If you’ve been missing Neil Gaiman‘s classic ‘Sandman’ series then we’ve got some news you’re going to love. DC Comics has just announced a new “Sandman Universe” initiative which won’t just be giving us one new ‘Sandman’ comic but four!

Talk about the perfect way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series this year.

While Gaiman won’t be penning these books, he is overseeing each of the new titles which will be both written and drawn by new creative teams. The plan is that “they will pick up story threads and themes from The Sandman while also adding new characters and concepts.”

We don’t even have to wait that long for the first outing as a one-shot tilted ‘The Sandman Universe’ will debut in August as a bit of a refresher of “what’s been happening in Dream’s realm.” The most important thing to note is that Dream is missing, and chaos is everywhere.

In the book, we’ll see “the opening of a rift between worlds, revealing a space beyond the Dreaming.” Thankfully, Lucien is still Dream’s official librarian and in charge of all of the books which were dreamed and never written. However, one of them may have ended up in the waking world and is found by a group of children.

Nothing good can come of that.

In The Dreaming, we find that a new resident has appeared and the House of Whispers is now present next to Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

We’ll also see Lucifer making a comeback, the one from the comics not the televised reinterpretation of him. Here he has fallen again though is an entirely new Hell where there is no escape.

Finally, Timothy Hunter is a young boy in London who somehow fits into things and has both “dreams of becoming the world’s greatest magician and nightmares of becoming its worst villain.”

I’m sure revisiting the character won’t be tied to whatever is going on with Dream in the slightest.

While Gaiman is setting things up with ‘The Sandman Universe’ #1, it will be “written by Nalo Hopkinson, Kat Howard, Si Spurrier, and Dan Watters, with art by Bilquis Everly and a cover by Jae Lee.”

If I wasn’t already excited about the book and new series’, the fact that Si Spurrier is involved means I won’t have a choice but to pick these up. These will be the writers going forward on each of the new books:

  • Hopkins writing ‘House of Whispers’ that explores “how the voodoo deity Erzulie ended up in the Dreaming with her titular house.”
  • Howard is taking on ‘Books of Magic’ that “will follow up on Gaiman’s 1990 miniseries of the same name and explore Timothy Hunter’s magical education as he’s torn between two powerful destinies.”
  • Spurrier is tackling ‘The Dreaming’ and “will follow The Sandman supporting characters like Lucien the librarian and Matthew the Raven as they navigate a Dreaming without Dream.”
  • Watters is covering ‘Lucifer” and “finds the titular devil blind and destitute, trapped living in a small boarding house in a quiet town where no one can ever leave.”

No word as to who will be handling the artwork on each of these books at this time. While I’m sure I’ll be picking up all of them, ‘The Dreaming’ will be my must-read on these. With four in the works, I’m hoping that means we’ll see a new one delivered each week of the month.

As a bonus, we also have the covers of the four new books which you can check out right here:

Are you looking forward to this epic return of ‘The Sandman Universe’? Which of the four titles are you most excited for? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Entertainment Weekly