Neil Gaiman’s ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ Battle the Supernatural in First Live Action Trailer
Neil Gaiman’s Dead Boy Detectives is “the Hardy Boys on acid.” Check out the first trippy, supernatural trailer.
Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine were created by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner and introduced the Sandman comics. After their initial story, the pair tell Death that they’d like to stay on Earth as ghosts. They use their eternity haunting the mortal plain to investigate supernatural crimes.
The first four-issue mini-series is written by the master of noir detective stories himself, Mr. Ed Brubaker (though it’s admittedly early in his comic book career). In the short story, Edwin and Charles have just set up their own detective agency when a young girl asks them to help her find her missing friends. Together, the young ghosts have to figure out why the bodies of homeless children are turning up mummified and who’s responsible for this dark undertaking.
Over a decade later, Dead Boy Detectives got a revival thanks to authors Toby Litt and Mark Buckingham. They’ve also shown up in other Sandman-related comics.
Dead Boy Detectives Trailer
The pair made their onscreen debut in an episode of Doom Patrol and now have their own series on Netflix (home of The Sandman). The first trailer has a very appropriate backing track.
The series is part of Netflix’s Sandman universe, which means fans will see some character crossovers—starting with Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s Death. The comics are filled with amazing and complex stories to work from, the cast is great, and the trailer looks fantastic. I’m looking forward to giving this a shot.
As with The Sandman, Neil Gaiman was involved in the creation of Dead Boy Detectives. Showrunner Steve Yockey shared what working with the famed author was like…
“He’s been incredibly supportive. I would say most of all he’s just been a cheerleader, like, ‘Yes, this is crazy. You can be even crazier,’ which is good for us because we did not set any limits. But look, we set out to make the Hardy Boys on acid and I feel like that’s what we did. I’m quite proud of the fact that tonally, we’ve created our own thing, and as you go deeper into the season, it just gets darker and darker and darker and darker and more adult. So it’s a lot of fun.”
– ComicBook.com
The comics are filled with fantastic stories, and the trailer looks great. Let’s hope that (unlike this series) it gets a complete run.
Cast & Details
George Rexstrew as Edwin Payne and Jayden Revri as Charles Rowland lead the cast. Kassius Nelson, Yuyu Kitamura, Jenn Lyon, Briana Cuoco, Ruth Connell, Michael Beach, Lukas Gage, Joshua Colley, and David Iacono also star. Steve Yockey (Supernatural) and Beth Schwartz (Arrow) are showrunners, and Neil Gaiman is an executive producer.
Edwin and Charles are best friends, ghosts… and the best detectives on the Mortal plane. They will do anything to stick together – including escaping evil witches, Hell and Death herself. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal and her friend Niko, they are able to crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.
Dead Boy Detectives debuts on Netflix on April 25th.
