Hello my Beautiful Watchers, I’m afraid that I must beg your forgiveness for this
impromptu interlude between Twilight related videos.
I know I made some pretty grand statements about marathoning them but I’ve come to
realise that taking on a project like that while also moving house was biting off a bit
more than I could chew.
Unfortunately aid realization took the form of a minor breakdown due to exhaustion.
I’m ok now but after that it seemed like it might be wise to switch to a more agreeable
subject for a video or two before setting my shoulder to that particular wheel again.
So: The Sandman.
First of all I do want to make the ethics of this review clear: Audible is sponsoring
this video but they didn’t pick the subject of review or tell me what to say about it.
These are my genuine feelings towards this product, they just happen to be so positive
this seemed like a good episode for them to sponsor.
While this is primarily a review of the Audible audio drama I will be talking about the comic
at least a little regarding what may or may not have been Lost in Adaptation.
I’m also going to try to keep this spoiler light because I wouldn’t want to deprive
you of experiencing the story for yourself if you decide to.
Ok let's do this.
Neil Gaiman is a British author known for such best selling novels as Stardust and American
Gods.
He’s featured on my show before when I reviewed the adaptation of Coraline, one of his younger
orientated horror books.
I personally became aware of him through his friendship with my all time favorite author
Sir Terry Pratchett and the book they co wrote.
Gaiman’s writing talents evidently extended to other media because in 1989 he created
the first issue of The Sandman, a fantasy horror comic book series that would run continuously
for 40 years and counting and be hailed as “the greatest epic in the history of comic
books” by the Los Angeles Times Magazine.
On July 15 2020 Audible released an audio drama adaptation of the first three volumes
of The Sandman featuring a full celebrity cast, sound effects and score and my beautiful
watchers it is just (chief's kiss).
Please allow me to give you a little background of the world to start with.
The Sandman is a DC comic, meaning it's set in the world of Superman, Batman and the rest
of the Justice league, all of whom are name dropped at one point or another.
Not being a superhero comic fan myself I probably didn’t recognise a lot of cameos that came
and went in this but the four that even I couldn’t miss were Arkham Asylum, The Scarecrow,
Martian Manhunter and John Constantine who plays a large role in one of the early chapters
and to my delight is actually scouse for once, looking at you Keanu Reeves.
Neil Gaiman's contribution to this world involves the Endless, immortal personifications of
some of the most powerful aspects of all living things in the universe.
Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium, formally known as Delight and the
focus of the comic: Dream.
Dream, as you can probably deduce, is the ruler of the realm of sleep and all that goes
on there.
He’s also sometimes referred to as Morpheus, the one from the greek legend, not the Matrix,
hello again Keaunu Reeves.
The Endless have been around since literally the dawn of time and while they hold massive
power but they are not as overtly godlike as other ancient beings in the DC universe.
In an interesting move while the first chapter involves Dream it's not about him.
It's about the mystic cult that manages to corporialise him and hold him prisoner for
70 years.
Dealing with the consequences of his long absence it is often the main theme of the
subsequent chapters.
One thing I should definitely mention before going any further because it might heavily
affect people’s decision to listen to this is The Sandman is 100% a horror story, and
not in the kinda dark but mostly cute Coroline way, in the very adult very gory way.
And I mean really gory, like the squelching sounds of flesh being rendered and the screaming
and chewing noises of eyeballs being torn from sockets and eaten like a snack kinda
gory.
There also several instances of sexual assault descibed and on one occasion acted out.
I struggled to get through this in places, I have to admit if it hadn’t been so awesome
in general I might have bowed out fairly early.
To be fair I would describe myself as being on the fainter end of the feint of heart scale
but I still think it's important you be aware of what you’re getting into before you download
this.
Even if you’ve already read the comic you might still find this a bit much.
I think that audio entertainment can be intense in a way that comics just can’t because
you can’t look away from or skim over the really disturbing bits and it leaves more
to the imagination whether you want it to or not.
Just for a side by side comparison this is a page from the comic about a psychopath using
a magic item to mind control a group of unlucky people in a diner and forcing them to kill
each other.
Annnd this is the same scene in the audio book.
Hour sixteen..Party games..Murder in the dark (lots of squishy stabs and screaming) (maniacal
laughter)
See what I mean?
Not every chapter is like this, there's actually a huge range in tone, but the dark bits get
really dark.
Anyway getting back to the Audiobook as a whole, Gaiman narrates a lot of it himself
and I think does a pretty good job considering he’s not an actor by trade.
James McAvoy provides the voice of Morpheus, Kat Dennings plays his big sister Death, Taron
Egerton appears as Constantine, and Michael Sheen joins Gaiman once again since good Omens
to voice Lucifer.
Bebe Neuwirth, Andy Serkis and Samantha Morton also make appearances as small players.
I’m honestly a little surprised David Tennent didn’t make an appearance but there’s
more characters in later volumes so its still possible.
Ooh maybe he could play Destiny.
That would be cool.
Death was the stand out supporting character for me and a quick look into the The Sandman
fandom showed me that I was far from being alone in this.
I personally thought that all of the performances in this just rocked.
The casting was just perfect across the board.
The only thing I think might be slightly jarring for comic fans is Dream himself, but in a
way they couldn't possibly have avoided.
In the comic dreams speech bubbles are always in inverted colours, which gave me the impression
that his voice is like super otherworldly in an inhuman and maybe even ineffable way,
and while James McAvoy’s performance is splendid it's still only human.
Like I said there's no way they could have avoided this.
It’s just an adaptation themed observation.
That’s kind of my thing.
BTW The Sandman was technically a reboot of a not particularly popular superhero from
1939 but has very little in common with the original concept.
Despite this Gaiman worked several references to this more campy Sandman into the story.
Because this is an adaptation of multiple issues of a long running comic, each chapter
holds to certain unifying themes and often tie into each other but this audiobook doesn't
tell a single continuous story.
Sometimes they’re connected fairly heavily like chapters 1 to 4 but others are complete
bottle episodes.
So adaptation-wise, how does this score in accuracy?
Well as I mentioned I’m not a huge comic guy so I didn’t know from the get go, but
I tracked down the relevant volumes and yeah.
Yeah it's really really really close to the original.
Some flair’s been added here and there to compensate for the lack of artwork and descriptions
are included when the dialog can’t speak for itself but otherwise it’s basically
word for word which is very very impressive.
However there's an argument to be made that it maybe sticks a little too close and misses
a chance to make up for the mistakes of the past.
You see the comic leans very heavily into the Bury Your Gays trope.
I can’t off the top of my head think of a single confirmed LGBTQ character, good or
evil who didn't die horribly in the same chapter they’re introduced.
I believe Neil Gaiman once said something to the effect of he wishes he’s done that
particular aspect of the comic differently, but the audiobook sticks to it just as faithfully
as everything else.
From what I hear the upcoming netflix adaptation is going to introduce a few changes so maybe
hopefully that will be one of them.
Also by the way there’s going to be a netflix adaptation.
Hooray.
If you don’t think that the more extreme horror elements of this audio drama would
bother you then I cannot recommend it enough.
It's currently available for download exclusively on Audible and you could potentially listen
to it for free.
When you sign up for Audible’s commitment free 30 day trial you get a credit that can
be used to get any audiobook including the Sandman.
Then every month from then on you’ll be given a new credit for another audiobook of
your choice regardless of cost.
All you have to do is follow the link in the video description or go audible.com/thedom
or text thedom to 500 500 and in addition to the free audiobook you’ll also get access
to monthly audible original content.
At the end of the trial if you decide the subscription isn’t for you, you can cancel
before you make any payments, and you still get to permanently keep all the audiobooks
you have so far.
While The Sandman is definitely my recommendation today Audible has an unmatched library so
it's worth checking out even if horror isn’t your thing.
So again that's audible.com/thedom, text thedom to 500 500 or follow the link in the video
description.
Thank you for joining me my beautiful watchers.
I'm sorry that this video is significantly shorter than my usual runtime, I do find that
I struggle to find enough things to say about stuff that I liked, partly because ranting
involves more words and partly because I do want to try to avoid spoilers.
If you still enjoyed it, would you be so good as to do me a solid and help me out with all
the little things that stop channel from being forsaken by the uncaring horror beast that
is the YouTube algorithm like commenting, hitting the like button, sharing on the social
medias and subscribing if you’re new.
Please take care of yourselves out there in these troubled times and I will see you soon.
Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Dream and Dom.
Ohh smiling hurts my face f****ing hell *groans*.
I don’t know if this is a “over 30 thing” or a “state of the world” thing but yeah
OW.
What the f***!