Sunday, July 28, 2013
Associated Press
Neil Gaiman says his return to Vertigo Comics’ realm of the Endless is no mere continuation of the series that spawned a creative revolution altering the medium.
Instead, “The Sandman: Overture” is a chance to do the “weird things” and “different things” that he never got to explore in writing the best-selling and critically lauded series.
The bimonthly series, illustrated by J.H. Williams III, comes out Oct. 30, under the Vertigo banner, an imprint of DC Entertainment.
It’s the latest achievement for the British-born author whose writing has endeared him to critics and fans in literature — his 2013 novel “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” was a best-seller — television and, yes, comic books.
The intense interest in the new series, 25 years after “Sandman” No. 1 was released, is such that the cover to Comic-Con’s official guide, given to every attendee, featured the new title.
In an interview at Comic-Con International, Gaiman said that with the new title, he’s “definitely doing weird things, different things, doing stuff that I just never really got to do, never got to explore” in the “Sandman” series.
“The closest I ever got to the stuff I’m doing in ‘Sandman’ was in ‘Endless Nights.’ I got to do one story, the dream story — drawn by Miguelanxo Prado — set in the dawn of time which had more weird crossovers with the DC universe than, perhaps, anything I’ve written.”
The “Overture” series is “kind of like that,” he said.
Gaiman said he wanted to inspire Williams and readers, too, with the story.