'The Sandman's Stellar Cast Comes To SDCC

Like Bridgerton, Lord of the Rings, and The Wheel of Time, Netflix's The Sandman is not a pretty British series. However, it will feel enough like one and star enough U.K. favorites well known from PBS and the BBC for anglophiles to check it out. With a new trailer, clip, and explainer video out in the aftermath of the show's panel at San Diego Comic-Con, here's what to know about the fantasy offering.

Neil Gaiman's graphic novel was a seminal moment in the medium, technically a story under the DC Comics banner but told in such a way as to feel wholly like its own piece of art. Actor Tom Sturridge (The Hollow Crown) referred to it as a piece of literature during the SDCC panel; the graphic novel's ability to inspire that sort of praise is one reason it's a TV show with serious potential. (Notably, no other comic or novel that was part of the main stage presentations in Hall H was treated with the reverence or respect of Gaiman's work.)

Part of it is the sheer imaginative quality of Gaiman's story, which anthropomorphized conceptual ideas, and gave them visual personas. The Endless, as they are known, are Dream, Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium (formerly Delight), and Destruction. Dream, aka The Sandman, or Lord of Dreams, has been imprisoned by a cult for nearly a century. When he escapes into the modern world, his absence has altered how humanity views itself, and its unconscious mind, not to mention his kingdom is in total disarray.