The Sandman Presents: Petrefax (2000)

Petrefax (2000)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrator: Steve Leialoha | Page Count: 88 (22 x 4)

"I had fallen in love with a dead woman. I asked myself if this was irony or merely an occupational hazard..."

A four-issue limited series that follows the titular Petrefax, an apprentice undertaker from the necropolis Litharge, who first appeared in The Sandman: Volume VIII: Worlds' End (1994). He's now a journeyman, seeking life experience in the wider, weirder world.

His travels take him to the bustling Malegrise, a place that brings to mind England of centuries gone by; the biggest difference being that 18th Century England wasn't home to sorcerers and demons (as far as I know).

I'm glad it was Mike Carey that was given the job of writing the miniseries. It suits his talents perfectly.

He was sole author of the ongoing Lucifer series at the time Petrefax was being published, but there's no evidence that he was stretching himself too thin. In fact, the reverse seems to be the case. He must've been on a creative high - both works are excellent.

It's not just the undertaker's tale. It's also the story of the people he meets, among them a spirited, overconfident beautiful woman and a vulgar, powerful Lord. Each one adds something unique to an adventure that's filled with death, love, jealousy, problem-solving, stupidity, surreptitious behaviour and much more. Steve Leialoha's backgrounds are filled with atmosphere and character, complementing the tone and squarely setting the period.

Text boxes take the form of an ongoing letter penned by Petrefax and addressed to his master, Klaproth, the man to whom he was apprenticed in Litharge. It's both a commentary on events from the journeyman's own point of view and an insight into his thought process.

As such, it's safe to assume one of two things: for Petrefax the story has already ended and we're reading about it afterwards, or that the meeting of present happenings (image) and future reflection (words) passed onto the reader is simply a literary device giving us a fuller picture with the added benefit of hindsight, something that was denied the protagonists at the time.

NOTE: as far as I know, at time of writing the four issues haven't been collected into a TPB. If that's correct, your only way to get them will be as individual issues.