Sandman

Each weekday, ComicsAlliance brings you a carefully selected variety of links from around the web about comics and comics-related media, including movies, video games, toys, and whatever else might be worth noting. Quite frankly, these are items you may just need to know about to have a productive day. Take a look at today's hand-picked links after the jump.

Graphic novels and comics are the focus of this year's Banned Books Week, which starts up September 21, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is getting a head start on the festivities with its new handbook for the occasion, which features a cover by Bone writer/artist Jeff Smith. The CBLDF's Banned Books Week Handbook not only offers up a list of a few comics that have been banned in US schools and libraries -- including Bone, Fun Home, Watchmen, Sandman, Blankets, and Persepolis -- and the reasons why, but also debunks some of myths surrounding banned books.

Diamond Select Toys unveiled a surprising amount of new Minimates and other figures this past weekend at C2E2 2014 in Chicago. Filling DST's booth were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Minimates we saw at Toy Fair 2014 (but couldn't shoot at the time), along with the All New X-Men centric Marvel Minimates Series 59, an upcoming 8" Retro Captain America figure, and an upcoming Spider-Man villa

Jack Thorne has been tapped by Warner Bros. to script The Sandman, following a treatment by Davis S. Goyer based on the bestselling and sacrosanct Vertigo comic book series written by Neil Gaiman.

The Dark Knight Rises star Joseph Gordon-Levitt is jumping from the DC movieverse to a more Vertigo live action landscape. Deadline reports that the 32-year-old actor and director is "finalizing a deal" to team with Dark Knight trilogy co-writer David S. Goyer to co-produce a Sandman film at Warner Bros., based on the 75-issue comic book series and its spinoffs written by Neil Gaiman and

Vertigo fans may want to sit down. According to The New York Times DC Comics' mature readers imprint has announced six new titles coming this fall, including the finally-titled Sandman prequel announced last summer at San Diego Comic-Con International. On October 30, Gaiman and artist J.H. Williams' The Sandman: Overture #1 will arrive in stores, bringing an end to fans' some 17 year wait for new material.

Ever wondered what an adaptation of Vertigo's Sandman would have looked like hat it hit the big screen? The Empire Film Podcast, a prolific source of comics-related newsover the past couple weeks, asked writer Neil Gaiman that very question. The info that the acclaimed author offered up is... less than encouraging.

One of my favorite things about Regular Show -- and folks, I have a lot of favorite things about Regular Show -- is the way it uses common elements of my life to form the foundation of its weird magical realism stories. Video games, the best VHS tape in the world, that's the stuff I can identify with.

A new year means new action figures, busts and statues from DC Collectibles, although official solicitation listings indicate the company will kick off 2013 with a relatively conservative amount of merchandise. In January DCC will roll out a new Death statue, a Frank Miller-style Superman statue, a Booster Gold bust and a New 52 Green Arrow action figure, with prices ranging from about $23 to $80,

DC Entertainment's final panel of the day focused on the Vertigo imprint, moderated by editor Karen Berger and featuring creators Sean Muprhy, Mike Allred, Rafael Albuquerque, Mark Buckingham,, Mike Carey, Jeff Lemire, Dan Abnett, Bill Willingham, Scott Snyder, and Dustin Nguyen, as well as editors Shelly Bond and Will Dennis. Sean Murphy discussed his Punk Rock Jesus series, Jeff Lemire promised a "not sad" ending to Sweet Tooth, and this guy named Neil Gaiman is doing a prequel to a comic book he started in 1989 called Sandman with J.H. Williams III.