Amanda A Dream Come True Cartoon By Steve Strange May 2026
The "sleeping mother" is widely interpreted as a metaphor for addiction. Steve Strange was open about his own mother's struggle with prescription drugs. Amanda’s journey through the "dream come true" is not just about heroism, but about the realization that you cannot save someone who doesn't want to be saved. The ending is famously ambiguous—does Amanda actually wake her mother, or does she simply learn to live with the loss?
After shopping the film around for two years, Strange struck a deal with a small European home video label. In 1993, the cartoon was released on VHS in Germany and France under the title Amanda – Ein Traum Wird Wahr . It sold approximately 15,000 copies. Amanda A Dream Come True Cartoon By Steve Strange
To the uninitiated, the name Steve Strange is more commonly associated with the New Romantic movement of the 1980s, the lead singer of the band Visage, and the iconic club "The Blitz." However, in the early 90s, Strange pivoted dramatically from synth-pop stardom to the world of cel animation. The result was a film that defied categorization: a psychedelic, emotional, and deeply personal fairy tale known as Amanda: A Dream Come True . The "sleeping mother" is widely interpreted as a
Today, the original 1992 film is a holy grail for animation collectors. The VHS tapes sell for over $300 on eBay. A digital restoration is rumored to be in the works, but rights issues remain tangled between Strange’s estate, the German distribution company, and the Canadian studio behind the TV series. The ending is famously ambiguous—does Amanda actually wake
The title is ironic. Amanda’s dreams do come true, but the cartoon constantly asks: Is that a good thing? In the Velvet Maze sequence, Amanda finds a perfect replica of her mother—except it has no shadow, no soul. The creature offers to let Amanda stay in the dream forever. Amanda’s rejection of this "perfect" dream is the emotional climax of the film.
Using the modest fortune he had saved from his "Fade to Grey" royalties, Strange founded . He hired a small team of disillusioned Disney animators and European graphic novelists. The goal was simple, if daunting: create a fully hand-drawn animated film that looked like nothing else on Earth. The keyword, as Strange would later scrawl on the production bible, was "Amanda: A Dream Come True"— a title that served both as a plot summary and a personal manifesto. Plot Summary: The Architecture of Sleep The cartoon follows Amanda , a quiet, imaginative 11-year-old living in a brutally grey, industrialized coastal town in an alternate-universe 1950s. Her father is a factory clock-winder; her mother has been "asleep" (in a coma) for three years after a factory accident. Amanda believes that if she can master the "science of dreams," she can enter her mother’s subconscious and wake her up.