Strange Geometry: Structure of "The Girl Who Would Be Death"

Death's favorite movie is Mary Poppins.
Who knew?
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            Before I start this blog, I wish to establish that I love Neil Gaiman and his works. I discovered his writing when I was a junior in high school, my first novel by him titled Anansi Boys, and since then I’ve remained a fan and regard him as a major influence to my writing. I’ve started reading his most famous work, the Vertigo series The Sandman, as I was just starting college and took me two years to read through the saga’s eighty-two issues (eleven compiled volumes, including EndlessNights). Now I’m in my senior year and for my Graphic Novel class, every person is to analyze the structure of a random comic. What was the deliberate use of frames and panels? How do the frames enhance the story? Coincidently, I was assigned The Girl Who Would Be Death #3, the third act of a four part spin-off series created by Caitlin R. Kiernan and Dean Ormston. The cover lacked anything that would indicate Sandman or Dave McKean’s signature art style despite the word “Death” and the Vertigo logo. I joked while receiving the copy to look at, “I only know of one Death and this doesn’t look like her.” As it turns out, the story does take place in the Sandman universe as Gaiman was credited as a consultant.

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            Death, especially Gaiman’s Death, is one of the most well known and beloved characters in the DC Universe. Despite what her name and function implies, she is one of most loving and caring figures you could or ever want to meet, especially at the stressful and difficult moment of one’s own expiration. I say this because the cover is non-indicative to her character. The past covers by Dave McKean that have featured Death feature a dark and ethereal Goth girl. The cover of “The Girl Who Would Be Death” is more indicative of a horror/thriller title, which is not what the character is about. After skimming through the issue looking for candidate pages for this blog, I kept wondering at why I haven’t heard of this title because I’ve encountered all the other spinoffs. After googling it, there’s very little information about it and the comic book website, Comic Vine, lists the series as having poor reception since it’s release and is largely forgotten. That’s never a good sign. Beforehand, after skimming through, I was disappointed to find nothing that resonated with its source material. After seeing the review on Comic Vine, I realized that my feelings were founded. 

Because of the context of the assignment, I am not aware of what happened in the previous two issues and I could not read the comic because of A) the short amount of time in class and B) the issues are not to be taken home. This is purely going to be a superficial reading on how the creators structured the narrative.

            The first page opens with an establishing shot of two women sharing a bed while encircled with some sort of substance. It seems the creators are taking a page from the Sanderson Sisters’ spell book on protection spells; the circle is also made of salt, then that’s just plagiarism. Nevertheless, the page indicates that these women have had a rough night considering they had to draw a circle around where they sleep and the bars from the window and headboard convey this prison-like imagery. It’s to suggest that these women are struggling; they are trapped and cornered by an unseen entity as well as shocking to first time readers into wondering what led to this moment. From a strayed observation, could these women have any relation to Hazel and Foxglove, the lesbian couple from The Sandman?

            The first page is also the first instance of the creators’ use of panels overlapping a bigger picture, which is used repeatedly throughout the issue. I think the technique is used to depict the idea that everything is happening at the same time, several elements are in motion that are leading to a result. On this page, a man sees a raven [Matthew?] flying and then crashing into the window of these women. This event is very frightening to them and it seems like it’s trying to bait them out of their circle. I don’t know why, but the overlapping technique on the raven in the middle of the splash page is off, like it’s superfluous and comes off as obstructive and lessens the terror this thing is suppose to give off.

            The overlap technique is used again when a zombie-like figure appears in the narrative. Like the raven, it’s a little distracting, but I think the intention was to give weight to the appearance of this thing, considering that the women are frightened over their current situation and this creature appears and breaks through their defenses.

The Sandman is always known for giving characters, especially the Endless, unique word balloons like Dream’s/Morpheus’ inverted black and white wavy word balloons, Desire’s sharp lettering, or Delirium’s colorful word balloons. This zombie has a wavy, oozing word balloon reminiscent of the fonts used in slasher films just to reinforce this creature’s horror. I’m curious as to whether this story takes place after the events of the source material because [SPOILER] Morpheus dies. Can an Endless leave behind a corpse? I don’t recall Morpheus leaving one for his funeral. Nevertheless, the creature is similar looking to Morpheus along with his speech bubble and accompaniment of a raven.

The last page I chose was for this one panel, which effectively conveys the character’s emotional state. The most effective way to show someone lost and alone is to have them isolated, which is what the artist did by having this character isolated in this white void with her shadow stretching farther than physically possible. Most human characters who encounter the Endless have their lives changed, they often go on living trying to forget the experience like it was a dream or they go mad from knowing their world had gotten a bit bigger than they care to know. The isolated woman suggests the latter category. Something this simple can say a lot.

God made the world in seven days.
Dream unmakes it in seven minutes.
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“The Girl Who Would Be Death” is a weak entry in The Sandman universe because it’s trying to be something that it’s not. The issue contains other monstrous creatures and bits of horror to the point it seems like a different story. While the source material has plenty of horrific elements, to this day I still can’t get over “24 Hours” in Preludes and Nocturnes, that’s still not the overall focus of the narrative. The Sandman was an introspective, post-modernist fantasy that examined the nature of story, myth and the nature of dreams itself. The series has boasted beautiful, surrealistic artwork and probably the most fantastic sequence was in A Game of You, when Morpheus, in a majestic display of his power, “unmakes” a fantasyland with ease.

Death’s character seems inappropriate to be part of a horror title. It seems like the title was given to lesser hands, who then tried to reverse engineer what worked in the source material but only resulted in failure. It’s like giving TheNightmare on Elm Street to mediocre slasher film directors or having the TV show Community taken away from its creator, Dan Harmon, and given to mediocre show runners. The metaphor would be half-effective if it weren’t true and both products turned out sloppy.