Cover: Dave McKean

Sandman #18

Aug 1990 · DC · 1.50 USD; 1.85 CAD; 0.80 GBP

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“[Dream Country, Part 2] A Dream of a Thousand Cats”

About this Issue

Sandman #18, 'A Dream of a Thousand Cats,' is one of the most enduringly popular single issues of the entire seventy-five-issue run, cited consistently as a high-water mark for the Dream Country anthology phase of the series. By telling Gaiman's story entirely through the perspective of cats — with Morpheus himself appearing only as the 'Cat of Dreams,' a feline avatar of the Dreaming — the issue demonstrated that the series could inhabit entirely non-human points of view while still delivering the series' core thesis that collective dreaming reshapes reality. Its standalone, accessible structure proved that Gaiman's Sandman could function as a short-story vehicle rather than a continuous superhero narrative, a creative gamble that opened the door to the series' later, more ambitious anthology arcs. The issue also marks the first appearance of Morpheus in his feline aspect — a small but canonically notable transformation of the Endless that expanded the cosmology of the Dreaming.

writer Neil Gaiman · artist Kelley Jones · inker Malcolm Jones III · colorist Robbie Busch · letterer Todd Klein · cover Dave McKean

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Raw (VF) $10

CGC 9.8 · 21 in census $135*

CGC 9.6 · 41 in census $85

CGC 9.4 · 42 in census $43*

CGC 9.2 · 33 in census $39

CGC 9.0 · 23 in census $31

CGC 8.5 · 23 in census $31

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CGC 8.0 · 14 in census $31*

CGC 7.5 · 3 in census $27*

CGC 7.0 · 3 in census $25*

CGC 6.5 · 4 in census $24*

CGC 6.0 none in existence

CGC 5.5 · 1 in census $20*

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VF/NM $3.96 VF/NM $8 VF $9.99 NM $12 MINT $15 FN $15.98 VF $17.98 NM $24

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History

Sandman #18 was released on June 26, 1990, as the second chapter of the four-issue Dream Country arc (issues #17–20), which was explicitly designed by Gaiman to break the series away from the large-scale stakes of the first two arcs. Gaiman has noted, as reported in The Sandman Companion, that he wanted to prevent the book from falling into the pattern of escalating crisis-driven plots common to superhero comics, and Dream Country's four standalone stories were his answer to that concern. The issue was pencilled by Kelley Jones and inked by Malcolm Jones III, with coloring by Robbie Busch and lettering by Todd Klein — a creative team distinct from the series' regular rotation, which itself signaled the anthology's range. A small number of first-print copies contain a production error in which the yellow ink on the first page was replaced by blue, producing three visibly blue panels instead of the intended yellow-tinted ones.

Trivia · 8 facts

Story title: 'A Dream of a Thousand Cats'; cover date August 1990, released June 26, 1990.
Written by Neil Gaiman; pencilled by Kelley Jones; inked by Malcolm Jones III; colored by Robbie Busch; lettered by Todd Klein; cover by Dave McKean.
Marks the first appearance of Morpheus/Dream in his feline form, 'the Cat of Dreams,' a canonical transformation of the Endless within the Dreaming.
Third chapter of the Dream Country arc (Sandman #17–20), a run of four standalone, self-contained stories that deliberately stepped away from the series' ongoing multi-issue story arcs.
The issue was named #45 on Wizard Magazine's '100 Best Single Issue Comics Since You Were Born' list, one of the few Sandman issues individually cited.
Collected in the Dream Country trade paperback (first printing 1991), which also includes 'Calliope' (#17), 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (#19), and 'Façade' (#20); later collected in The Absolute Sandman Vol. 1 (2006).
A known printing error variant exists for this issue: a small number of copies have the three opening panels on page 1 printed in blue ink rather than the correct yellow, a color-separation production mistake.
The issue was adapted as part of the Netflix Sandman television series in a special episode pairing it with 'Calliope,' and was also adapted in the Sandman audio drama.