Nerds of the world, rejoice: It has been a great year for awesome news about older favorite books and comics! Several fantasy classics are coming to the screen. Dune, Shadow and Bone, and Y: The Last Man adaptations are all releasing in 2021; there are several Game of Thrones spinoffs in the works; and the legendary Sandman comics are currently in production at Netflix for a drama series, The Sandman.
Audible has the exclusive full-cast audio adaptation of the first three volumes of the series, The Sandman, dramatized and directed by audio icon Dirk Maggs and starring James McAvoy, Riz Ahmed, Kat Dennings, Taron Egerton, Neil Gaiman, Samantha Morton, Bebe Neuwirth, Andy Serkis, and Michael Sheen. Later this month, the adventure continues with the second installment, The Sandman: Act II, which introduces all-star talent the likes of David Tennant, John Lithgow, and Bill Nighy to the cast.
Maybe you're new to the Sandman comics, or maybe—gasp!—you've never even heard of them. Either way, we've got you covered. Read ahead for details on Neil Gaiman's Sandman, the important characters in the series, and what to expect from the upcoming Netflix series. Be prepared: the article ahead may contain some spoilers.
What is The Sandman about?
The Sandman is a dark fantasy and horror comic that was first released in single issues from DC Comics in 1989. It was written by Neil Gaiman and its graphic artists included Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, Bryan Talbot, and Michael Zulli, with lettering by Todd Klein. Dave McKean was the cover artist for the series through its entire run. It won 26 individual Eisner Awards, among other honors. It had three storylines: The Sandman, which ran from January 1989 to March 1996; The Sandman: The Dream Hunters in 1999; and The Sandman: Overture, which ran from October 2013 to November 2015. The comic was conceived by Gaiman to revive DC's The Sandman, written by Joe Simon and Michael Fleisher and illustrated by Jack Kirby and Ernie Chua, which ran from 1974 to 1976.
The Sandman is a comic comprised of stories that follow Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, who is captured and gradually learns that sometimes change is inevitable. So, Dream sets out to correct the mistakes he has made in the past. He is surrounded by other characters from Hell's hierarchy, such as Lucifer, Azazel, and Beelzebub. The Sandman storylines usually take place in Morpheus's realm of the Dreaming and the waking world, but occasionally the plots also visit other domains, such as Hell, Faerie, Asgard, and those of the other Endless.
The most popular spinoffs of the Sandman comics—featuring one of the most popular Sandman characters—is 1993's Death: The High Cost of Living, followed in 1996 by Death: The Time of Your Life. The Death comics were released by Vertigo Comics. The storylines follow a premise based on the fable that Death can take a human form once a century in order to keep in touch with humanity.
Who are the major characters in The Sandman?
The Endless
The Endless are a family of seven anthropomorphic personifications of universal concepts. Older and more powerful than gods, they each have their own sigil, a type of symbolic representation used in magic, and each of their speech bubbles is drawn differently.
Dream/Morpheus: All of Sandman revolves around Morpheus, the Dream King. In Sandman, he must come to terms with his past mistakes and cruelties to others. He is sometimes slow to understand things. He lives in a castle at the heart of his realm, "the Dreaming," and populates the realm with speaking characters. He is closest with his sister, Death. His sigil is his dream-helm.
"What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?" — Dream
"The price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted." — Dream
Destiny: The oldest of the Endless, Destiny often takes the form of a Blind man and speaks in italics. He has his sigil, a book, chained to him at all times, which contains the entire sum of existence, past, present and future. Destiny is the only Endless who was not created for the Sandman; he originated in 1972.
Death: Death is arguably the most popular of all the Sandman characters, and definitely the friendliest and kindest of the Endless. She wears her sigil, the ankh, around her neck. Once a century, she spends a day living and dying as a human to keep herself grounded. She is closest with her brother, Dream.
"For some folks death is release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them." — Death
"Who am I? Just a friend. Sometimes. Maybe. Sorry I couldn't help any. Be seeing you…" — Death
Destruction: Destruction left his post with the Endless three centuries ago, which caused a rift between him and his siblings, who started calling him "The Prophet" instead of Destruction. He now spends his time pursuing his artistic endeavors. His sigil is a sword.
Desire: Desire is Despair's twin. They are nonbinary and live inside a large flesh-and-blood statue of themselves called The Threshold. Their sigil is a silver-tinted glass heart shape.
Despair: Despair is Desire's twin. She takes two forms in the Sandman universe. Her first is a tall, tattooed woman; her second is a short older woman with gray skin. Her sigil is a hooked ring.
Delirium (formerly "Delight"): The youngest of the Endless, Delirium changes form more often than the others, but frequently appears as a young girl. Her sigil is an abstract, shapeless blob of colors. She was once called Delight, and her sigil was a flower, but a traumatic event brought about her present form.
“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend." —Delirium
"I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it." —Delirium
John Constantine
John Constantine is a mortal con man and magician who joins Dream on his quest to find his bag of dust. He has his own comic, Hellblazer, which occasionally features Cain and Abel.
"One thing I've learned: you can know anything. It's all there, you just have to find it." —John Constantine
Rose Walker
A mortal woman, Rose Walker has an aspect of the Dreaming vortex within her. She hopes to rescue her brother from The Corinthian, who wreaked all kinds of havoc while Dream was held in captivity.
"If I hear another of your theological paradoxes, I'll scream. Frankly, today I don't care if God exists or not." —Rose Walker
The Corinthian
The Corinthian is a nightmare created by Dream. He is human in appearance, except for having two mouths where his eyeballs should be. The Corinthian spends several decades on Earth as a serial killer while Dream is imprisoned, and eats the eyeballs of all his victims. (Like we said, he's a nightmare.)
Lucifer
The ruler of Hell, Lucifer actually beat his other Sandman compatriots to Netflix. A spinoff series starring Lucifer—called, er, Lucifer—premiered in 2016 and is projected to run for six seasons. In it, Lucifer becomes bored with running Hell and abandons his throne for California. He becomes a civilian consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department and also opens his own high-end nightclub called Lux.
Lucien
Lucien is the head librarian in the Dreaming. He proves himself to be one of Dream's most faithful and trusted servants, watching over the Dreaming while Dream is imprisoned.
Orpheus
Orpheus, based on Orpheus of Greek mythology, is the son of Dream and the muse Calliope. He gets help from Destruction and Death in retrieving his bride, Eurydice, from Hades—but like in the Greek myth, it all goes horribly wrong.
John Dee/Doctor Destiny
A DC Comics villain who once resided in Arkham Asylum, John Dee gets his powers from Dream's Ruby, which he uses to influence people and get them to do terrible things.
"I will be a wise and tolerant monarch, dispensing justice fairly, and only setting nightmares to rip out the minds of the evil and wicked. Or just anybody I don't like." —John Dee
Roderick Burgess
The Lord Magus of The Order of the Ancient Mysteries, Roderick Burgess wants all the wealth and power of the universe for himself. He once tried to capture Death, but ends up entrapping Dream in a glass globe instead. When Roderick dies, possession of Dream is passed down to his son, Alex Burgess.
Barbie
Barbie lives in the same apartment building as Rose Walker. In her dreams, she was a princess in The Land, a fantasy kingdom. But due to Rose's Dreaming vortex powers, Barbie loses her ability to dream for many years, and she moves away to NYC. When she eventually regains her power to dream, she must fight the evil Cuckoo, a virus-like dream that threatens Barbie's dream world.
Wanda
Wanda, a trans woman, is a neighbor of Barbie's after she moves to NYC. The two become very good friends. Once Barbie gains her ability to dream again, Wanda and all of Barbie's other neighbors are in danger from the Cuckoo and its agents.
Thessaly
A witch who was once one of Dream's lovers, Thessaly lives in the same apartment building as Barbie and Wanda. She mostly keeps to herself until she and her neighbors face the threat of the Cuckoo and its agents. A spell she casts will later result in tragedy.
Augustus
In "August," one of the four stories in Fables and Reflections, Gaiman tells the tale of Augustus Caesar, great-nephew of Julius Caesar. He spends one day a year walking among his people, disguised as a beggar, because Dream told him it would keep the gods from being able to spy on him. Augustus also makes plans for the fall of Rome after his death out of hatred for his bloodline.
Emperor Joshua Norton
Like Augustus, Emperor Joshua Norton is based on a real person from history. Norton is a resident of San Francisco and believed himself to be the emperor of the United States. His delusion of grandeur was, in fact, a waking dream state given to him by Morpheus as part of a bet with his siblings Delirium, Desire, and Despair.
Lady Johanna Constantine
An ancestor of John Constantine, Johanna Constantine was an aristocrat who lost her title after her parents were executed for treason. Years later, after a life of poverty, King George III tells Johanna that he will give her back her title if she can find Pandora's Box and bring it to him.
What do we know about the upcoming Netflix adaptation? And which characters from The Sandman will appear?
The Sandman comics have almost been made into both movies and television series on several different occasions. In 1996, a movie was planned, but after several scrapped scripts, the idea fell through in 2001. In 2014, noises were again being made about a film adaptation, but were once again squashed. In 2010, a series adaptation was pitched to HBO, but Gaiman said he didn't think it felt right. While Gaiman is no stranger to adaptations of his work, with films like Coraline and Stardust and the recent American Gods and Good Omens series, he believed it had to feel like the perfect time for a Sandman adaptation. So, he turned it down at the time, and a spinoff series starring Lucifer was created instead.
Enter Netflix: in 2019, it was announced that Netflix had completed a deal with Warner Bros. to develop Sandman into a live-action television series. Wonder Woman screenwriter Allan Heinberg is set to be the showrunner, and Neil Gaiman is attached as one of the executive producers. According to Gaiman, the first season will adapt Preludes & Nocturnes, the first volume of the collected Sandman comics, as well as a little added story. The first season is comprised of 11 episodes, set to hit Netflix at an as-yet unreleased date. As for the plot, the Dream King will likely spend this installment ruminating on his captivity and how the Dreaming and waking world are now different, while trying to locate three lost items that contain much of his power: a ruby, a bag of dust, and a gas-mask-like helmet. He'll also encounter the other members of the Endless.
