𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤

There are plenty of reasons why properties like Neil Gaiman's fantastical, somewhat esoteric not-quite-superhero-comic not-quite-fantasy-story The Sandman tend to languish in development hell—the creative purgatory for projects that are too weird to be massive hits, yet too good to just be left on the shelf. Chief among them is that these sorts of adaptations must be done "the right way," with actors and directors and writers who know just how to bend and mold the material from one medium into another. It's a lot of pressure, particularly for something like The Sandman—an artifact of the 1990s that combines Gaiman's wry creative bent with the bold, stylized artwork of Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and the rest. It’s an epic millennia-spanning fable whose protagonists and villains are anthropomorphizations of nebulous concepts like "death," "dream," and "destiny;" not the sort of material that lends itself easily to adaptation. Yet Netflix's Sandman works. The fact that the show is genuinely very good sneaks up on you: It's not until Episode 6, "The Sound of Her Wings," that it becomes abundantly clear.