During the event Tudum of Netflix Several trailers for upcoming projects have been released and aired, which the platform will release over the next few months. Among these, the one that will surely have attracted the most attention and interest from comic book fans is that of The Sand seller, taken from the comic book Neil gaiman Sand seller, one of the most popular titles in the world. Although the teaser is short, some similarities and differences to the original subject can already be identified.
As seen in the first trailer for Netflix’s transposition of The Sand seller, we are witnessing the invocation of a supernatural entity by a group of people, a ritual carried out by a character played by Charles Dance. If you haven’t read the very first pages of Gaiman’s comic book, you won’t get the quote from the first issue of the series, Sleep of the righteous (The sleep of the righteous). The wizard played by Dance is Roderick Burgess, who lived in England at the beginning of the 20th century: in the comics, his ritual is said to be aimed at summoning and capturing the Death, however, end up with another entity: Morpheus / Dream, the lord of the awakened world (played by Tom sturridge).
During the teaser of The Sand seller we hear Burgess say a sort of magic formula: “I’ll give you a stone coin. I give you a feather taken from an angel’s wing. I give you blood from my vein.“(“I’ll give you a piece of stone. I give you a feather torn from an angel’s wing. I give you the blood of my veins“). At the end of the ritual, one of the wizard’s companions, observing the body lying in the magic circle on the ground, tells him that Death has a family, made up of To wish, Despair And destiny, to which Burgess asks him which of them he actually invoked. We therefore see Dream for the first time without his helmet, which seems quite upset by what is happening around him. “You’re gonna need all the help you can get“(“You will need all the help you can get“) Therefore, someone Burgess warns.
The decor of Roderick Burgess’ house in the comics Sand seller appears to have been faithfully reconstructed for the Netflix series. Anyone who has read Neil Gaiman’s series will also know what are the true intentions that lead the wizard to attempt to invoke the incarnation of Death, motivations which, if at first glance seem pure and human, gradually reveal the true goals of the wizard. . After these revelations, in the comics, Burgess is seen descending into the maze of her house, where she meets a group of hooded people who will participate in her ritual. A difference from the original material lies in the formula recited by the sorcerer: in the comic he indeed proposed, in addition to the objects mentioned in the teaser of the television series, also “a story stolen to dust, a knife under the hills and a shard caught in a dead man’s eyeEven the prayer that spectators repeat differs: in the comics, these invite the being that Burgess invokes (“like, how“), While in the series they repeat”Listen to us“(“Listen to us“).
A final difference with the comic lies in the reaction of Burgess himself, once the rite is completed and the evocation is accomplished. In Sand seller original, the character immediately realizes that he made a mistake and that he is in the presence of the Lord of dreams, while in the Netflix trailer the wizard does not know who answered his call, and is informed of his nature by one of the passers-by.
The Netflix teaser ends with the warning that the series will arrive soon, but the actual release date for the release is not yet known. The sand man On the platform. Since the series will likely arrive between late 2021 and early 2022, you would have plenty of time to read Neil Gaiman’s monumental work, recently reposted by BD Panini in paperback volumes, also available in a slipcase that you will find on Amazon.it.