Some people are just fucked up

An online long distance relationship that ends badly. Even by internet standards this one is pretty messed up. Also Harlan Ellison is tangently involved...

Sunday Trade: Sandman Mystery Theatre

Sandman Mystery Theatre: The Tarantula
written by Matt Wagner, art by Guy Davis, colors by David Hornung, letters by John Costanza

Wesley Dodds aka the Sandman is one of DC's oldest Golden Age characters. A trench-coated Mystery Man in a WWI gas mask and fedora who fought crime with his detective skills and a gun that fired sleep gas cannisters. The character was revitalized after Gaiman created his Sandman series about the Endless, when he tied Dodds origins into Dream's decades long imprisonment in that book...

Here you get one of Dodds first "adventures". Tracking down a kidnapper and murderer who calls themselves the Tarantula. I don't know if this is a new story or a retelling. But Wagner crafts a masterful piece of super-hero noir that perfectly captures Dodds and his supporting cast. Especially the lovely Dian Belmont, who will go on to become Wesley's lifelong partner. Both in life and in crime-solving...

Davis and Hornung's pale and faded art also adds wonderfully to evoking the post-Prohibition setting and genre. Creating a gray world filled with amoral people for the heroes to struggle against...