With DC Entertainment not having much trouble with their current superhero comic book line up, they have added a number of other imprints under their publishing line. This year DC Comics and Neil Gaiman will be celebrating 30 years since The Sandman was launched. To celebrate the occasion, Gaiman and DC Comics will be launching the Sandman Universe later this year that will include four comic books that will be based on the critically acclaimed Sandman series.

The announcement was made via Entertainment Weekly. There we learned that the new books will include The Dreaming, Lucifer, Books of Magic and the new series The House of Whispers. The new imprint will start with a special Sandman Universe one shot by Gaiman, Nalo Hopkins, Kat Howard, Si Spurrier and Dan Watters. It will include artwork by Bilquis Everly and a cover by Jae Lee. Going forward each of the four writers will be taking on one of the books listed above. The artist for the series have not been announced.

Gaiman talked about finally doing some Sandman sequels:

“It’s a huge sandbox with so many wonderful toys that nobody’s getting to play with right now. I started feeling guilty. I liked the idea of getting the toys played with again, reminding people how much fun this is, and also getting the opportunity to work with some fantastic writers. Down the line, there will be fantastic artists as well.”

He also made some interesting comments about his personal connection to the Sandman Universe and how he is going to delegate the storytelling:

“It’s always been personal, and there are still areas of it that have velvet ropes set up and “do not disturb” signs hanging on the door. People will ask, ‘Can we do this?’ and I’ll be like, ‘No.’ Some of that is because one day I will want to go there and tell those stories, even if it’s not for another 5 or 10 years. For this stuff, it’s really the joy of looking back at the history of Vertigo. There’s always stuff I created in the Vertigo world, that spun off and went out into the world and did really well. But the natural life cycle of these things is it came, it went away. Let’s bring it all back, let’s have fun with it. So for me, the joy is just sitting with smart writers who love the material and saying, “’Let’s go play.’”

The Sandman followed Dream, the personification of dreams who fought gods, monsters and humans. The title lasted 8 years and it’s one of the most important books of its time. One specific issue that retold A Midnight Summer’s Dream became the first comic book to win the World Fantasy Award, proving to readers that comics could be taken seriously as literature.

It will be interesting to see if these new sequels hold up to some of the previous Sandman titles by Gaiman. Also, I look forward to seeing what artists will be attached to these creative teams. Check out some of the exclusive covers in the Entertainment Weekly article.

Are you excited about a Sandman Universe? Let us know in the comment section below!

DC Entertainments’ Sandman Universe debuts later this year.

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Source: Entertainment Weekly