I'll come clean and say I haven't read Sandman (yet) but I thought the show was really damn good. I've seen a lot of readers and critics praising it too. It's definitely worth cheking out.
I love the books and would like to see a 1:1 adaptation so I have no interest in the Apple show, but I've been told the show is good if you pretend the books do not exist.
Eh, I think knowledgeable people know better than to trust such implications. If you're savvy enough you can do everything you want on any distro, but if you're just getting into Linux there are some better, less challenging entry points and Mint is one of them.