Neil Gaiman’s iconic comic series Sandman is getting a fancy new box set. The collection is housed in a slipcase featuring illustrations by Dave McKean, cover artist for the Sandman series and most of its spinoffs. In addition to all 10 trade paperbacks, the Sandman box set includes the prequel, Overture, the anthology, Endless Nights, and the tie-in novella, The Dream Hunters.
Sandman was originally conceived as a revival of DC’s dream-powered superhero, though Gaiman’s interpretation shares little in common with the cheesy 70s character who wears tights and a cape. Gaiman’s titular Sandman is alternately known as Morpheus, The Shaper, and many, many other names. Morpheus and his six siblings — Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium — make up the Endless, anthropomorphized embodiments of powerful forces.
Published under DC’s now-defunct Vertigo, Sandman features Gaiman’s signature blend of dark, mythology-inspired fantasy. Other DC heroes showed up every so often, but it mostly stayed within the land of dreams known as The Dreaming, and focused on Gaiman’s original characters.
The Sandman series ran from 1989-1993 and has become one of the most critically acclaimed comic series of all time, landing on the New York Times bestseller list and winning several Eisner awards. DC has published several spinoffs, though Gaiman only wrote a handful of them. In 2018, he hand-picked four fantasy authors to expand the world of the Endless with a new imprint, The Sandman Universe.
Audible will soon be producing a Sandman audio adaptation, due to be out this summer. And last July, Netflix and Warner Bros. announced that a live-action television adaptation of Sandman would be hitting the streaming service, with Gaiman serving as writer and producer. Netflix hasn’t revealed any further details, so now’s the perfect time to revisit the trippy world of The Dreaming while we wait for Netflix to drop that release date.