"The Sandman" by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon [Hardcover]

Let's make it clear from the start, this is not the same Sandman made famous by Neil Gaiman in the 1990s. This is Simon and Kirby's take on the Golden Age Sandman whose alter ego was wealthy playboy, Wesley Dodds. This character was created by writer, Gardner Fox, and artist, Bert Christman, in 1939. In the early 1940s, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were the new dream team of comics, having dreamt up the hugely popular Captain America for Timely Comics (later to become Marvel). Unhappy with the deal they were getting at Timely, they were looking for other work. Timely's big rival, DC, were only too happy to snap them up and pay them more. While they were developing new characters, DC suggested they fill in by taking over the existing Sandman strip in Adventure Comics. They did, vastly improving it in the process. The result is what we have here: classic Golden Age Simon & Kirby, lovingly reproduced using digitally-enhanced scans from the original comics and printed on paper that looks like the kind comic books used to be printed on whilst being much more durable. The colours are vibrant, blacks strong, text crystal clear, the occasional colouring and spelling mistakes left in (e.g. Botham City). The result is like holding perfect-bound copies of near mint originals. Given that near mint originals no longer exist and that if they did they would cost thousands of dollars each, this reprint volume is an incredible bargain.
What about the stories themselves? Well, considering they're 70 years old, they stand up pretty well. The motifs of sleep and dreams are cleverly woven into many of them. There's plenty of period charm, from Sandman telling readers to buy war bonds to his having a child called 'Sandy, the Golden Boy,' accompanying him as he fights mobsters armed with machine-guns. Someone call child services! No great, multi-part cosmic sagas, no annoying cross-overs, just neat 10-page stories, each complete in itself and full of good, old-fashioned mystery, drama and fun.
Some things prefigure Kirby's later work. One tale, for example, has Sandman and Sandy fighting the Norse thunder god, Thor. The heroes use 'wirepoon' guns very similar to Kirby's later design for Daredevil's billy club. There's the snappy banter aimed at criminals along with the punches during fight scenes. There's a 'Crime Carnival' very like the 'Circus of Crime' Kirby had Thor run into in the 1960s.
The artwork shows Kirby still developing his craft, but already streets ahead of his contemporaries in the dynamism of his figures, the layout of his pages and the impact of his covers, one of which has Sandman pointing and looking straight at the reader and yelling 'Nobody leave this magazine - a crime has been committed!!!' Simon and Kirby shared equal credit for both writing and artwork, though it's believed that Kirby did more pencilling, because he was quicker, while Simon did more inking, which Kirby didn't enjoy.
This handsomely produced volume is rounded off with a story from Simon and Kirby's last collaboration, when they teamed up at DC in 1974 to launch yet another new take on the Sandman character. This allows us to see just how much Kirby's style had changed in 30 years, whilst losing none of its power and energy.
All-in-all, a brilliant example of how comic book reprints should be done. If only the production office at Marvel took half as much care as their rivals at DC ... Don't get me started!