This book examines the early history of the graphic novel in the 1970s, after the term was coined but before this art form achieved popular success and critical acclaim. Unearthing a treasure trove of fanzines, adverts, and unpublished letters, it gives readers an exciting inside look at a pivotal moment in the development of the graphic novel.

Winner of the Best Book Award in Comics History from the Grand Comics Database Honorable Mention, 2019-2020 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize The term “graphic novel” was first coined in 1964, but it wouldn’t be broadly used until the 1980s, when graphic novels such as Watchmen and Maus achieved commercial success and critical acclaim. What happened in the intervening years, after the graphic novel was conceptualized yet before it was widely recognized? Dreaming the Graphic Novel examines how notions of the graphic novel began to coalesce in the 1970s, a time of great change for American comics, with declining sales of mainstream periodicals, the arrival of specialty comics stores, and (at least initially) a thriving underground comix scene. Surveying the eclectic array of long comics narratives that emerged from this fertile period, Paul Williams investigates many texts that have fallen out of graphic novel history. As he demonstrates, the question of what makes a text a ‘graphic novel’ was the subject of fierce debate among fans, creators, and publishers, inspiring arguments about the literariness of comics that are still taking place among scholars today. Unearthing a treasure trove of fanzines, adverts, and unpublished letters, Dreaming the Graphic Novel gives readers an exciting inside look at a pivotal moment in the art form’s development.

In these tales from The Dreaming #1-6 and THE Sandman Universe Special #1, Lord Daniel’s absence triggers crimes and calamities that consume the lives of those already tangled in his fate. Until he is found, his realm’s residents must protect its broken borders alone. But the most senior story-tellers are tormented by invasive secrets, Lucien is doubting his own mind, and beyond the gates, something horrific awaits with tooth and talon.

The unbelievable finale of Simon Spurrier and Bilquis Evely’s Sandman Universe epic is here! The citizens of the Dreaming make their final play against the artificial intelligence that seeks to replace them with cold rationality…and the fate of Dream is revealed!

A new chapter in the Sandman saga begins with both familiar and new faces! One of Dream's heaviest responsibilities is creating nightmares...and he thinks he may have built his next masterpiece in the form of Ruin. But Ruin will live up to his name, in ways that Dream could never expect and creating a spiral of consequences and messes to be cleaned. When Lindy dreams of Ruin—she somehow delivers him unto the waking world! Has anyone checked on Puck lately? Oh no...it looks like he's found someone to stalk too. Sorceress Heather After will have to find a protector for herself...but is she prepared for the deal she'll have to strike once she finds the champion with the dangerous power she needs? With a trip into the realm of Faerie too, you don't want to miss the collection of your dreams! The Dreaming: Waking Hours, collects The Dreaming: Waking Hours #1-12.

Everyone dreams, but are these dreams our own? Who controls our thoughts when we're sleeping? Ginn, is a young college student who has been having wildly disturbing nightmares featuring a man she has never met. When she finds a flyer with his picture and the question, "Have you dreamed this man?" she submits to an interview that begins to unravel her perceptions of reality.

"Join a white-collar worker who yearns for blue-collar freedom as he takes a special tour of the Dreaming with caretaker Mervyn Pumpkinhead; Spend New Year's Day with two expatriate faeries--Nuala, once a gift to Dream from Queen Titania, and Claracan, disgraced ambassador to the Royal Court; Travel with two denizens of The Dreaming into the waking world: The Corinthian, a deadly nightmare made flesh, sent to correct the sins of his past; and Matthew the Raven who takes human form to face an old adversary; And learn of the exploits of one of Dream's former ravens, Aristeas of Marmora. Welcome to The Dreaming--the vast, unmapped realm of dreams, where your wildest fantasy may walk side by side with your greatest nightmares, where truth and illustion walk hand in hand--or sometimes claw in glove."--Page 4 of cover.