Neil Gaiman's Sandman

2/10/2020

By Elly Murray

Novelist and comics writer Neil Gaiman has been on a roll for the past few years.

American Gods, the 2017 television adaptation of his 2001 book, was praised for its visual style and was renewed for a third season to be released sometime in 2020. Good Omens, a hit 2019 interpretation of the book he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett way back in 1990, has also seen incredible success in the months since its debut.

Now, Gaiman is working with Netflix to produce a television show based on The Sandman, one of the most influential comics he’s ever created.

Gaiman released the first issue of The Sandman in 1988, under DC’s Vertigo imprint, and the series was soon a cult classic. The story mainly follows the misadventures of Dream of the Endless a.k.a. The Sandman, a powerful being who controls the Dreaming, the place we visit in our dreams. Dream is, as Gaiman describes him, “a gloomy sort of bugger” and throughout the comic he constantly struggles with the knowledge that everyone must change or die, and he will also have to make that choice.

Written in Gaiman’s singularly unique style, The Sandman was one of the few comics to ever make the New York Times Bestsellers list, with Maus, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight Returns for company. It was also one of five graphic novels to make Entertainment Weekly's "100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008," ranking at No. 46.

For over two decades, fans of The Sandman have been hoping desperately that it will be reworked for the screen--any screen, really. There have been a few movie attempts, and the inklings of a television show as well, but nothing has really gotten off the ground.

However, the new partnership with Netflix shows some real promise, especially in the wake of Gaiman’s latest successful TV adaptations. Netflix has also already produced Lucifer, a TV show based on a character from the original Sandman run.

Gaiman is set to be executive-producer of the show, with co-writer David Goyer (The Dark Knight) and Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman) as showrunner. He confirmed in a Twitter post that the first season will be eleven episodes, and will cover The Sandman’s first volume, Preludes and Nocturnes, and possibly part of the second volume, The Doll’s House.

"I hope that it's gonna be about as faithful as Good Omens the TV series was to Good Omens the book,” Gaiman said in a CBC interview. “Which is to say, you do things that people loved in the comic on the TV because they loved that thing and why would you change it? But you also take advantage of what you can do on television and what you can do on the screen. There are a lot of Sandman fans, and they're waiting for the Sandman that they know and love to be on the screen, and that's what we want to give them."

The Sandman TV show is still in the early stages of development, so there’s no release date or cast lined up as of yet. However, fans of Gaiman’s work (myself included!) will eagerly await the news.

And while we’re waiting, if you want to jump into The Sandman or any of Gaiman’s other works, Foggy Pine Books has got you covered!

Come by anytime to get a recommendation from our booksellers or you can get started here: