Neil Gaiman explains why Netflix’s The Sandman removed some nudity

Netflix’s The Sandman is undoubtedly a worthy adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic book. In fact, some fans are even calling it one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all time. Gaiman himself was heavily involved in the process from beginning to end, which surely helped.

One thing about the adaptation that fans were a little confused by, however, is the absence of some of the nudity. There are several instances of nudity in the comics that didn’t cross over to the show. At one point in the diner, the patrons are nude and singing John Dee’s praises. Despair is naked pretty much all of the time in the comic. Calliope also spends time nude.

Readers that wanted a direct one-to-one adaptation took to Gaiman’s Tumblr to seek answers as to why some of the panels containing nudity were dropped. As always, Gaiman was happy to answer any and all queries. He was quick to point out that not all naked scenes were removed, far from it — the show even added a couple of new moments:

"What happened to the nudity in the Sandman, the one where Morpheus spent pretty much the entire first episode naked? The one with all the naked humans in Dream of a Thousand Cats? It was there… and there was even some extra nakedness, like Ken’s dream."

Why Despair isn’t naked in Netflix’s The Sandman

In the comics, the character of Despair is portrayed as a portly, ghostly pale naked woman coated in cuts and bruises. In the show, actress Donna Preston is fully clothed; she even wears crocs, which many fans liked. “Reproducing the Despair in the comics would be possible, but enormously expensive, time-consuming and difficult, and we decided to get a fabulous actor in and use our limited resources on other things,” Gaiman wrote.

Gaiman also talked about Calliope, the Greek muse who appears in Episode 11. “The only real nudity we lost was keeping Calliope dressed,” he said. “In the comic her nakedness, like Morpheus’s, indicated helplessness and being imprisoned. On TV, we weren’t sure that it would have come across like that, and wanted to try and create a Calliope with more agency and dignity.”

The Sandman adapts the comic, but doesn’t recreate it

The Sandman can be praised for not steering too far off course from its source material. And when it does, it goes about it in a way that makes sense for television. As Gaiman writes:

"A lot of it is just deciding what we were going for in the comic and trying to create that effect with television rather than with static drawn images. Things that are hard but okay as drawings might be much darker and more painful when you are seeing them happen to real people."

All 11 episodes of The Sandman are now streaming on Netflix. We are all eagerly awaiting news of a season 2 renewal. Please, Netflix…

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