The Annotated Sandman

              Edited by Ralf Hildebrandt and largely written by David Goldfarb

                      Issue 51: "A Tale of Two Cities"
     [Note: no official title is given; I am using Gaheris' title for his
                            internal story.]

       Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Alec Stevens, Mark Buckingham

                    First story in anthology, "Worlds' End" 

Page 3 panel 8: Not Kansas? Awww... It's worth noting that Buddy Holly
(whose music is playing) died in an Iowa field in a snowstorm. In a plane
crash rather than a car crash, to be sure.

Page 5 panel 4: A hedgehog with very similar speech patterns, named
Redlaw, appeared in volume 3 of "The Books of Magic" miniseries. This
isn't necessarily the same one, of course.

Page 6 panel 5: A "free house" is a pub or inn with no ties to a brewery,
as opposed to a "tied house", where the land or pub is owned by the brewery 
and the publicans are merely tenants. The main difference is that a free 
house canserve any beer they wish, while a tied house will usually only 
sell beers produced by the brewery the pub is tied to. In the context of the 
story, the inn is a free house in that it's tied to no one world or reality 
stream.
           panel 6: Abdera: according to Brewer's _Dictionary of Phrase and
Fable_, a Thracian seaport, proverbial for stupid inhabitants although it 
produced several noted philosophers. No refs on the particular story. 
The name Menton may be a reference to Minneapolis-area guitarist and vocalist 
Todd Menton, who certainly either knows Gaiman or knows friends of his.

Page 7 panel 3: Webster's dictionary defines "chirurgeon" simply as
an archaic synonym of "surgeon".

Page 8 panel 1: As we will learn, the travelers in this inn tell stories.
This is Brant's, although not one that follows traditional narrative style.

	   panel 5: In Greek myth, the centaur Chiron taught medicine to
Asklepios, who went on to become the patron demigod of doctors. His 
credentials as a physician are thus fairly impressive. He also served as 
Herakles' childhood tutor.

Page 9 panel 4: The man with the beer stein at left foreground is wearing
a distinctive hat, the same worn by noted fantasy writer (and friend of
Gaiman's) Steven Brust. Neil Gaiman confirms that it's meant as a cameo.
           panel 6: There was a knight of the Round Table named Gaheris,
brother to Gawaine.
	   Panel 7: By Charles Dickens, of course.

Page 10 panels 1 & 5:
Note the close-ups on the eyes. This recurs through-out the rest of this
issue.
 
Page 11 panel 3: 
        Another pair of eyes close-up.      

        panel 6: Compare 36:23:4 and 37:19:2-4.

Page 13 panel 3
The lights behind the seats resemble eyes. Also, note the colour of the
lights... (See also note on page 17 panel 5 below.)

Page 14 panel 3
Yet more eyes...

Page 16 panel 3
Even more eyes... [etc.]

Page 17 panel 5
C.f. page 11 panel 3, and page 21 panel 3. All three of them have blue
eyes.

Page 18 panel 1
At this point in the story, I was getting the eerie feeling that the city
would actually turn out to be a small part of a person's face. Here, the
bridge reminded me of the middle section of the man's glasses. Maybe
it's just me, though...

Page 19, panel 1

-from Gaiman's introduction to 

Lovecraft, H. P. The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror 
and Death: Del Rey, 1995, page x.

"There's something about Lovecraft's fiction, about his worlds, that is 
oddly alluring for a writer of fantasy and horror. I've written three 
Lovecraftian stories: one obliquely, in Sandman—a quiet, 
dreamlike story (it's the first story in the World's End 
collection. You can tell it's Lovecraftian, because I use the word 
"cyclopean" in it) . . . "


Page 20 panel 7: Given that the restaurants are always closed, I can't
help wondering what Robert is finding to eat. His beard is growing,
so he's not somehow exempted from normal bodily functions.

Page 22: Odd that whenever two real people meet, one of them
immediately returns to the real city. Coincidence, perhaps.

Page 23: Another inn, in which other tales are told; Gaheris's story
turns out to be a story-within-a-story.

Page 24 panel 6:
The last panel in this story again focusses on the eyes. This time,
though, they're Gaheris', and the picture is of his whole face, not just
his eyes. Note, also, how his eyes are the same colour as his cravat and
the wine he's drinking (although that could just be a coincidence).

Credits: 
	Greg "elmo" Morrow ([email protected]) created the Sandman
annotations, forwarded much useful commentary on "World's End", and helped
reference Chiron the centaur.
	D. W. James ([email protected]) suggested that Todd Menton
somehow found his way to the inn of World's End, and noted Steven Brust.
	Lance "Squiddie" Smith ([email protected]) noted the Buddy Holly
connection, and corrected "Worlds'" vs. "World's". He also explicated the
term "free house" and noted Steven Brust's appearance.
        Timothy Hock Seng Tan for numerous corrections and other stuff.