EW can exclusively announce that DC Comics is launching a Sandman Universe line of four new comic series. The books will be overseen by Gaiman but written and drawn by brand new creative teams. They will pick up story threads and themes from The Sandman while also adding new characters and concepts.
The project kicks off this August with The Sandman Universe one-shot special, which will catch readers up on what’s been happening in Dream’s realm. The most salient fact is that Dream has now gone missing, leaving chaos in his wake. Other important developments include the opening of a rift between worlds, revealing a space beyond the Dreaming. Dream’s official librarian Lucien is still in charge of all the books that were dreamed and never written, but now, one of those books has wound up in the waking world, to be discovered by a group of children. The Dreaming also has an important new resident, now that a House of Whispers has appeared alongside Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets. Meanwhile, Lucifer (the David Bowie-esque devil who originated in the pages of The Sandman before ending up on his own Fox show) has fallen once more, though now he might be in a Hell of his own design. And down in London, a young boy named Timothy Hunter alternates between dreams of becoming the world’s greatest magician and nightmares of becoming its worst villain.
The Sandman Universe #1 will be plotted by Gaiman but written by Nalo Hopkinson, Kat Howard, Si Spurrier, and Dan Watters, with art by Bilquis Everly and a cover by Jae Lee. Each of those four writers will then go on to explore the special’s various threads in four new series. Hopkinson will write House of Whispers and explore how the voodoo deity Erzulie ended up in the Dreaming with her titular house. It might have something to do with a comatose woman named Latoya, whose girlfriend and sisters used the Book of Whispers to try and heal her. Now out of her coma, Latoya is suffering from the Cotard’s Delusion belief that she’s already dead, and is transmitting her belief to others, catalyzing them to become guardians of the gap that has opened in the Dreaming. Howard will write Books of Magic, which will follow up on Gaiman’s 1990 miniseries of the same name and explore Timothy Hunter’s magical education as he’s torn between two powerful destinies. Spurrier will write The Dreaming, which will follow The Sandman supporting characters like Lucien the librarian and Matthew the Raven as they navigate a Dreaming without Dream. Watters will write Lucifer, which finds the titular devil blind and destitute, trapped living in a small boarding house in a quiet town where no one can ever leave. Artists for the books have not been announced yet.
Anthony Davis
>let's milk another project that was good thanks to its creator
Mason Russell
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve done Sandman prequels before, like Overture. What inspired you to finally do some sequel stories?
>NEIL GAIMAN: Well, Overture is a Sandman prequel and a Sandman sequel. It’s kind of all over the place. And there is sequel stuff in Sandman: Endless Nights. The story carries on. But it’s a huge sandbox with so many wonderful toys that nobody’s getting to play with right now. I started feeling guilty. I liked the idea of getting the toys played with again, reminding people how much fun this is, and also getting the opportunity to work with some fantastic writers. Down the line, there will be fantastic artists as well.
EW: Sandman has always been a personal project for you, so how did you decide to assemble a Sandman Universe with other writers expanding your ideas?
>NG: It’s always been personal, and there are still areas of it that have velvet ropes set up and “do not disturb” signs hanging on the door. People will ask, “Can we do this?” and I’ll be like, “No.” Some of that is because one day I will want to go there and tell those stories, even if it’s not for another 5 or 10 years. For this stuff, it’s really the joy of looking back at the history of Vertigo. There’s always stuff I created in the Vertigo world, that spun off and went out into the world and did really well. But the natural life cycle of these things is it came, it went away. Let’s bring it all back, let’s have fun with it. So for me, the joy is just sitting with smart writers who love the material and saying, “Let’s go play.”
Christopher Johnson
gaiman's involved (if that helps)
Liam Wright
EW: How did you assemble these writers? What are you hoping they will each bring to the Sandman universe?
>NG: I got to assemble them working with the Vertigo editorial team. They suggested some people, I suggested some people, I got to read some samples, and people went, “Yeah, I think this is going to work.” But in each case, it was trying to fit somebody to the character and the book. An example would be Nalo, who writes science-fiction and fantasy and historical stuff and books that blend all of those things, and they’re always informed by Caribbean roots and African roots. And going, “Okay, if we’re gonna do House of Whispers, if we’re going to do Erzulie and have all this voodoo lore stuff, then I want Nalo to do it because there isn’t anybody better.” The joy of this is being able to go out and find the best person. I’ve worked with Kat Howard now for seven or eight years on different projects, and I’ve been really impressed. Her novels are getting more attention, and she’s one of those people who’s really good at handling magic. She can write convincing magic with a deftness and skill that makes you go, “Okay, this is that thing.” We were looking at rebooting Books of Magic, so let’s go talk to Kat. She has the touch, she understands the magic. These are people who are really good and smart, and, more to the point, they understand the area that we have cordoned off. It’s actually exactly like casting; you’re trying to cast the writer. With Lucifer, Mike Carey and Holly Black left huge shoes to fill. But Dan is smart and deep, and he gets it. He’s up to the challenge of “Okay, can you recreate this thing?”
Luke Roberts
Theres no need for this. Overture was already icing on the cake. The cake is finished.
Jaxson Garcia
EW: Sandman is the big name here, but this imprint will also involve Books of Magic. What are you looking forward to about revisiting Timothy Hunter and his universe?
>NG: Mostly what I’m looking forward to is going to that idea and starting it again in 2018. Books of Magic was an idea I came up with and did 30 years ago and loved and had an enormous amount of fun with. It was pre-Harry Potter, and the idea of a bespectacled, tousled 12-year-old boy with an owl learning magic was this sort of weird new thing we were trying to figure out as it went along. I love the idea of starting that again now, because now you’re in a universe in which everybody and their brother knows how that kind of story ought to go. Now we’re going to go back and look at ways it can go, both lighter and darker (he said, picking his words with care), than the original. With that one, we’re taking this comic book approach that reminds me a little bit of what DC did when they came up with the concept of Earth One. They took the Flash, and you created the Barry Allen Flash and let the Jay Garrick Flash be the Flash of Earth Two. It’s a new Tim Hunter for a new time, and the old Tim Hunter may well have existed, and that may actually have ramifications for us a little bit down the line.
Hudson Jones
...
Joseph Nguyen
>Evely Nice.
Connor Miller
...
Noah Nguyen
>The books will be overseen by Gaiman but written and drawn by brand new creative teams. His is going to be fucking horrible
Cooper Hill
Kinda surprised DC hasn't done this sooner. Any word on artists yet?
Ian Foster
> Si Spurrier This is literally the worst thing ever for all fucking time... This is the guy who had a nurse recognize that a guy who was burnt to a fucking crisp over his entire body was in fact The Shadow (who she has never met)... because he had a old man cock. This is the guy who had The Shadow a man who was alive in the great fucking depression stop a school shooting and lecture the shooters that white people are privileged and can't be oppressed or alienated ever.
Nicholas Powell
So, it's not actually set in the main DC even thought Metal involved Daniel?
Owen Roberts
>This is the guy who had The Shadow a man who was alive in the great fucking depression stop a school shooting and lecture the shooters that white people are privileged and can't be oppressed or alienated ever. So he’ll fit right in with Gaiman
Jason Rodriguez
Are you retarded?
Daniel Price
we are like half a year from an Original Writer imprint, christ DC.
i will angrily read new House of Mystery and House of Secrets junk tho
Jace Jones
How long till DC starts doing Starman spinoffs? Gentlemen agreements with James Robinson can only last so long....
Jackson Ortiz
>>This is the guy who had The Shadow a man who was alive in the great fucking depression stop a school shooting and lecture the shooters that white people are privileged and can't be oppressed or alienated ever.
Please post these Shadow panels. I don't want to believe you, but my heart tells me you're right.
Aaron Taylor
Nah, Johns got Stargirl as the next Starman. so that shit'll stay. and like this i don't think anyone would give a shit if jack knight came back without robinson.
Hunter Sullivan
The plot sounds promising at least. I believe in Gaiman believing in other artists. Let's have a little faith.
Noah Cooper
This. If it's good I'll have something fun to read. If it ain't I'll ignore it like the rest.
Aaron Taylor
Gaiman is involved and they can't use his characters without his say, these are stories he wants told. He's not Moore
Isaac Edwards
DC puts out some good comics but they are fucking creatively bankrupt
Vertigo will never reach its 90s heights again
Robert Diaz
>Si Spurrier Yuck
Levi Jenkins
>can't use his characters without his say
i think that's only the Endless. plus there are characters like Cain and Abel that aren't gaimen creations
Wyatt Parker
>series that had a good ride and tied everything up in a neat bow >lets drag it out again and ride it into the ground for all the nostalgia-bux we can get So after they are done ruining Watchmen and Sandman, what will be next?
Mason Nelson
>let's milk another project that was good thanks to its creator >what is reading comprehension no one likes you Moorefags exactly because of that.
Alexander Parker
i remember like the first books of magic. how’s the rest of the series?
Cameron Cook
>PLEASE READ OUR BOOKS WE WON'T MAKE IT TO JUNE AT THIS RATE!!!!!
Levi Nelson
I still need to read Lucifer.
Noah Allen
They still dominate the market share.
Hunter Fisher
Gaiman also approved of Bast, Death and all other spin-offs and aside from Lucifer they were all trash. And in the end even Lucifer didn't know when to end.
Tyler Long
Barely and rarely and the dollar share is what really matters if anything in this dead medium does
Lucas Perez
>being so buttblasted he is making multiple posts enjoy your yet another relaunch, faggot
Henry Richardson
Carey's only.
>And in the end even Lucifer didn't know when to end. Lucifer ended perfectly tho
Joseph Ward
>Lucifer didn't know when to end
lol you're reaching
Angel Miller
>The most salient fact is that Dream has now gone missing, leaving chaos in his wake. Isn't this literally the start of Sandman?
Tyler Reyes
Who is bottom right
Thomas Rodriguez
>Gaiman is involved and they can't use his characters without his say This isn't true and people need to stop repeating it. DC owns the rights to his characters, they just respect his wishes about them because he's kept a good relationship with DC and they know how heavily tied their perception is to him.
John Clark
So is this mainline DC or not?
Sandman characters have been all over Metal.
Plus Lucifer has recently been in Constantine, and the Etrigan mini series running now.
Camden Wilson
bigby wolf. from fables
Dominic Bell
Wasn't there a leaked mail where they said they can do whatever the fuck they want but they'll talk to Gaiman because there's no point in pissing him off in case of future titles? Or was that fake.
Easton Hall
Short answer: kind of. Same as the normal Sandman series.
Easton Flores
Thanks I haven't read fables yet, but it's on my to-do list.
Hudson Davis
I miss Spider, I miss him so fucking much.
Jayden Gomez
And based on the teasers from way back, they are also going to go back to the Invisibles well.
Nathaniel Barnes
I don't know about that specific mail, but that is the general gist of things. A lot of people really like and respect Gaiman as a creator, and DC would like their future Sandman projects to have his "blessing" if possible. They know Moore will always hate them and continue to try and curse them with magic, so they don't give a shit what he thinks.
Brody Young
But this has already been done. There were several Vertigo Sandman spinoffs. They weren't very good though.
I'm rather interested in the notion of a shared Gaiman-overseen Sandman Universe though. There was some overlap in the spinoffs but they never felt unified.
Great to hear they're using Tim Hunter again though.
Tyler Garcia
Sigh, can the fucker just let his series remain dead? We get it, you're poor and need money.
Michael Carter
Hmmm, not too sure about this Earth 2 Tim Hunter thing, I liked that Tim ended up being a forward reference to a more popular character.
Kayden Rogers
How creatively bankrupt must they be to keep exhuming the corpse of the 80's comics?
>Dark Knight Returns >Watchmen >Sandman
I think its enough, time to create new things.
Elijah Barnes
>thinking Neil Gaiman, married to a rock star, author of several best-selling books, professor and teacher of writing at a university, is poor and needs money
Is this what projection means?
Bentley Phillips
>poor the fucker gets 45k just for speaking
Caleb Anderson
>We get it, you're poor and need money. You realize he's a successful author outside of comics, right?
Asher Scott
user...
Wyatt Brooks
>Howard will write Books of Magic, which will follow up on Gaiman’s 1990 miniseries of the same name and explore Timothy Hunter’s magical education as he’s torn between two powerful destinies.
So they are ignoring all the previous mini-series that followed the 4 parter OR this is just badly re-written from the press release by which ever intern at EW wrote this OR this is essentially a reboot of those series, even though Gaiman consulted on the first one and it follows-up from his own Arcana?
Jason Phillips
I hope they give the other Endless some more of the spotlight.
Nolan Morales
Look there.
Jeremiah Ramirez
Well I guess Vertigo lives. How many imprints does DC need?
Austin Watson
>miniseries It was a 75 issue series man.
Cameron Mitchell
They’ll buy Miracleman and ruin that too
Luis Sanchez
>How creatively bankrupt must they be to keep exhuming the corpse of the 80's comics?
I know you think you're being clever but we're still exhuming the corpse of comics from the 30's and 40's and I don't see you complaining about that
Elijah Perez
Yes...?
Jayden Butler
>Original Writer imprint So that's why Promethea and Tom Strong are popping up?
Matthew Wilson
I wonder if DC threaten Gaiman. >approve and direct these books, or we'll do it without you anyway without constraint I mean that all does seem extremely unlikely, but considering all the shit DC dug out from Moore's work, you can never be too sure.
Xavier Sanders
Good to see Tim again I guess.
Logan Rodriguez
There's no gain in them threatening him. Gaiman is super easy going.
Andrew Foster
>Dream has now gone missing FUCKS SAKE, AGAIN?!
Anthony Martin
How do I get into Sandman ? Do i just read the OG volumes first and then Lucifer and all the other spinoffs?
Jaxson Phillips
basically
Angel Phillips
DC Super Hero Girls sells more copies than the supposedly most "best selling" Marble book of 2017 - and unlike Legacy, DCSHG can point to actual SALES numbers, versus being a number propped up because MARBLE spent Disney's money ordering a few extra 100Ks copies that it then shipped UNORDERED to the comic shops.
Lol. I make more than that in a year! Like I said, he's a fucking poor.
Thomas Allen
The four parter that they are saying that this will build on was a mini-series, and then I made reference to whether or not this was going to retcon that 75 issue f/u, which Gaiman consulted on so its not like it was unofficial.
Isaac Jackson
Gaiman also has better lawyers than Fish Rape Dude, so no, they can't do it without his consent.
Snyder HAD to get NG's consent, for example, in order to use Daniel version Sandman in Metal and I suspect if he had wanted to try to use Morpheus/OG Endless version, he might have had to do a lot of re-writting or gotten a "no."
Kayden Green
>Books of Magic and I'm all in TAKE MY MONEY! And DC has already won 2018
Alexander Wright
>suspect if he had wanted to try to use Morpheus/OG Endless version, he might have had to do a lot of re-writting or gotten a "no." So did they not have to consult him when they used the Dreaming and mentioned Morpheus running it during Lucifer vol. 2?
Levi Clark
I prefer it to Lucifer, but it's at that calibre
Gabriel Jenkins
>never read other Spurrier books Color me surprised.
Henry Allen
>Snyder HAD to get NG's consent, for example, in order to use Daniel version Sandman in Metal Stop. No he didn't. He got Gaiman's permission out of professional courtesy
Samuel Butler
I would rather they hold off on writing a Lucifer book, since we're not really far removed from that as a recent series, and have used another one of the Endless, even if NG is more protective of them, OR used the Dead Boys Detective Club in more of a Children's Crusade type story than what they did in their own self-titled (which I know didn't sell as well, so may be why they aren't proceeding with it now, but still).
David Taylor
At least they will finish it.
Zachary Taylor
I'm into ten issues and decided to take a break only to read the Children's Crusade trade and Aracana book which I originally had though I could skip.
It's enjoyable and well done. Gaiman still oversaw every plot point, at least at first.
Adrian Hughes
huh, Tori Amos is still worth that much? I still lover her but I didn't think she was relevant anymore >Me and Neil will be hanging with the Dream King >Whoo-hoo, time to be a ghost
Cameron Ramirez
>Nalo Hopkinson, Kat Howard Oh nice, actual NEW people >Spurrier Has turned to shit >Waters Mediocre as fuck
Owen Rodriguez
Even DC isn't stupid enough to lawyer up against Gaiman, the guy's fan following is larger than DC's
Jose Lopez
Multiversity put the realm of the endless within the range of the mainline DC universe and that was done with NG's knowledge and permission. Likewise, Paul Cornell (whose a friend of NGs) got to use Death in Action Comics, so they are and are not separate already, so to speak, but NO, you aren't going to see Arthur and Mera show up and hang out with Lucifer or have Jonathan Kent and Damien go help Tim Hunter deal with some demons, or anything exactly like that.
Jose Flores
Lucifer's appeared in Hellblazer Rebirth? The last time I had saw a reference to him was in the DCYou series, and Neron killed an underling for simply saying his name.
Jason Reyes
user there will never be one for Starman because that shit wouldn't sell.
Nathan Johnson
god, I'm fucking depressed
Adam Cox
Look on Gaiman's website. He does NOT own Sandman.
Parker Martinez
as Gaiman said times and times again, it's DC that call the shots on Sandman and holds the rights: it's actually miracle it wasn't almost milked at all until now
William Jenkins
It's been super milked though, none of the other stuff caught on though.
Daniel Clark
>Artists for the books have not been announced yet.
lame and gay
Evan Watson
>The most salient fact is that Dream has now gone missing, leaving chaos in his wake. AGAIN, goddammit Daniel >House of Whispers has appeared alongside Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets Will probably end up boring >Meanwhile, Lucifer (the David Bowie-esque devil who originated in the pages of The Sandman before ending up on his own Fox show) has fallen once more, though now he might be in a Hell of his own design. yeah, let's all forget how Lucifer's own series ended > And down in London, a young boy named Timothy Hunter alternates between dreams of becoming the world’s greatest magician and nightmares of becoming its worst villain. so Book of magic reboot, got it