Neil Gaiman reveals which character from The Sandman he would be and his reasoning behind the choice.
Gaiman co-created and wrote the original comic series published by Vertigo Comics, and now serves as an executive producer and writer for Netflix's adaptation of his work. One fan asked Gaiman on Tumbler, "If you could be any [The Sandman] character, who would you be and why?" According to Gaiman, there is one character that always reflected the writer's thoughts on the story at hand: Mervyn "Merv" Pumpkinhead.
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Gaiman responded to the inquiry, "Well, Merv Pumpkinhead was all too often my way of commenting on the action. I mean, he's right, much of the time, but fortunately nobody listens to him or there wouldn't be a plot." Merv Pumpkinhead is a Dream worker within Morpheus' kingdom, the Dreaming, who first appears in The Sandman #5 from 1989.
The Sandman has been adapted twice in recent years, the first being an audio adaptation on Amazon's Audible and the latest being a live-action series on Netflix. Despite Merv echoing Gaiman's own inner thoughts, the writer does not portray the pumpkin-headed character in either of the works. Instead, Hollywood's Kevin Smith voices the Dream on Audible while all-star voice actor Mark Hamill voices Merv on Netflix.
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Despite not portraying Merv or any other character in the main ten-episode Season 1, Neil Gaiman does lend his voice to a small part in the first season's bonus episode, "Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope." The episode adapts two stories from The Sandman comics, the first being an animated short about a cat, the Prophet (Sandra Oh), who enters the Dreaming and sees a world where cats reign supreme over humans and hunt them for play. In this animation, Gaiman voices a Dream, Crow/Skull Bird, and appears briefly during the Prophet's nighttime journey.
The question that now remains is whether fans will see more of Gaiman in the series, Hamill's Merv or another season of The Sandman in general. Despite the show earning "23.8 times the demand of the averaged series" following its premiere on Aug. 5, Netflix has yet to renew it for another season as of writing. Gaiman has previously cited the show's massive budget as part of the reason for the wait, but has said that The Sandman's renewal chances are "getting higher every day."
All eleven episodes of The Sandman Season 1 are now streaming on Netflix.
Source: Tumblr