The Sandman on Netflix

So is the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s seminal work “The Sandman” any good? Well, on the whole, I’d say it does a fair job of bringing the story to life. Just to get this out of the way at the start, there is quite a bit of graphic violence in it so I would not recommend it if you have a weak stomach, but if that sort of thing doesn’t put you off, then read on.

Of the eleven volumes of the original work (excluding important companion works), I find that the first three are the weakest. When Gaiman wrote the story in the late 80s-early 90s, he was in Terra Incognita, having resurrected an obscure character from the DC universe and been given, for all intents and purposes, carte blanche under a newly established DC subsidiary called Vertigo, specifically targeting adult readers. Vertigo published a bunch of very good works over the years (Fables, Transmetropolitan, Y: The Last Man, to name but a few) before shutting down in 2020, but the work that made everything else possible was The Sandman.

In the beginning of the story, Gaiman has a bunch of loose ideas that he throws around hoping they will somehow stick together. Neither the final destination of the story nor the major waypoints to getting there seem to have fully coalesced in his mind while he is writing these chapters. While the events seem to transpire within the DC universe, with some DC characters making cameo appearances, he persistently picks at loose threads, testing and experimenting with boundaries before, somewhat miraculously, it all comes together and the story becomes this totally new thing tracing its own course. Yes, there are some hints and foreshadowing of what this will eventually become storytelling-wise, notably in “The Sound of her Wings” episode or the side-story with Hob Gadling, but much of the rest is exploratory at this stage. Season one on Netflix only covers the first two volumes and some of the events and characters introduced will have some role to play later in the story. The DC influences present in the comics have, thankfully, largely been left out.

The casting choices were, for the most part, very good and the CGI ranged from tolerable to excellent. Looking forward to season two.

If you’ve already seen it and are hungry for more here are a few recommendations:

• Read the original comic series (or graphic novels if for whatever reason the term comics offends your sensibilities)
• Check the companion stories “Death: The high cost of living” and “Death: The time of your life”
• Try to find a copy of Hy Bender’s “The Sandman companion” which goes really deep into literary influences
• Read “The Interpretation of Dreams” by Freud and “The Archetypes and the collective unconscious” by Jung
• Brush up on your Greek and Norse mythology
• Read, or even better, go and see A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest by Shakespeare
• Read the Bible and Apocrypha

PS: I think the main reason why I find this series so revolutionary is this: Gaiman is extremely well read and has a deep knowledge and understanding of Myths and Legends and their semiology. He is familiar with the traditions that generated them and appreciates the historical and cultural contexts. Throughout the Sandman, he introduces minor and major figures from the canon of different historical and mythological narratives that have been molded by hundreds or thousands of years of cultural evolution and recasts them in a new light, thus robbing them of their traditional meanings and symbolic power. In doing so, he makes them relevant to today while pointing the moral compass toward the need for true humanistic values and the inevitability of change.