SAN DIEGO, CA - JULY 20: Showrunner Neil Gaiman attends the #IMDboat At San Diego Comic-Con 2018: Day Two at The IMDb Yacht on July 20, 2018 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for IMDb)

Netflix is adapting Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics for the small screen, and I couldn’t be happier. A richly imagined story about a group of immortal beings called the Endless, Sandman is hard to describe but wonderful once you get into it, although it’s so strange and inventive — visually and narratively — that I wonder how Netflix will contain it all within the four corners of the screen.

But that’s a problem for when the show comes out, whenever that ends up being. For now, I’m just glad it’s moving forward. In fact, speaking to Radio Times, Gaiman revealed that he and his fellow producers are doing some longterm planning:

There are three of us, the showrunner Allan Heinberg, David Goyer and me, and we’ve just finished writing the first episode, and plotting and breaking down the first two seasons, so we’ll see what happens next.

I’m glad to hear the team is in it for the long haul, with season 2 already at the planning stages. Meanwhile, the first season of the show is coming into focus, with Gaiman saying that it’ll have 11 episodes and will cover the first Sandman trade paperback — Preludes & Nocturnes — plus a bit more.

The first season will be eleven episodes. That's the start of it all. Preludes and Nocturnes and a little bit more. https://t.co/tOlfJ1kS1y — Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) July 2, 2019

Preludes & Nocturnes introduce us to some — but not all — of the main players, including lead character Dream of the Endless, who loses some of his power over the Realm of Dreams during a period of confinement and sets about getting it back. At this early stage, Sandman hadn’t quite established its own identity and still interacted with other DC characters — the hero John Constantine makes an appearance, for example. Not sure how they’ll handle that, if licensing is an issue.

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Honestly, I imagine they could speed things up a little — there are 10 Sandman trade paperbacks, so if this is the pace they’re going at, they could be at it for a very long while. And Gaiman has promised a comprehensive adaptation. But mostly I’m just looking forward to watching this wonderful story come to life. And Netflix, if you need help casting, I’ve got you covered:

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