Fidelity, focalization and nostalgia: The audio adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

Abstract

Neil Gaiman’s superhero comic series The Sandman had never officially been adapted to any other medium when Audible released the first instalment of its audio drama series in 2020. This article reads that adaptation in the context of current media nostalgia trends while paying special attention to the production choices guided by fans’ affective engagement with popular texts. I will look at some of the adaptation strategies used to turn the comic’s verbal text and its visuals into speech and sound. The focus will be twofold. Firstly, I will explore how questions of fidelity can be applied to this comic-to-audio case, by investigating how the Sandman adaptation’s faithfulness to its source text relates to the way in which the audio drama taps into the audience’s nostalgic engagement with the text. Secondly, my reading also contributes to narratological debates over the use of focalization in both comics and audio narratives. To unpack the shifts in focalization and narrative perspective that occur between comic and audio play, I will zoom in on the function of the comic’s omniscient narrator as it translates into the audio adaptation.