In 1999, Gaiman wrote "," a novella illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano. As in many of the single-issue stories throughout "The Sandman", Morpheus appears in "Dream Hunters", but only as a supporting character. In Gaiman's afterword to the book, he describes the story as a retelling of an existing Japanese legend. There is no trace of it in the primary source he cites, and when asked, Gaiman has stated that he made up the "legend". The novel was later adapted into a four-issue miniseries by P. Craig Russell and released by Vertigo from January 2009 to April 2009.