Neil Gaiman narrates teaser for forthcoming Sandman audio drama

Neil Gaiman narrates the teaser for The Sandman audio drama coming this summer from Audible and DC Comics.

Last summer, we reported that a TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's seminal graphic novel series, The Sandman, was in development at Netflix. Now comes news that we'll be getting a multi-part audio drama adaptation of the series in the interim, via Audible Original. Audio adaptations of beloved properties used to be a rare occurrence—NPR's 1981 radio drama of the original Star Wars trilogy springs to mind. But in an era where we're all plugging into podcasts on a regular basis, such adaptations make a new kind of sense.

The audio drama is being directed by Dirk Maggs, who also directed the audio drama adaptations of Good Omens—which Gaiman co-authored with the late Terry Pratchett, and Amazon adapted into a miniseries last year—and Gaiman's novel, Anansi Boys. The author himself will narrate, as well as serving as creative director and executive producer. No voice cast has been announced yet, but given Gaiman's bona fides, expect to see (erm, hear) a lot of big names in the mix. Here's Gaiman's official statement (via Nerdist) about the project:

“Almost 30 years ago, Dirk Maggs approached DC about adapting The Sandman into audio form. It didn’t happen (although it was how Dirk and I first crossed paths) and I’m glad it didn’t happen, because we are in a Golden Age of audio drama right now, and Dirk and I are much better at what we are doing.

This is a rich audio adaptation of The Sandman graphic novels, brilliantly crafted by Dirk Maggs, with an all-star cast. I’ve loved being there to talk casting, there to read the scripts and offer occasional advice, and there in the studios, watching magic get made and recording the narration. I can’t wait until the world hears what we’ve done.”

For the uninitiated, the titular "sandman" is Dream, also called Morpheus, among other names. He is one of seven entities known as the Endless, and he is seeking to set right his past mistakes. The other Endless are Destiny, Destruction, Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Death, portrayed as a perky punk/goth young woman—they became almost as popular as Dream himself and were featured in several spinoff comics.

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