Vertigo revealed the first image by artist J.H. Williams for Neil Gaiman’s highly anticipated Sandman: Overture, the prequel to his Sandman series, to be released this October. From the Vertigo website:
“This is the one story that we never got to tell,” Gaiman told The New York Times today. “In Sandman #1 Morpheus is captured somehow. Later on in the series, you learn he was returning from somewhere far, far away – but we never got to the story of what he was doing and what had happened. This is our chance to tell that story, and J.H. Williams III is drawing it. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
Gaiman told the New York Times, “The most peculiar thing for me about returning to ‘Sandman’ is how familiar it all feels.”
Issues will be released every other month, starting in October, with special editions in between. Also, according to The New York Times:
Another of Vertigo’s new series, “The Dead Boy Detectives,” due in November, is tied to the “Sandman” mythos. It features two characters that were introduced in “Sandman” No. 25 from 1991. The characters, Edwin and Charles, are boarding school students who died tragically and returned as ghost detectives. (In the new series, a girl, whose mortality status is unknown, will join them.)
My god, that JH Williams…
Although its chronologically a prequel, would this best be read AFTER the existing Sandman series?
I’ve read the standalone stories in Endless Nights but haven’t read the series proper; kind of wondering how and where to start.
@MattDiamond – Probably best to read the existing series first. It stands extremely well on its’ own and I have a feeling that reading about the single stone that started the avalanche after reading about the avalanche itself will make the story more powerful than it would have been otherwise.
That said, many of the Sandman volumes are amazing as stand-alone stories as well – in particular “Brief Lives” and “A Game of You” are my favourites. In my opinion, each volume adds more scope to the overall story arc, while being complete in itself. It really just depends on whether you want to be told a story, or to discover one for yourself.