The Sandman Universe is a line of American comic books published by DC Comics under its imprints DC Vertigo and DC Black Label. The line launched to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (1989–1996) and Vertigo's 25th anniversary. The Sandman Universe began in August 2018, with a titular one-shot, which was followed by four ongoing series—House of Whispers, Lucifer, Books of Magic, and The Dreaming. Each comic is overseen by Gaiman but written by new creative teams.

The Dead Boy Detectives are a fictional supernatural detective duo who have appeared in comic books published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. They were created by writer Neil Gaiman and artists Matt Wagner and Malcolm Jones III in The Sandman #25. The characters are the ghosts of two dead children, Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne, who, rather than enter the afterlife, stay on Earth to become detectives investigating supernatural crimes.