Dead Boy Detectives: Briana Cuoco Has Great Reason for Not Reading the Comics

Dead Boy Detectives is now streaming on Netflix, and the new series is a spinoff of The Sandman. The Dead Boy Detectives were created by writer Neil Gaiman along with artists Matt Wagner and Malcolm Jones III, and made their first comics appearance in The Sandman #25 in 1991 before they got their own series. ComicBook.com recently spoke with George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri, and they talked about reading the comics to prepare for playing the titular detectives. However, there is one actor from the series who chose not to dive into the comics, and for good reasons. We also had the chance to chat with Briana Cuoco, who plays Jenny in the show. For most of the season, Jenny is very clueless about the supernatural goings on around her, so Cuoco thought it best to hold off on reading the comics. 

“Well, I did a bunch of research to look into who they were, what the comics were, where it came from, all the things,” Cuoco explained. “But I purposely didn’t read any of the comics because Jenny has no idea what’s going on all season. And I kind of wanted to be surprised by the world, not that it would’ve totally seeped into my work or anything. I did as much work as I felt was appropriate for Jenny.”

“And then I did more work on the butcher side just to get into that mindset,” she continued. “But now that it’s all out and done, and now that she sort of understands or sees the world, and knows by the end of the series, I think I’m going to go back and start reading everything. Just for fun.”

Do You Need To Read Dead Boy Detectives Before Watching the Series?

ComicBook.com recently attended a meet and greet with Dead Boy Detective showrunners, Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz, and we asked if they recommend watching The Sandman or reading the Dead Boy Detectives comics before starting the spinoff series. 

“Well, I think that you don’t need to do any homework for the show, and I feel like it’s more fun,” Schwartz explained. “I don’t know, everyone’s different, but I think it’s more fun not to do anything before you see it. So you can be surprised and then you can go back and watch Sandman and read the comics after.” 

“And we are true to the boys’ origins and how they started the detective agency and Crystal’s backstory,” Yockey added. “But the rest of it is us kind of taking things from the comic books and sort of re-appropriating them, re-imagining them so that people who are familiar with the comic books will get to have those kind of, ‘Oh, I recognize this, moment.’ … But regular people can just watch the show.”

Dead Boy Detectives is now streaming on Netflix.