By Zack Quaintance — News broke this week that writer James Tynion IV would be writing Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country, a new ongoing series illustrated by Lisandro Estherren that will feature The Corinthian, a murderous nightmare from the classic Sandman comics that has fanged teeth inside his eyes. The first issue of this new run is set to arrive April 12, 2022, marking the return of new Sandman comics to DC’s Black Label imprint for the first time since The Dreaming: Waking Hours concluded in July 2021 (landing on my Best Comics of 2021 list).

And friends, I am very excited for this series.

There’s two major reasons for this excitement, and I’m about to get to both (that’s what we call a tease here in the biz). The first of which is actually a concept I’d planned to build a larger piece around at some point (and still might, but who has time for that?). It’s why comics penned by James Tynion IV — namely Department of Truth and The Nice House on the Lake, illustrated by Martin Simmonds and Álvaro Martínez Bueno, respectively — landed the top two spots on my aforementioned Best Comics of 2021 list. I think Tynion’s work is perfectly taking the inherent terror of our times and extrapolating it into really well-done (credit to the quality of artist he works with) dark thrillers.

Department of Truth (get the first volume now) as a concept posits that if enough people believe in a conspiracy, it can manifest it as real. This to me is a fairly clever way to write comics about the spike in conspiracy culture in the United States (and if it’s not a quantifiable spike, it’s at least significantly increased visibility). The concept makes for great horror-tinged visual storytelling, enabling this book to feature flashy characters ranging from Bigfoot to Lee Harvey Oswald. But the real strength of the idea is that it speaks so directly to how belief in conspiracies has coalesced from an existential threat to a clear and present danger. For example, if enough people believe COVID-19 is exaggerated or not real, they will not get the vaccine, ergo putting everyone else in danger by acting as incubators for new variants, which they then spread. As in the book, it doesn’t matter if what they believe is real; eventually, it' manifests as something terrifying.

Nice House on The Lake, meanwhile, captures how it feels to live relatively comfortably through the pandemic. It’s a horror story (they all are this year, right?) about a group of friends who is living in comfort as the world melts around them, able to order literally anything they want and have it eventually brought to their door. This is another dark thriller of a comic born right out of the muck of 2020, 2021, and probably also 2022. And it’s great. Now consider the preview text for this new Sandman comic:

One of Dream’s greatest nightmares, and a proven serial killer when set free in the past, letting him loose on the world is a dangerous choice… but a necessary one, because there is another nightmare walking America that was not born in the Dreaming—a monster that Dream, lord of all nightmares, did not make. What follows is a dark cat and mouse game, a net of nightmares that catches not just dreams but the people who dream them, in a journey that crosses all the most terrifying corners of America: the collections of True Crime aficionados, white supremacist militia camps, galleries specializing in the art of horror, and more.

An actual nightmare is journeying to the scariest corners of the country, the causes and symptoms of the problems detailed in those other two comics that both work so well. And that, friends, is why I’m very excited for this comic book, the third piece of what I’m loosely calling Tynion’s America is Totally #&@^-ed Trilogy.

Check out artwork and full solicit info from the book below:

The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1

“With the smash success of Audible’s audio adaptation, and the upcoming blockbuster Netflix streaming series, 2022 is officially the year of The Sandman – and this can’t-miss horror series has been built to welcome new fans into the world of the comics. Issue #1 is on sale April 12, 2022; until then, fans can get caught up on all things Sandman on DC UNIVERSE INFINITE, and can also check out Volume One of Tynion’s smash hit Nice House on the Lake, on sale March 1, 2022.”

THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE: NIGHTMARE COUNTRY #1
Written by JAMES TYNION IV
Art by LISANDRO ESTHERREN and YANICK PAQUETTE
Cover by REIKO MURAKAMI
Variant by YANICK PAQUETTE
1:25 variant by KELLEY JONES
1:50 variant by ÁLVARO MARTÍNEZ BUENO
1:100 variant by JENNY FRISON
$3.99 US | 32 pages
Variants $4.99 US (card stock)
ON SALE 4/12/22

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.