What are the text changes between the Sandman comics and Absolute Sandman?

March 15, 2008 12:52 AM

Is there a resource that delineates the differences between Absolute Sandman and the original comics?

Neil Gaiman mentions on his blog:

I fixed the Joshua Norton announcement declaring himself emperor, which was right in the script but had somehow been changed when it was lettered, and I also changed a word that I realised a few years ago did not mean what I thought it meant when I originally wrote that issue (no, I'm not telling you which word).

I would like to know the word, and where it is located, and the various other changes. I read the comics a while ago but only possess the Absolute volumes. Surely some comic book geek has already done this?

posted by hindmost to writing & language (6 comments total)

Comics readership does include a large number of Rain Man/Asperger's types who would certainly catalog minutiae like this, but I'm unaware of a concordance that tracks the script edits between the various Sandman editions. If you're really dying to know the specific changes in this issue, though, you can probably find the original single issue for about three bucks in a comics shop or on the eBays.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:53 AM on March 15

Also, "Sandman annotations" gets you more hits on Google than I personally would have any idea what to do with, but that would probably get you started...
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:57 AM on March 15

Why not ask Neil? He's unusually responsive to such questions on his blog.
posted by WCityMike at 8:55 AM on March 15

Linkage.
posted by WCityMike at 8:55 AM on March 15

WCityMike, I didn't ask him because he's already stated that he won't tell. Further entreaties on matters he has explicitly stated he won't comment always seem to lead to more frustration and no clear answers. Kittens for breakfast, the problem is that I would need to buy every issue that is included in the 400+ pages of Volume 2 and compare them for a single word change and I'm counting on someone else having done it already.
posted by hindmost at 3:16 PM on March 15

Um...no, no, you wouldn't. You'd just need to buy that issue. Google says it's #31. The "various other changes" I can't help you with, but....
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:39 PM on March 15