And now the teaser
Nice seeing Matthew at the end. Maybe we’ll get a stealth crossover to Swamp Thing via his backstory.
I’m so excited for this. I’ve been listening to the Audible version and it’s been fabulous so I’m very optimistic.
Like others upthread I loved season 1 of American Gods. I never really gave the rest a chance and I probably should. Just all the bad news coming out od production and the big delay between seasons killed off my enthusiasm.
That brief snippet of a cover of the old song “Mr. Sandman” - was that Billie Eilish I heard? It was just a snippet of a song, but it was very right for that trailer.
Edit: it’s right around 1:58 to 2:03 or so in the trailer.
So am I getting the right idea that the series is just the Sandman vs The Corithian part? Hoping we get the full scope.
Based on this and the earlier trailer, they definitely seem to be doing the imprisonment of Dream segment from the first issues and I could swear I saw a brief glimpse of 24 Hour All-Nite Diner (still one of the greatest single comic issues ever IMO, up there with Daredevil #181 and a few others.) Also, I believe they showed their version of Lucifer so some Hell action is included, plus they quoted some Death dialogue from the first big Death issue (Issue 6? - I don’t have my copies handy these days.) So to me it looks like hefty chunks of content from the first 2 TPBs - that’s my sense. The Corinthian probably features significantly but it sure looks like there’s a lot of there there.
Sigh. I am getting HYPED. I’m too old for this shit. I should know better. But man that trailer looked good :).
Echoing @Sharpe I believe it’s basically the first two trades + at least some of third (they’ve cast Lyta Hall!). But that makes sense; the third is the first of the two “shorts” collections, so it would be much easier to blend things in to taste. And a good chunk of the 2nd Trade’s major characters show up on the IMDB page (assuming the rest just either aren’t listed yet or reflect necessary changes due to porting to a new medium).
It seems so, I have it in a 10 volume compilation, and they seem to be adapting the first volume, which ended with the Corithian demise. Which btw, they shouldn’t have fully shown in the trailer.
The Corinthian stuff is entirely within #2, which is where Dream is tracking down a couple of missing dreams/nightmares/figures of the dreaming after having reclaimed the dreaming proper (and all that doing so entails) in #1.
I just would really like them to avoid turning this into an adventure show where it’s just a Marvel-style “Morpheus squares off with the Corinthian!” punch-out show. I get that they have to aim this for a general audience, so some filmed comic-book cliches are to be expected, I guess. Just hoping they’ll try and stick to the “cosmic weirdness” tone of the comic.
You and me both. I’ve been trying to avoid a lot of previews to try and go in without preconceptions, but my body is still fully ready for disappointment. This is one of my favorite things, first read at an impressionable age…just don’t completely blow it is all I ask.
Well, I was corrected.
I think that the part of the first book where he is captured for most of the 20th century then regains his inventory is in there, otherwise Gwendoline Christie wouldn’t be playing Lucifer and Doctor Dee wouldn’t be holding a ruby.
That was precisely what Jon Peters wanted to do with a movie version back in the '90s!
And to reiterate, they’ve cast a very intriguing character who was the center of one of those shorts in Volume #3 (another of which tells Hob’s story, if memory serves, although he is introduced before then).
Eleven episodes is plenty of time to tell the bulk of #1 and #2 and whatever parts of #3 they want (all adapted to the medium, of course), I think. And it also prevents just having #1 being the focus, which would have been a mistake IMO (not that it doesn’t have great parts; it does. 24 hours is. . . I wonder if it will be as dark in the show as the comics). But #2 is incredible (if also dark in its own ways).
And yes I will dream of a Swamp Thing series where we get to meet the real Boogeyman.
Here’s what he told Variety a couple months back:
"You watch Episode 1 and think, ‘Oh, I get this thing: it’s like “Downton Abbey,” but with magic,’” Gaiman said. “Then you’ll be wondering, ‘What the hell is this?’ by Episode 2, when you’re meeting Gregory the Gargoyle in The Dreaming. Episode 5 is about as dark and traumatic as anything is ever gonna get, then you’ve got Episode 6, which is probably the most feel-good of all the episodes.”
Given the shot of the diner in the trailer… I’m guessing Ep. 5 is 24 Hours.
This series does seem to be covering the first book, Preludes & Nocturnes, which ends with “The Sound of her Wings”, Ep 6 here. Then there’s 4 more episodes, none of which were shown in the trailer, from what I can tell. The next two books, The Doll’s House and Dream Country shift the POV away from Dream completely (though he still shows up in the sidelines, usually), so I’m really curious what they’re going to do there. DH is the start of Rose’s story, and DC is a collection of pretty great shorts- one actually won the World Fantasy Award for best Short Fiction and the ‘real’ authors were so mad that they changed the rules so a comic couldn’t win again. Dream’s story picks up again properly in book four, Season of Mists.
The 24 Hours Diner might be sandwiched with some of the Corinthian’s proclivities. What he does to those poor random boys… It gave me the ephebe-jeebies.
Oh, awesome!
I’ve never read these - and every time they come up, I wonder if I should? I don’t even really get what the hell this is about - the trailer seems to be made for fans of a thing that is already known, like showing a cave person a movie trailer for a film about life in the big city. I think the Sandman is like the entity that bring sleep to people, like from the old song? But he looks like a human? And there are other things out there, so it’s a bit like American Gods? Should I read these books then? What’s the best way to get my hands on them, and where should I start?
- It’s a comic series from DC’s Vertigo line.
- It’s amazing.
- Morpheus is Dream, the embodiment/avatar of dreaming. His family members are Death, Desire, Delirium, Destruction, Despair, and Destiny.
- I think you can get the graphic novels in bundles.
Edit: Just to give a hint of how good it is, Sandman: Dream Country (the third collection) has multiple award winners including the only graphic novel to win the World Fantasy Award - issue #19, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” which is about Morpheus helping a depressed Shakespeare. Seriously. The members of the WFA were so butt-hurt that it won that they changed the rules.