In this episode of Audicted, cohosts Katie O’Connor and Kat Johnson dive deep on the Audible Original The Sandman and the latest installment, The Sandman: Act II. In conversation with colleague Reid Armbruster, they discuss the origins of the series, the phenomenal cast, and play a clip from Reid’s recent interview with The Sandman director Dirk Maggs. Download or stream the full episode here.
On the origins of The Sandman
Reid Armbruster: So legend has it that Neil Gaiman, who is the writer and I would argue a once-in-a-generation storyteller, his career actually started out in journalism. He sort of hooked up with the right folks, including Alan Moore who created The Swamp Thing, and got connected into the DC universe, and began pitching projects to them. A lot of the projects he pitched were based on characters that were already taken or still active within the DC universe. Ultimately Neil was looking to write a comic that he could, quote, "go anywhere with." That was kind of his dream, that he could really just shape it, and he kept pitching and pitching and pitching. The irony is that The Sandman already existed. So the original Sandman from the publisher that ultimately became DC appeared in the late 1930s. He was this superhero vigilante who, by day, was a businessman and an heir to a billion-dollar steel fortune—very Batman-esque—and by night, he fought crime. […] Neil Gaiman, as the story goes, loved the idea of someone who lives in dreams, so he pitched a wholesale reboot of the character, but the original character was still in use and active. So he was ultimately given the green light by DC to create an all-new, completely different character with the same name. Essentially he was given a blank canvas, and the rest is comic book history. It's exactly what he wanted and he could take it anywhere he wanted to, and he sure did.
On Neil’s role in the narration
Reid Armbruster: So, in the role of narrator is Neil Gaiman himself.
Katie O’Connor: That's perfect.
RA: The actual writer of all the comics and graphic novels, so who would know this role better than him? Of course he worked with illustrators, letterers, and other amazing artists to create the comics, but you're working with who is ostensibly the person who created The Sandman and is responsible for how brilliant the storytelling is, guiding you through this audio narrative. So it's this amazing mashup of scripted audio drama with the wonderful narration that you would find in an audiobook. This certainly is not an audiobook; it's a full-cast immersive listening experience, but you've got this narrator role who helps set the scene for you, helps describe a little bit of what the characters look like, describes a little bit of the action, so that then, you know, you can use those kernels in your own imagination and paint that picture. That's just a really cool thing.
Also in this episode
From Wondery, the network behind the hit podcast Dirty John, DR. DEATH is a story about a charming surgeon, 33 patients and a spineless system. Reported and hosted by Laura Beil.
A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale has become one of the most powerful and most widely read novels of our time....
The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond....
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition....
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words....
A.J. Hartley and David Hewson’s novelization of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was chosen as the Best Audiobook on Audible in 2014. Narrated by Richard Armitage, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark takes Shakespeare’s original play into unexpected realms and reinvents the story we thought we knew.
This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge....
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood....
The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable....
The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie - magical, comforting, wise beyond her years - promised to protect him....
