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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – “The Sandman,” the Neil Gaiman-written comic book series considered a seminal work in the medium, is in the early stages of being developed into a TV series.

Warner Bros. TV is in the midst of acquiring television rights from sister company DC Entertainment and in talks with several writer-producers about adapting the 1990s comic. At the top of the list is Eric Kripke, creator of the CW’s horror-tinged “Supernatural.”

“Sandman” told the tale of Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, a deity who personifies dreams. The book began in the horror realm but quickly made its mark in fantasy and mythology as Gaiman introduced the Endless, a group of powerful brothers and sisters named Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).

The book helped establish DC’s Vertigo imprint and won several awards. It also was one of the few comics that segued from the comics crowd, entering the intellectual and art worlds, winning over a large non-comics-reading audience, particularly a devoted female following.

A movie version of “Sandman” has been in development since the mid-’90s, with an early version involving “Pulp Fiction” co-writer Roger Avary. The movie version cooled earlier in the decade, with the thinking moving to the best way to tackle an adaptation is the TV route. Up until a few months ago, DC was in talks with HBO and James Mangold to develop a show minus WBTV’s involvement, but that never coalesced.

Gaiman was not officially involved with the HBO attempt, though he and Mangold held several rounds of talks surrounding characters and story. The author is not involved in the new developments, though since it is early in the process, that may change. In fact, securing Gaiman will prove key for the project to go forward.

Kripke has been described as interested in tackling an adaptation but cautious because the comic book has such a passionate following and is held in such high regard. It’s the kind of series where each production decision, from casting to script to design, would be scrutinized by devotees.

Still, Kripke has managed to create and sustain “Supernatural,” which week in and week out deals with fantasy, mythological and horror elements. He also displayed a certain amount of creative integrity when he stuck to his guns by not returning as showrunner when the network renewed the series for a sixth season after he completed his planned five-season story line.

Exclu: “The Sandman,” the Neil Gaiman-penned comic book series considered a seminal work in the medium, is in the early stages of being developed into a TV series.

Warner Bros. TV is in the midst of acquiring television rights from sister company DC Entertainment and is in talks with several writer-producers about adapting the 1990s series. At the top of the list is Eric Kripke, creator of the CW’s horror-tinged “Supernatural.”

“Sandman” told the tale of Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, a deity who personifies dreams. The book began in the horror realm but quickly made its mark in fantasy and mythology as Gaiman introduced the Endless, a group of powerful brothers and sisters that includes Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).

The book helped establish DC’s Vertigo imprint and won several awards. It also was one of the few comics that segued from the comics crowd, entering the intellectual and art worlds and winning over a large non-comics-reading audience, particularly via a devoted female following.

A movie version of “Sandman” had been in development since the mid-’90s, with an early version involving Roger Avary. That cooled earlier in the decade, with the thinking that to the best way to tackle an adaptation is the TV route. At one point DC was in talks with HBO and James Mangold to develop a show without WBTV’s involvement, but that never coalesced.

Gaiman was not officially involved with the HBO attempt, though he and Mangold held several rounds of talks surrounding characters and story. The author is not involved in the latest development, though because it is early in the process, that could change.

Kripke has been described as interested in tackling an adaptation but cautious because the comic book has such a passionate following and is held in such high regard. It’s the kind of series where each production decision, from casting to script to design, would be scrutinized by devotees.

Still, Kripke managed to create and sustain “Supernatural,” which week in and week out deals with fantasy, mythological and horror elements. He also displayed a certain amount of creative integrity when he stuck to his guns by not returning as showrunner when the network renewed the series for a sixth season after he completed a planned five-season story line.

WBTV and WME, which reps Kripke, declined to comment.

Would you be more likely to pick up “The Communist Manifesto” or “The Canterbury Tales” if the book’s cover featured “killer new images” by a comic book artist the caliber of Richard Sala, Ted Stearn, or Tara McPherson?

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Penguin Books is betting that the answer is yes and has commissioned a number of such covers for its line of classics.

Undoubtedly some readers will protest that marrying such graphics to great lit (even superficially) is all part of the dumbing down of America. The rest of us, however, will all enjoy taking a look. (You can see some images here and then more here.)

Personally, I’m inclined to agree with Caleb Goellner that, “[j]udging these books by their covers has never been so rad.”

Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor’s book editor.

Join the Monitor’s book discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

For indie rapper El-P, album artwork is as essential as the recording itself, especially on his new, mostly-instrumental mixtape Weareallgoingtoburninhell-megamixxx3, which features the graphic design of comic book artist Travis Millard. In the exclusive video below, the rapper and the artist talk together onscreen about how the artwork for megamixxx3 came to life.

“At this point, I feel like the stuff Travis does for these mixes is indispensable,” El-P tells SPIN.com of Millard, who also did the artwork for his 2008 mix, megamixxx2. “I won’t do these albums without him.”

Millard, who helms Fudge Factory Comics out of LA’s Echo Park neighborhood, says he based his latest creation off the previous mixtape and El-P’s 2007 album, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, both of which featured scary looking birds.

“For this round, I wanted to reference that theme and push it further with color,” Millard says. “I had a little pile of drawings I’d been working on for it, but when El-P sent me the album, I found myself just zoning out and drawing this feathery hell ball thing that eventually became the cover. I didn’t set out to create anything specific, it was more about just drawing and meditating on the music.”

“The first thing he showed me was the bird from the inside cover and I loved it immediately,” El-P says.

“Thank goodness he was into it,” quips Millard, who lists Minor Threat’s Out of Step, Beastie Boys’ License to Ill, and Pavement’s Wowie Zowie among his all-time favorite album covers. “Otherwise he might’ve thrashed me with one of his vicious lyrical swattings.”

Watch the video below and go deeper into Millard’s creative direction for El-P’s album artwork, then tell us what you think in the comments section.

There is the problem. I know a lot of people reject propositions with a boring and overly-simple argument of “government is too big,” but that doesn’t mean that all people who are in favor of a small [federal] government take that route, and it doesn’t mean that they think that all government intervention is bad. You’re unecessarily reducing a viewpoint to a ridiculous. Claiming that those who are against “government expansion” are in favor of anarchy (if government intervention is always bad, then anarchy would be good, because it would be no government intervention).

Of course, you are probably just exaggerating to make your point, which is probably what the people you’re arguing against are doing, too… meaning we’re all arguing against exaggerated opinions of the other side, which means we’re not even really arguing about something real  ;)

I’m a “small government” sort of guy. Didn’t Romney do the health care thing in MA? Isn’t that “government intervention?” Doesn’t he still claim it was a good idea? Of course, that was at the state level, not the federal level… but still.

I suppose I’m nit-picking. But the exaggerations on both sides make any sort of meaningful political discussion impossible. Democrats, according to some Republicans, quite literally want to drive America into the ground and give our land over to Muslim countries. Republicans, according to some Democrats, want to literally milk the people’s money out of them through corporations and wouldn’t mind if [insert large corporation] actually ran the country. Usually, these are supported by huge jumps from a given action to a motive. Actions are easy to see. Motives are pretty difficult.

As an example, from my own ideological POV’s typical party member, “Obamacare” is clearly an attempt to set up a completely socialist government in America. It’s also, clearly, an attempt to ruin America and give it to Iran. It’s also clearly an attempt for Democrats to gain more federal power. Of course, some of those clear motives are rather mutually exclusive, but we’ll ignore that. The action that caused all this was a health care bill, but we clearly know the motive behind it.

The same goes for Democrats. They clearly know the motives behind Repuplicans blocking a given bill (it is undoubtedly an evil and nefarious motive, like wanting to get more money from corporate lobbyists, or wanting to ensure they get re-elected, etc). My whole point? We are so caught up in ascribing motives that we can’t even argue about the real substance – the legislation itself.

And, to wrap up, exaggerations about POV’s – including “small government” folks being against any government intervention at all, which then boils any discussion down to “well what about [something the government does that is necessary]???!?! you insensitive clod!” and including “all ’socialists’ want to control ever single area of your life just like Russian communism!” – is a part of the can’t-have-rational-discussion problems…

IMO, of course.  ;)

There is the problem. I know a lot of people reject propositions with a boring and overly-simple argument of “government is too big,” but that doesn’t mean that all people who are in favor of a small [federal] government take that route, and it doesn’t mean that they think that all government intervention is bad. You’re unecessarily reducing a viewpoint to a ridiculous. Claiming that those who are against “government expansion” are in favor of anarchy (if government intervention is always bad, then anarchy would be good, because it would be no government intervention).

Of course, you are probably just exaggerating to make your point, which is probably what the people you’re arguing against are doing, too… meaning we’re all arguing against exaggerated opinions of the other side, which means we’re not even really arguing about something real  ;)

I’m a “small government” sort of guy. Didn’t Romney do the health care thing in MA? Isn’t that “government intervention?” Doesn’t he still claim it was a good idea? Of course, that was at the state level, not the federal level… but still.

I suppose I’m nit-picking. But the exaggerations on both sides make any sort of meaningful political discussion impossible. Democrats, according to some Republicans, quite literally want to drive America into the ground and give our land over to Muslim countries. Republicans, according to some Democrats, want to literally milk the people’s money out of them through corporations and wouldn’t mind if [insert large corporation] actually ran the country. Usually, these are supported by huge jumps from a given action to a motive. Actions are easy to see. Motives are pretty difficult.

As an example, from my own ideological POV’s typical party member, “Obamacare” is clearly an attempt to set up a completely socialist government in America. It’s also, clearly, an attempt to ruin America and give it to Iran. It’s also clearly an attempt for Democrats to gain more federal power. Of course, some of those clear motives are rather mutually exclusive, but we’ll ignore that. The action that caused all this was a health care bill, but we clearly know the motive behind it.

The same goes for Democrats. They clearly know the motives behind Repuplicans blocking a given bill (it is undoubtedly an evil and nefarious motive, like wanting to get more money from corporate lobbyists, or wanting to ensure they get re-elected, etc). My whole point? We are so caught up in ascribing motives that we can’t even argue about the real substance – the legislation itself.

And, to wrap up, exaggerations about POV’s – including “small government” folks being against any government intervention at all, which then boils any discussion down to “well what about [something the government does that is necessary]???!?! you insensitive clod!” and including “all ’socialists’ want to control ever single area of your life just like Russian communism!” – is a part of the can’t-have-rational-discussion problems…

IMO, of course.  ;)