By d. emerson eddy — Like many of the fringe kids in the '80s and '90s, I was drawn to the haunting and beautiful quality of The Sandman. I gravitated more towards the horror and fantasy aspects than the philosophical questions at the time, but it served as a familiar base to later explore even further from different perspective. The series is incredible in that there are many layers that you can read, enjoy, and understand, unfolding new joys with each re-reading.

One of my early favorites from the series was “A Dream of a Thousand Cats” in The Sandman #18 by Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Daniel Vozzo, and Todd Klein. It actually may well be one of my favorite single issue stories ever published and there's a pretty simple reason why, it's the cats. I love cats. Grew up on a farm where there were an inordinate amount of strays that tended to gravitate and I just love the precocious balls of fur. Seeing Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, and Daniel Vozzo's depiction of them, playing, cavorting, just being cats was an instant hook.

But it also sparked my imagination. Gaiman, Jones, Jones, Vozzo, and Klein tell a story here about a little kitten, joining an older stray cat to go to a gathering of cats to listen to the tale told by a Siamese cat who went to speaking to the Cat of Dreams. Of her struggles under the oppression of humans and of a fundamental truth of reality that shook her understanding of existence. And a plea to all of kittykind to believe and help change the world for the betterment of all felines.

On its surface, it works very well as a piece explaining the power of dreams. It speaks to the condition of oppression through the analogy to how cats are treated as property, rather than as living, breathing creatures in their own right. And how embracing a common dream or vision, you can work to affect change on reality.

That latter bit can be taken in a number of ways, which helped spark a love of philosophy that developed over the years eventually leading to studying it in university. Some people believe in the power of positive thinking, “the Secret”, affecting reality to change in accordance to your will, prayer, quantum observation, and more and I find it fascinating how collective belief can change how things are perceived. Whether objective change occurs or it's some kind of folie a deux, I couldn't say, but it's an interesting phenomenon.

Personally, I like to believe in the possibility of imagination, the strength of dreams, and the vision to affect positive change on the world. The Sandman #18 does that for the cats in the story. And it leaves us with one of the strongest beliefs to pull us through, hope.

The Sandman #18
Writer: Neil Gaiman
Penciller: Kelley Jones
Inker: Malcolm Jones III
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Todd Klein
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Date: August 1990
Release Date: July 12, 1990
Price: $1.99 on Comixology

d. emerson eddy is a student and writer of things. He fell in love with comics during Moore, Bissette, & Totleben's run on Swamp Thing and it has been a torrid affair ever since. His madness typically manifests itself on Twitter @93418.