Issue 58: "The Kindly Ones: 2"
Neil Gaiman, Marc Hempel, D'Israeli
- Second part of storyline, The Kindly Ones
- Third story reprinted in trade paperback The Kindly Ones
Cover: Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) was Earl of Beaconsfield and Prime Minister of England. The inker's pen name is probably derived from him, although he did not spell his name with an apostrophe.
Page 1#
Panel 4
Evidently he was rocking the boat...
Panel 6
Not sure if National Jazzercise Week is a real thing...
Page 2#
Panel 7
Lyta calles Lieutenant Pinkerton "Lieutenant Pinkwater" -- tip of the hat to Daniel Manus Pinkwater, National Public Radio commentator and author of the classic young adult books Lizard Music, The Last Guru and Young Adult Novel, as well as several books for younger readers.
Gaiman and Pinkwater have been known to hang out on each other's discussion fora on GEnie. (This was back in '93-'94; not sure if it's still the case.)
Page 5#
Page 7#
Panels 3-5
In 47:14.4 we see (in a panel from Destiny's book, whose location in time is uncertain) a white-haired, white-clad Dream that looks somewhat like this figure. It's unclear as yet whether this is a plot point or just an echo.
Page 9#
Panel 4
In an interview in "Comics Buyers Guide" Gaiman states that the story of Cluracan's nemesis isn't going to be resolved before the title ends. Sigh...
Page 11#
Panel 7
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" (French: "The Beautiful Merciless Lady"): a poem, written in 1819 by John Keats, about a young man pining away for love of an elf-maiden.
Page 14-16#
In Jungian psychology, if you have a dream in which you go down to a basement, it means that you are confronting something from your subconscious. Here, Lyta is confronting the fact that her son may be dead. (C.f. Rose's dream in #65:5.7)
Page 14#
Panel 6
The recipe is from Macbeth act IV scene 1:
First Witch Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
ALL Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Witch Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
ALL Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Page 15#
Panel 1
Granddaughter on the mother's side, most likely...
Panel 3
An echo: twice before the three witches have appeared to answer three questions. Once when summoned by Dream in issue 2, and once to Rose Walker in issue 10.
Page 17#
Panel 3
Dragnet: A radio show, then a television show, purporting to dramatize actual cases of the LA police department.
Page 18#
Panel 3
No refs on these figures or the name "Ruthven", other than that Gaiman used the name for a minor character in issue 1.
Page 19#
Panel 6
No refs on any of Cluracan's titles...
Page 21#
Panel 3
Morpheus and Nuala seem oddly ignorant of the events recounted in issue 52. We can speculate that the reality storm sent Cluracan back in time, but things aren't that simple: Queen Titania would likely have noticed her ambassador arriving before he left. Further, there is no evidence in that story of the events shown in this.
Page 23#
Panel 7
Nuala's crystal in was given her by the last Dream's lover as seen in issue #42, page 4, panel 5.
Panel 9
An echo of "A Game of You". That story also concerned a crystal that could be used to summon Dream for a boon.
Credits
- Greg "elmo" Morrow (morrow@physics.rice.edu) created the Sandman Annotations.
- Originally collated and edited by David Goldfarb.
- Timothy Tan aka TiTan <_> -M2001- <_> 083285@bud.cc.swin.edu.au
- Ralf Hildebrandt added more details.
Last modified by Richard Munn on 2023-08-15 - Updated issue inclusion blocks, adding extra trades, and audible/netflix episodes
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