Having just finished Netflix's first (and currently only) season of The Sandman, I wanted to reflect a minute on comics from the 1980s and the shows/movie . Well, not that exactly...
The comics industry got some influx of new perspectives in the 1980s that helped move the medium into a more mature direction. American Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, 1986) and a trio of Brits Alan Moore (Watchmen, 1986), Grant Morrison (Doom Patrol, 1989), and Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, 1989) were the main auteurs, if you could use such a term. The success of the two Englishmen and the Scot had the small circle of critics at the time claiming a British Invasion. This led to the likes of Garth Ennis and Peter Milligan (comic nerd alert!).
In any case, each one of those properties has been adapted for the screen, small or large, in the past, er, decade (plus?). Skipping Frank Miller's work, since it's been adapted a few times in various ways, and he's an American, I wanted to briefly mention the other three works.
The top row above is each writer's first issues with their respective titles. Grant Morrison took over with issue 19, but the other two were first issues. Watchmen was a self contained story and universe, a twelve issue maxi-series), and was a dark satire of superhero comics and superhero universes in general. That's why it's generally beloved by comic fans. The movie took itself a little too seriously, was very slick, and basically became the very thing the comic was trying to satirize and parody.
Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol was another novel approach to super hero comics, and is beloved by a far smaller subset of comic fans than Watchmen or the Sandman. It's weird for weirdness's sake, and if that's a facile description, it's because I don't think the fans of the comic read this dreck. I really enjoy it.
Sandman I never really read, but I remember the comics, and along with Doom Patrol, I remember them before they switched over to the Vertigo imprint. In fact, it was those titles (Sandman and Doom Patrol) along with Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Grant Morrison's Animal Man, that helped bring the Vertigo imprint into existence.
Sandman is Neil Gaiman's total recreation of a character and introduction of new mythos into DC Comics, as well as introducing dazzling visual vocabulary since the main character is the anthropomorphized Dream, the king of The Dreaming, his realm, the collective unconsciousness of humanity. It's wild, heady stuff.
All I really wanted to do is say that I liked Doom Patrol better than Sandman, and what I'm talking about is the shows. I haven't read the Sandman comics yet, and while I did enjoy the show quite a bit, I like Doom Patrol more. Doom Patrol seems like it splits the difference between superhero comics and existential fuckery.
Maybe it's the combo of the out-of-this-world acting by Diane Guerrero as Crazy Jane and an ensemble cast of tortured misfits trying to not screw up The World that makes the show for me. They're just trying to get by, like so many of us.
Some of the episodes of Sandman are good, and I like Tom Sturredge as Morpheus, and the ladies playing his older sister, Death, and the Vortex, Rose Walker, are awesome. The approach of gender fluidity and non-binary characters and actors to portray them fits with the ethos of a comic WAY ahead of its time.
I'll certainly keep watching new episodes of Sandman, should they come. With Doom Patrol, I mark the calendar and circle it twice.
I would like to check out the Watchmen show on HBO, I hear it hits pretty close to the heart of the original comic.
