gabri-El, whom I had dealt with several times in the past, and explained my situation and my plan. He looked things over and said that, with the art that I had chosen, and with a realistic outlook, my plan looked feasible and that he thought he could help me reach my goal.

To make this long story somewhat shorter, after a very intense two-and-a-half months, with Will's help, I acquired a dream of a page. If you, reading this now, are one of the lucky people who bought one (or more) of the pages of art I offered up to the dream, I thank you kindly and hope that those pages bring you as much joy as they did me.