At long last, DC’s seminal fantasy series The Sandman has received a live-action adaptation, and it’s a very good one. There’s just one problem – Season 1 only covers a small portion of the comic book series, and Netflix has yet to reveal whether The Sandman is getting a second season.
The good news is that anyone who wants to know where the story is headed simply needs to pick up a book. The Sandman is a close enough adaptation that there’s no reason fans can’t jump straight from the Netflix series into the graphic novels. But where should you start, and which of the many versions of the graphic novels are worth buying? We’re here to break it all down.
Note: This article doesn’t contain any major spoilers for the comic book or Netflix series. For a more detailed breakdown of where the Netflix series could be headed in Season 2, check out IGN’s The Sandman: Season 1 Ending Explained story.
Netflix’s The Sandman isn’t quite a 1:1 adaptation of the comic (as is the case with the Audible series), but does stick pretty close to the source material. Season 1 of the show adapts the material seen in the first two graphic novels – Preludes & Nocturnes and The Doll’s House.
There are a handful of changes sprinkled through the show. For example, Boyd Holbrook’s character The Corinthian has a slightly expanded role, and many characters from the wider DC Universe who cameo in the comic are absent from the show. But the two versions are ultimately similar enough that there’s no reason fans of the show couldn’t jump straight into The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country if they so desired.
In fact, Vol. 3 isn’t a bad starting point for the series in general. It features a number of standalone stories wherein Morpheus himself is only a supporting character. One of those, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” earned Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess a World Fantasy Award and is widely regarded as one of the best single issues of the series.
From there, the overarching plot kicks back into gear in The Sandman Vol 4: Season of Mists, which deals heavily with the fallout of Dream and Lucifer’s standoff in the opening story arc. Should the Netflix series be renewed for Season 2, we assume this will be one of the main storylines it adapts. Though as the Season 1 finale hints, the show may not necessarily be heading in the same direction where Lucifer is concerned.
The Sandman is easier to dive into than most DC franchises, as the main series is readily available in the form of 10 sequentially numbered graphic novels. Here’s the full lineup:
DC has also begun repackaging the 2003 graphic novel The Sandman: Endless Nights as The Sandman Vol. 11. While not technically part of the original series, it is essential enough that it’s worth treating Endless Nights as a vital epilogue.
Slightly complicating matters is the fact that DC has begun reprinting the series in other forms. Each standard graphic novel tends to collect between 6-8 issues of the series. The five Deluxe Edition hardcovers each collect two graphic novels’ worth of material, while the Absolute Sandman and Sandman Omnibus hardcovers collect even more material per volume. However, the latter two options are fairly pricey, and given their cumbersome size are more ideal for hardcore fans than newcomers.
One other thing to keep in mind is that DC remastered the original art when the Absolute Editions were first released, with vastly improved coloring that eventually carried over to new printings of the trade paperback collections. To make sure you get that remastered version, make sure you buy the graphic novels that have the 30th Anniversary branding on the covers.
Finally, The Sandman is available in digital format as well. It can even be read for free on services like Hoopla or for subscribers of Comixology Unlimited and Kindle Unlimited, so there isn’t necessarily a high cost of entry.
The core Sandman comic ran for 75 issues between 1989 and 1996, and there have been numerous spinoffs, sequels and prequels released in the years since. Some are definitely more worthwhile than others, so we’ll spotlight the best of the bunch here.
As mentioned earlier, The Sandman: Endless Nights is a worthy follow-up to the main series. This anthology graphic novel features one standalone story for each of the seven Endless siblings. Equally important is The Sandman Overture, a direct prequel to the main series that might as well be labeled Vol. 0 (though you’re still better off reading it after finishing the comic, not before).
It’s also well worth reading the spinoffs focused on Dream’s sister Death, including Death: The High Cost of Living and Death: The Time of Your Life. Those stories are collected along with other material in a hardcover called Death: The Deluxe Edition, and are also included in the Absolute Edition and Omnibus series.
It’s also worth reading one or both versions of The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. This story was originally published as a prose novella in 1999, with illustrations by Final Fantasy’s Yoshitaka Amano. Artist P. Craig Russell later adapted the novella into a more traditional comic book format. Both the prose version and the comic book version are available in trade paperback format.
Finally, anyone curious what becomes of Lucifer Morningstar after the conclusion of The Sandman should definitely read Mike Carey’s Lucifer. That series enjoyed a long life of its own in the late ’90s and early ’00s, exploring what happens after Lucifer abdicates his throne and sets up shop as a nightclub owner in Los Angeles. While technically the inspiration for the Fox/Netflix Lucifer TV series, fans will find the comic to be a much more fantastical take on that premise.
DC has revived the Sandman franchise in recent years, first with The Sandman Overture and then with The Sandman Universe, an entire imprint of Sandman comics overseen by Gaiman. Each series is set after the conclusion of the original comic, exploring the long-term ramifications of the ending, and deal with the fallout of Dream’s sudden disappearance from The Dreaming in the opening chapter.
The Sandman Universe initially launched with four separate but interconnected comics – The Dreaming, House of Whispers, Books of Magic and a new volume of Lucifer. Of those, The Dreaming is the most direct continuation of the original comic and the most essential.
DC later added John Constantine, Hellblazer to the lineup and relaunched The Dreaming as The Dreaming: Waking Hours. The former is only loosely tied to the larger Sandman saga, but it is worth reading for fans who miss the days of DC’s Vertigo imprint and the heyday of Hellblazer. It also won IGN’s Best Comic Book Series of 2020 award.
The Sandman Universe line has mostly gone dormant following the conclusion of the crossover series Locke & Key: Hell & Gone. However, writer James Tynion IV recently launched a new ongoing series called The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country, which is focused on the revived Corinthian. It remains to be seen if the arrival of the Netflix series will compel DC to expand the Sandman Universe line again.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
