The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1

Lettering, or the visual transposition of the written words, is perhaps one of the most underappreciated aspects of comic book art. The majority of Sandman was lettered by Todd Klein, a comic book letterer who has won more than a dozen Harvey and Eisner awards for his work. Although comic books today are lettered digitally, in Sandman’s run they would have all been written by hand.

In Sandman, each fantastical character is given a distinctive speech mannerism illustrated by the lettering and speech bubbles they use. In general, the human characters speak in normal comic book-style letters and bubbles. Notable exceptions include Gilbert, whose true nature is not revealed until much later, and Death, who speaks with a normal human structure.

The most dramatic example of lettering is in the speech of Dream himself. As the central character and driving force of the story, it is a natural choice for him to have the most distinctive speech pattern. His words are written in reverse colors, white against a black background with uneven edges. Similar to Dream’s speech is Delirium’s, whose words are written in varying sizes and speech bubbles of varying colors, showing the way her words fade in and out. Desire, Despair, and Destruction all have their own unique letters or speech bubbles to illustrate their manner of speech.

Issue 26 and 27, in the “Season of Mists” canon, takes great delight in using this device as it brings together beings and gods from a range of pantheons. Characters like Bast, the demons, and the angels are all given unique speech patterns. This enhances the surrealism of the storyline and gives another facet to the characters. A character’s “voice” is often one of the greatest limitations and challenges in a solely written medium, but here the letterer is able to give the impression of an auditory aspect to the story that sets it above others of its genre.