Neil Gaiman’s got some more good news. In a recorded video message at Comic-Con in San Diego last week, the Newbery-winning author says he plans to return to comic books with a “Sandman” miniseries, drawn byBatwoman artist J. H. Williams III and published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint.
Photo: Kimberly Butler
Due out next year, it will be the first new Sandman story in nine years and will coincide with the original series’ 25th anniversary.
The new limited series, called “The Sandman,” is a prequel to the DC series he began in 1988 and ended in 1996 with 75 issues. Sandman is Dream, known also as Morpheus, an immortal member of a group called the Endless.
“I’m excited; this has been an incredibly long time coming,” Gaiman said in the video message. “It was one of the few stories that actually felt, when I finished Sandman, like I had failed because I had not told this story.”
Gaiman fans recently learned that he signed a major book deal with HarperCollins for two picture books and three novels, where we’ll see some favorite familiar characters, as well as some new ones.
Inspired by a recent trip to China, Gaiman‘s book deal with HarperCollins includes two new picture books for small children that center on Chu, the loveable little panda with the great big sneeze. Chu’s Day, illustrated by Adam Rex, will be published January 8, 2013, and another Chu book has already been written.
Fortunately, the Milk, a funny young middle-grade novel that’s already completed, is “an ode to the pleasure and wonders of storytelling itself” and will feature numerous interior illustrations by Skottie Young, says HarperCollins. The deal also includes a sequel to Odd and the Frost Giants,which will follow the Viking boy Odd on further adventures. Gaiman says on his blog that he’s already “started and plotted” the book.
Gaiman will also write a still unnamed middle grade novel, described as a “mysterious book that I think I know what it is (not even started, won’t be for quite a while, and I think I know the setting but not the story).”
“We are thrilled to sign these wonderful and diverse books by the immensely talented Neil Gaiman, who is such a treasure and has so many fans of all ages,” says Rosemary Brosnan, his editor at HarperCollins.
The author wrote on his blog that he’s also hard at work on an adult novel, which has the working title, Lettie Hempstock’s Ocean. Although contacts haven’t been signed yet, Gaiman says it should be out sometime in 2013.
“[The novel is] lurching further toward the end of its second draft every day. (mostly I’m just listening to comments from friends who have read it, and fixing things, or thinking about them and letting them stay the same…),” he writes on his blog.
Gaiman’s Newbery-winning The Graveyard Book was the only book to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie Medals. He’s also the author ofStardust and Coraline, which was made into an Academy Award-nominated animated feature film.