Netflix is adapting Neil Gaiman's Sandman (1 Viewer)

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Yes, for the first time since his introduction in 1988, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman will live in a medium other than comics. Confirmed today by Netflix, the beloved and highly influential comic fantasy has received a series order for a live action TV show from executive producers Gaiman, Allan Heinberg and David S. Goyer. While very little is known about the direction of the series, the award-winning comic was written for mature readers and unspooled as a combination of standalone and serialized stories that introduced Morpehus and his six equally compelling siblings.

 
Silent Bob, I think I just filled up the cup
 
Although I do need to temper my expectations. I would have preferred if they had stuck to the books more for Stardust and American Gods
 
I believe the now-famous, charismatic Lucifer Morningstar, previously on FOX and now a more-mature version existing on Netflix originally derived from the Sandman comic series. If it's half or 2-3x as good, charming, intense, or as funny as "Lucifer" been on-screen, then the Sandman should be one hell of a visual experience.
 
Dago, it's actually a miracle that American Gods came back at all for a second season, much less got renewed for a upcoming third season. The show's original producers and co-creator quit, so did Gillian Anderson, who played Goddess of Media in first season. That's why her original character and plot focus got a facelift and a new direction and a new actor. The show's new producers, screenwriters had to rewrite the show's storylines, focus, direction from scratch and I think the series benefitted from these changes.
 
Dago, it's actually a miracle that American Gods came back at all for a second season, much less got renewed for a upcoming third season. The show's original producers and co-creator quit, so did Gillian Anderson, who played Goddess of Media in first season. That's why her original character and plot focus got a facelift and a new direction and a new actor. The show's new producers, screenwriters had to rewrite the show's storylines, focus, direction from scratch and I think the series benefitted from these changes.

it was already departing from the source material in season 1.
It isn't like they couldn't directly adapt it. I just don't understand what goes on in these peoples' head. The source material was so good that it warranted a show and had a rabid following, so you go and change it and risk alienating your best fans
 
Good Omens was fun (book and show) - for those who have read Gaiman's other books, which would you recommend first?

Neverwhere is excellent...kind of a modern day Alice in Wonderland. American Gods is also amazing. The book is far superior to the show
 
Sandman is the greatest story ever told via the comic book medium. It is every genre and no genre at all. It can be epic fantasy dealing with matters of universal import one moment, and a small story about a group of dysfunctional siblings the next. You have a main character that can seem infallible, unknowable, and godlike in one moment, then mere issues later you see him as a self-sabotaging tragic figure in the throws of a perpetual existential meltdown.

Can a TV show ever give us something as absolutely perfect as the issue where Dream tags along with Death during her typical "work" day and we get a series of vignettes on the myriad different forms death can take and the impact they have on people? Can it deliver on the otherworldliness of The Dreaming and bring to life characters like Lucian, Cain and Abel, Matthew the Raven, Fiddler's Green, The Corinthian, Mervyn Pumpkinhead without them seeming silly?

I'm both looking forward to this and somewhat nervous. This has to be of significantly higher quality than American Gods for it to work.

Good Omens was fun (book and show) - for those who have read Gaiman's other books, which would you recommend first?

Tough to say. In a lot of ways American Gods is his most accessible book (the TV show is actually very little like the book, so don't use it as a frame of reference. I love the book and hate the show.). I would say that Neverwhere is Gaiman at his most prototypical as a novelist and if you read that and like it, you'll probably be into anything he writes. Anansi Boys is probably his most overtly humorous book aside from Good Omens (although not nearly as Pratchett influenced and somewhat more serious), so you may start there. I love them, but I would probably not recommend starting with Stardust or Coraline.

I know not everyone is down with comics, but I would personally say to start with Sandman. It really is the greatest comic book ever created and the nexus through which almost all of Gaiman's themes and ideas flow from.
 
it was already departing from the source material in season 1.
It isn't like they couldn't directly adapt it. I just don't understand what goes on in these peoples' head. The source material was so good that it warranted a show and had a rabid following, so you go and change it and risk alienating your best fans
The problem with rabid fans, nothing is ever good enough or close enough to the source material; they are never satisfied.
 

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