Death, Death, and Friends
In graduate thesis paper, “Not Cruel, Blessed, or Merciful: Pratchett, Gaiman, and the Personification of Death,” Kiki V. Canon examines the ways both the personification of death in Neil Gaiman’s comic title The Sandman with the personification of death in Terry Pratchetts’ fantasy novel series Discworld subvert traditional western cultural views of death and analyzes what these personications and their respective gender-identifications suggest about how humans can relate to their own mortality and how these ideas made a cultrual impact.
Through what would best be defined as a qualitative cultural studies/semiotic analysis, though there are certainly strong elements of a literary study/autership, Canon comes to the conclusion that both works express the notion that the inevitability of death for humans should be accepted calmly rather than feared or evaded and that this notion fostered more open discussions of death, influenced popular views, and representations other works of literature.
Though this paper is only partially about a comic, the in-depth detailed analysis of The Sandman, the thoughtful references to other works of comic scholarship, and the fact that it compares the ideas expressed in a comic directly with those in a novel makes it an extremely interesting and valuable piece of comic-scholarlship. Significantly, Canon even discussed the ways that a comic form gave Gaiman an advantage in the expression of his ideas.
Though Discworld is a children’s comic fantasy series, and therefore not considered “high culture,” the ability to compare a more traditional novel to a comic is still an important step in accepting that comics are an equally important medium of expressing ideas and telling stories. It also emphasized that “low culture” works can convey massively important messages about the human experience.
In terms of the study of The Sandman, Canon utilizes the corpus of the entire The Sandman title, but also specifically draws on certain pages and issues for detailed analysis. They examines both her general characterization and the significance of her identification/presentation as a woman.
Canon looks at the way Death is drawn, the way other characters react to/interact with her, the language she uses, and even the way her speech appears-noting that they are contained in ordinary speech bubbles in the same way as the mortals of the series. He utilizes his observations to claim that Death is intentionally portrayed, and, indeed, intentionally portrays herself as comforting, kindly, and non-threatening in direct contrast to traditional western-culture depictions.
Canon also gives a background on Neil Gaiman’s career and his place in pop-culture.
As for Death of Discworld, Canon focuses primarily on Pratchett’s language and characterization based on wording though he also discusses the portrait of death created by Paul Kidby in direct collaboration with Pratchett.
In terms of cultural impact, Canon describes the cultural “Death Positvie” movement and cites the numerous fan-fictions of both Death personification as well as the idea of Death in Harry Potter as evidence.
Canon also draws on a number of works of comic scholarship, some about the Sandman and others not, including Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, as well as a number of other topically-related scholarly sources (Including Barthes), to back up methods and conclusions.
-Madeleine Wack
