Full-length versions of J. Michael Straczynski’s “Joe’s Comics” graphic novels are being made available as digital editions, starting with the Babylon 5 creator’s favourite, the highly acclaimed Dream Police.
Surreal, funny and scary with plenty of action, Dream Police, featuring art by Sid Kotian, with covers by Bill Farmer and others, was first published by Image Comics between 2014 and 2016. You can still read the first issue of Dream Police here for free on the Image Comics website.
The digital collection, running to over 300 pages, costs just £14.79 in the UK through AmazonUK (Affiliate Link), and $20 from Amazon.com. If you have a Kindle subscription, it’s currently included for free.
There is a place between Heaven and Hell, between quantum mechanics and the corner store, between all the things we think we know and the infinity of things we don’t; a place where our dreams are lived out every night. Here, Tibetan temples lean against Texan BBQ stands next to exotic spires next to beaches, mountains, urban streets, suburban neighborhoods… a jackstraw tumble of locations swirling into one another, appearing and disappearing like liquid light.
This… is the Dreamscape, inhabited by Changelings (who transform into your friends and family to populate your dreams), Architects (those who build the houses and skyscrapers and cityscapes you know, only to tear them down again as soon as you wake up), Nightmares (who use our fears to show us a better way), Elders (who created the Dreamscape at the dawn of time)… and Dream Police, who make sure that the hundred million dreamers who come here every hour are kept safe.
Detectives Joe Thursday and Frank Stafford have always been partners, for as long as they can remember. Oddly, they can’t actually remember when or how they first met. That changes when Frank learns a secret about who and what the Dream Police really are, and where they come from. But before he can tell Joe, he disappears, blipped out of the reality of the Dreamscape, replaced by Detective Kate Black.
Joe Thursday and Kate Black have always been partners, for as long as they can remember. Oddly, they can’t actually remember when or how they first met.
Dream Police follows Joe and Kate as they slowly begin to unravel the truth of what happened to Frank Stafford, a journey that takes them into the deep mysteries of the Dreamscape: hidden files guarded by uniformed Minotaurs, recruiting areas on floors that disappear when anyone comes looking for them, Nightmares who have gone too far and seen too much, a conspiracy to silence them, and a final push to the edge of the Dreamscape itself, from which no one has ever returned. And the key to the mystery may rest with a woman trapped in a cycle of a recurring dream, who may know more about Joe than he knows about himself.
Dream Police is deeply personal, funny, and full of surreal action…just what readers have come to expect of award-winning writer J. Michael Straczynski, who now lives in Britain, from his work on Babylon 5, Sense8, Changeling, and a vast assortment of comics from DC, Marvel and Image.
Strap in for a journey like nothing you’ve ever read before.
• Dream Police is available here as a digital edition from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) | Amazon.com
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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