Disclaimer: The Sandman rightfully belongs to DC Comics and is only suitable for adult readers. Beware of spoilers if you're not familiar with or have just heard about the series.
The Sandman characters were created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg.
"Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral. Pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It's hard work that makes things happen. It's hard work that creates change." -- Shonda Rhimes, "Year of Yes"
About Neil Gaiman
"What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not foolin' a soul." -- Neil Gaiman, "American Gods"
Born on November 10, 1960, Neil Gaiman is a best-selling writer of novels, comics, children's books, audio, theatre, films, and television.
As a child, his love for literature came from reading the novels by classic authors such as C.S. Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe, and J. R. R. Tolkien.
Gaiman began his career as a journalist in England before going on to pen his best-selling books. In addition to short stories, his popular works include the novels American Gods, Coraline, Stardust, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Good Omens, which he had co-written with the late Terry Pratchett, and the ground-breaking comics series The Sandman.
He has also written for radio, film, and television, and even guest-starred in episodes of Arthur, The Simpsons, and The Big Bang Theory. Several of his books have been adapted into films, TV series, and plays.
About The Sandman
Age Rating: 17+
"Man is a genius when he is dreaming." -- Akira Kurosawa
"Man is a genius when he is dreaming." -- Akira Kurosawa
In 1987, Neil Gaiman was commissioned by British liaison editor, Karen Berger, to make a new version of a DC Comics character called the Sandman. After two weeks without power, caused by a powerful hurricane that struck Britain, Neil wrote the outlines of the first eight issues. The Sandman was then approved as an ongoing comics series. In 1988, penciller Sam Kieth was invited on board, and he suggested inker Mike Dringenberg. When Kieth dropped out of the project, Dringenberg took over as penciller and Malcolm Jones III was made the new inker.
In 1989, The Sandman was launched. With every issue released, the series gained a big fan base, outsold the Superman and Batman comics, won multiple awards, and made Neil Gaiman a household name. The Sandman features covers and illustrations by an ensemble of artists, including Dave McKean and Charles Vess.
The Sandman ran until 1996 with a total of 75 issues.
Meet the Family
"We can't control our destiny, but we can control who we become." -- Anne Frank, "The Diary of a Young Girl"
In the beginning, Time and Night came together and had seven children. Their progeny aren't deities, but rather personify seven aspects of life: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Together, they are the seven Endless, powerful beings whose functions have been affecting all living things since the creation of the universe.
Though they don't get along well, they would occasionally hold family meetings to discuss serious matters. Each sibling inhabits their own realm and has a gallery of the others' sigils which they use to summon them. The Endless are also forbidden from spilling their own blood lest they incur the wrath of the Furies.
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| The Family by Spamushka Left to right: Desire, Destiny, Despair (crouching on the floor), Destruction, Dream, Delirium, and Death. |
Destiny
Destiny is the oldest of The Endless. Omniscient, he walks around his garden, reading from his chained Book the past, the present, and the future.
Death
Death appears to every living thing twice: to give them the breath of life and to guide them when their time has come. Of all the family, she is the member Dream is closest to. One day every century, Death becomes mortal to keep in touch with the finite lives she collects.
Dream
Also known as the Dream King, the Prince of Stories, and the Sandman amongst others, Lord Morpheus rules The Dreaming, the world of sleep and imagination and home to thousands of weird and wonderful beings. His function is to give sweet dreams and nightmares to all who have his sand blown into their eyes. To make up for past wrongs, he must either change or die.
Destruction
Little is known about Destruction as he abandoned his duties and realm centuries before Dream's capture.
Desire
Desire is selfish and manipulative. But to encounter them is to love them, while ignoring everything else. Always the possessor, never the possession, they are everything you wish for, whoever or whatever you are.
Despair
Despair is Desire's twin sister. Watching us through our mirrors, she is the moment when all hope is gone.
Delight
Delirium is the youngest of The Endless. Originally named Delight, she can alter reality and drive a person mad. No one can comprehend her domain nor knows what she sees through her green and blue eyes.
The Books
"Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning." -- Gloria Steinem
In 1916, occultist Roderick Burgess and his group attempt to summon and capture Death to claim immortality. However, the occultists instead imprison Death's younger brother, Dream. 70 years later, Dream, also known as Lord Morpheus, escapes and returns to The Dreaming. Finding his kingdom in disarray, Morpheus summons the Hecateae who inform him how to reclaim his three symbols of office: a pouch of sand, a helm, and a ruby.
During his quest, Morpheus is aided by superheroes, humiliates the fallen angel Lucifer, and puts a villainous madman back in the Arkham Asylum.
When all is said and done, he then accompanies Death on her errands.
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Morpheus: "It is as natural to die as it is to be born." |
An African tribesman tells his grandson the story of Nada, a mortal queen who fell in love with the Dream Lord.
Since 1389, an Englishman named Hob Gadling has been meeting with Dream at a pub every century.
In 1980s USA, 21-year-old Rose Walker searches for her missing brother while their mother spends time in England with their newly-discovered grandmother.
In The Dreaming, Morpheus learns that four dreams escaped to the waking world during his imprisonment, and that a dream vortex has appeared for the first time in eons. With the vortex a threat to his domain, Morpheus sets out to kill her and to capture the runaway dreams.
Two seemingly unrelated parties, each with their own goal, will cross paths at the unlikeliest place: a serial killer convention.
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| Rose Walker: "If my dream was true, then everything we know, everything we think we know is a lie." |
What is the price for a dream come true?
An author with writer's block regularly assaults the muse Calliope to gain inspiration for his next books, unaware she has asked for help from her wasband, the Shaper of Form.
A Siamese cat preaches to her fellow felines of a world where they rule over humans.
In 1593, William Shakespeare and his troupe perform A Midsummer Night's Dream* in front of Morpheus and the fair folk.
Unable to die because of a curse placed on her by the Egyptian god Ra, Urania Blackwell is visited by Death.
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| Siamese Cat: "But if enough of us dream... if a bare thousand of us dream... we can change the world." |
*The Sandman Issue #19 won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story back in 1991, and remains the only comic to do so.
A family meeting prompts Morpheus to rescue his former lover Nada, whom he banished to Hell thousands of years ago for rejecting him. However, Lucifer has quit ruling Hell and gives Dream the Key to it.
Upon returning to The Dreaming, Morpheus plays host to gods, demons, fey, and angels who have come for the infernal Key. As the souls of the damned wreak havoc on an all-boys boarding school, Dream must choose Hell's next ruler before he could make amends with Nada.
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| October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or of shutting a book, did not end a tale. -- G.K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was October" |
Barbie, a former neighbour of Rose Walker's, has been living in a New York City apartment since her divorce from her husband Ken. The line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred when Barbie finds herself journeying to the kingdom of her childhood imagination to battle a villain called the Cuckoo.
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| Barbie: "And if there's a moral there, I don't know what it is, save maybe that we should take our goodbyes whenever we can. And that's all." |
Travel back and forth between the past and the present, reality and fantasy, as stories are told and retold.
An actor recounts his dream of falling.
Joshua Norton is the self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, but what roles will The Endless play in his reign?
During the French Revolution, Morpheus sends Lady Johanna Constantine on a mission to retrieve the disembodied head of his son, the Greek musician Orpheus.
An old man tells his teenage granddaughter the story of a lad's quest to return a duchess's necklace.
Lycius the Dwarf records the conversation he had with Augustus Caesar.
Explorer Marco Polo dreams in the middle of a desert.
Orpheus, son of Morpheus and Calliope, descends to the Underworld to retrieve his late wife Eurydice's shade.
Eve, Cain, and Abel tell strange yet fantastic stories to Daniel Hall, a baby conceived in The Dreaming.
A caliph wishes for his magnificent city to be preserved for eternity.
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| Todd: "Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly." |
Delirium and Dream seek out their prodigal brother Destruction, who left his domain centuries ago and hasn't been seen nor heard of since. To successfully find him though, Dream must first consult with his son Orpheus.
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| Destruction: "A two-sided coin: destruction is needed. Nothing new can exist without destroying the old." |
A reality storm forces a man and a woman to seek shelter at a mysterious inn. While waiting for the storm to pass, Brant and Charlene listen to the stories told by the people and creatures who have travelled from various times and realities:
Robert dwells into the city of his dreams, or is it the dreams of his city?
The Cluracan causes an uproar while preventing an alliance that would threaten Fairie.
A girl disguises herself a boy to sail the seven seas.
A teenager gets elected as the President of an alternative United States.
An apprentice from the necropolis Litharge recounts his participation in a sky funeral.
The lady in charge of the tavern (re)defines reality.
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| Innkeeper: "Reality is a very fragile thing, after all." |
As punishment for killing his son, Morpheus has the Kindly Ones imposing vengeance on him. Embodying maiden, mother, and crone is Lyta Hall, a superhero who is convinced the Dream King has also murdered her own son Daniel.
The Dreaming becomes a battlefield. Lives are lost. An era ends.
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| Morpheus: "We make choices. No one else can live our lives for us. And we must confront and accept the consequences of our actions." |
Dream of The Endless is dead. At his wake, his siblings, friends, former lovers, and even enemies arrive at The Dreaming to pay their last respects.
A new era begins.
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| Matthew the Raven: "The king is dead. That's what they say. The king is dead. Long live the king." |
Seven Endless siblings.
Seven short stories.
Learn more about Morpheus and his family in this follow-up.
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| Narrator: "A page turns." |
In 1999, Gaiman penned The Dream Hunters, a Sandman novella inspired by Japanese mythology. In 2008, artist P. Craig Russell adapted the text into a four-issue comics miniseries.
A shape-shifting fox falls in love with a monk. When she overhears a plot to take her beloved's life, the fox must use all her cunning to save him.
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| Morpheus: "Vengeance can be a road that has no ending. You would be wise to avoid it." |
Before he was imprisoned, Morpheus went on an adventure across dimensions in Overture, a prequel published in 2015. This book is best read after the original series.
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| Morpheus: "I tell myself, I am Dream of The Endless. I am Dream. And I am prepared for whatever awaits me." |
The Sandman Over the Years
"Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." -- John Updike
2001
Dark Horse, Chaos! Comics, Image Comics, and DC co-published two volumes of comics to benefit the loved ones of the victims of the September 11 attacks.
The second volume contains two Sandman stories:
- Lucien the librarian tells the reader the story of the American Dream.
- Death and Destruction comfort a heartbroken boy whose mother died on that tragic day.
2013
Death of The Endless is obviously one of the most popular characters in the Sandman franchise. In the 1990s, she starred in an eight-page AIDS awareness comic and two spin-off series, Death: The High Cost of Living and Death: The Time of Your Life, all of which can be read in one deluxe volume.
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| Death: "When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job is finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave." |
2016
For three seasons, Fox aired Lucifer, a fantasy series loosely based on the supporting character.
Bored with punishing sinners, Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis; Miranda) leaves Hell for Hollywood where he runs a bar. When he isn't catering to clients, Lucifer solves crimes with Detective Chloe Decker and deals with his estranged Celestial family.
Originally cancelled, fans successfully petitioned Netflix to buy the rights and renew the series for three additional seasons.
2017
Directors Evan Henderson and Nicholas Brown uploaded on YouTube and Vimeo a (NSFW) fan film based on the sixth issue. Running for 30 minutes, Sandman: 24 Hour Diner is a faithful adaptation that has been praised by Gaiman and fans.
2019
DC Comics commemorated the 30th anniversary of The Sandman by printing new editions of the collected tomes and have been releasing an ongoing series of spin-offs set in what is now called The Sandman Universe. Although he isn't involved in the writing, Neil is a creative consultant.
In October, Warner Bros. released the first Sandman-based animated film. Part of the DC Showcase shorts, Death is about a struggling artist who encounters an unlikely muse (Jamie Chung; Big Hero 6) who just might help him overcome his inner demons and make a masterpiece. The short film is available as a special feature in Wonder Woman: Bloodlines and Batman: Death in the Family.
2020
On July 15, 2020, Audible released the first act of a star-studded audio drama based on Volumes 1-3.
The audio drama is directed by Dirk Maggs and the cast includes James McAvoy (Atonement, X-Men) as Morpheus, Kat Dennings (2 Broke Girls, Thor) as Death, Michael Sheen (Good Omens, The Twilight Saga) as Lucifer, Miriam Margolyes (James and the Giant Peach, Mulan) as Despair, Bebe Neuwirth (Cheers, The Addams Family) as the Siamese Cat, Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Rocketman) as John Constantine, Joanna Lumley (James and the Giant Peach, Corpse Bride) as Johanna Constantine, Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars) as Matthew the Raven, and Neil Gaiman himself as the Narrator.
2021
On September 22, 2021, Audible released The Sandman: Act II, adapting Volumes 4 and 5, plus the majority of the stories from Volume 6.
In addition to several actors from the previous act reprising their respective roles, the cast of Act II includes Kristen Schaal (Bob's Burgers, Gravity Falls) as Delirium, Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America, Westworld) as Destiny, Regé-Jean Page (Roots, Bridgerton) as Orpheus, Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean) as Odin, David Tennant (Good Omens, DuckTales) as Loki, and Aidan Turner (Being Human, And Then There Were None) as the Cluracan.
On September 25, Netflix released the first look at the upcoming live action TV series adaptation. The first season will adapt Volumes 1 and 2, with Neil Gaiman serving as an executive producer.
2022
IDW and DC published Hell & Gone, a crossover miniseries between Joe Hill's Locke & Key comics and The Sandman. The plot centres on members of the Locke family encountering The Endless and journeying to The Dreaming and Hell.
All three issues of the miniseries can be read in Locke & Key: The Golden Age.
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| If you think you can unlock the gates of Hell and just invite yourself in, you must be Dreaming! |
On July 23, the official trailer for The Sandman reveals that the TV series will premiere on Netflix on August 5, 2022.
Released to mostly positive reviews and critical acclaim, the first season of The Sandman, consisting of eleven episodes, has become one of the most viewed TV series on Netflix.
The cast of the long-awaited adaptation includes Tom Sturridge (Being Julia, Like Minds) as Morpheus, Charles Dance (Game of Thrones, And Then There Were None) as Roderick Burgess, Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) as Lucifer, Kirby Howell-Baptiste (The Good Place, Why Women Kill) as Death, Mason Alexander Park (I Am My Own Wife, The Rocky Horror Picture Show) as Desire, Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Batman: The Animated Series) as Mervyn Pumpkinhead, John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rabbit Hole) as Hal Carter, Stephen Fry (Wilde, Twelfth Night) as Gilbert, David Thewlis (Dragonheart, Anomalisa) as John Dee, with Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille, We Bare Bears) as Matthew the Raven, Sandra Oh (Killing Eve, Turning Red) as The Prophet, and Melissanthi Mahut (Assassin's Creed, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) as Calliope.
On November 28, 2023, the first season of The Sandman will be released on Blu-ray.
On November 28, 2023, the first season of The Sandman will be released on Blu-ray.
"Dream well, my friend, and good night." -- Lucien, Paul Levitz, "The American Dream"
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