Neil Gaiman: Classic Or Dud

No I am not, have never been and never intend to be a goth. Does that answer the second one.

My Modern Novel teacher (Scott Bradfield - a pretty good writer himself; check out _The History of Luminious Motion_) went on a mini- rant about Gaiman one class - pretentious bastard, no-talent hack, bla bla bla. And this was back in 1995! I'd hate to see what he'd say now.

I never thought I was a goth though I was accused of it recently on wearing dark red lipstick and elbow length black lace gloves. No one seemed to realise I was doing eighties revival. Sigh...........

x0x0

Of course Gaiman is a follow on from Moore - the latter was his mentor and I hear that they still send letters under pseudemoms to each other's columns.

David:

The History of Luminous Motion is a fine novel, probably the one I remember most fondly from 1996, but hardly gets Bradfield off the Gaiman hook. Teenagers becoming Warlocks and drawing pentangles on their hands? Neil would have been proud. Where is SB based, by the way? Is it East Coast?

His children's novel was, uh, OK. I bought the special edition for the artwork. American Gods wasn't particularly special, but not awful.

I've never read any of the Sandman/Neverwhere/graphic novels... or really, anything else he's done.

am reading smoke and mirrors right now, will get back to you.

Good Omens is brilliant, and I keep meaning to nick it back off my mate who has had it now for about 4 years.

Andrew - I only bought Kindly Ones as a whole graphic novel, I was a bit of a late starter in the Sandman books. In fact I've only read about 5 so far anyway.

As for his other work, my favourite Gaiman comics are actually Black Orchid and The High Cost of Living. The former is a clever subversion of superhero clichés (better than Frank Miller's attempts to do the same thing), and the latter just sums up perfectly what's good about Gaiman's writing (his endless humanism, mainly). The Time of Your Life wasn't quite as good as the first Death series, and Signal to Noise and Violent Cases were both interesting but somewhat artsy. Gaiman's books are entertaining, but not brilliant.

About Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore: I don't think Gaiman has ever surpassed his mentor. His work has been constantly good, unlike Moore's, but at his best Moore still beats him. Also, Moore is more visually oriented, and his comics are always innovative both on the visual and the textual level. Gaiman, on the other hand, is more of a traditional writer; his work usually has too much text, and that is always a bad thing for a comic.

Well, that and the fact that Gaiman == Gilderoy Lockhart. (truth copyright Angela Cotter)

this is arrant nonsense... well, whatever about the Kindly Ones, the Wake was a long essay in wanky tiresomeness that I only bought for the sake of completism.

no way. kim newman rules. (and you're forgetting the velvet suits and cane).

The last two issues of Sandman (the Chinese story and the Shakespeare story) were unnecessary, admittedly. But being a long time reader of the comic, I couldn't help but be moved by seeing all the series' characters gather one last time for the wake and the funeral. Call me a sentimentalist.

What's Signal to Noise like? anyone?

It's a Gaiman/McKean collaboration, and it's about a dying film-maker who tries to direct his last movie inside his head. It's actually quite good, better than Violent Cases anyway, because it isn't as artsy and pretentious as that one.

_American Gods_ was damn good, though. The best parts of the
book were the parts where the hero was going all domestic,
renting an apartment, going on dates, etc. Neil Gaiman could
write great "normal" stories, minus murder and magic.

Incidentally, according to the TV credits, Neverwhere was based on an idea by Lenny Henry; although the concept of there being a secret underground London is a very old legend, especially the bit about the giant boars. They supposedly escaped from Smithfield market into the River Fleet, and their descendants are down there somewhere still.

the whole thing has an element of Myst/Riven looks about it.

I think it's supposed to be Delirium from Sandman:

http://www.obscure.org/~domino/images/delirium.jpg

...though if I remember correctly, Gaiman denies it in some of his introductions to the Sandman books and says Tori is more like Death. Anyway, the book where that strip is taken from does feature Delirium visiting an S/M club where a Tori Amos song is playing on the background.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/thewire/pip/4uyaw/

no Listen Again link on page but it's here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio3_promo.shtml
under 'The Wire'

"with all due respect: wut"

that was lazy of me. i didn't really READ about it much. i just heard different things from different people. including from people who knew the people involved. it was all 3rd and 4th hand. it sounded confusing to me and i never read a comprehensive re-telling of what happened. my apologies. i mean he always seemed like a scary person to me. i'm sure you guys know more about the specifics. i kinda forgot about it and then all i knew was that Swans kept touring and coming out with albums and being interviewed, etc. i always feel weird when i see a picture of dustin hoffman now all smiling and i think *did i dream that i read some horrible article about him being gross*? its like nothing ever happened.
(i don't really spend any time thinking of swans. i still like jarboe though. i have an old tape that i made of her tracks from those albums that i still keep. but i don't own any of their music anymore.)

i really am a broken record on this board. sorry. i'll track down a news story. i really only ever hear about this stuff here! i don't read about music/musicians elsewhere. or i get a Raggett alert on Facebook. i still don't know what happened with the red house painters guy. another band i adored in the 90s. i will track that down too. i should stay informed. but it also disturbs me a lot and i don't really like reading about it for personal reasons. part of me wishes i had never read any of that Gaiman article. its brutal. not because i want to stick my head in my sand about this stuff. i just have to watch my mentals.

i still don't know the whole story about gira but it did make me not want to listen to swans. i don't really listen to them much anymore anyway.

― scott seward, Monday, November 13, 2017 8:42 PM (seven years ago)

(swans threads seem like they are business as usual from my brief search just now...no mention anymore.)

I've built up quite a collection of Gaiman books over the years, not sure what to do with it all now. I've never really been much of a hero-worship/idolising type I guess, and I was never much a fan of Gaiman's public persona, all that "each of us is made of story" stuff. But I love Sandman and Coraline, and have good memories of watching the latter with my niece a few times (her favourite movie at 11/12) and I don't think I've ever faced the art/artist dilemma to this extent, not by a long shot actually.

I did decide the read the first Death miniseries w/Chris Bachalo, which has long been a sentimental favourite; I think I had some half-assed idea of a final read before bidding his books farewell. I got to a scene I had completely forgotten, where a teenage girl indirectly recounts her experience of abuse in the hands of her father. And I guess I'm naive, but the fact that the man who wrote that scene is the same man whose behaviour is described in that Vulture article.... it genuinely staggers me, completely and utterly.

I guess I assume that he feels guilt and shame and probably the comix might be where his “better self” wins … the fact that he kept acting on the monstrous impulses is not absolved by this in any way. But, I guess being old and having known my share of people who did awful things makes me think of him and others in a less dichotomous way?

somehow managed to make the Sandman Calliope story even grosser, didn't think that was possible

It's definitely possible, but expressing guilt or shame in one's art, and then continuing to do those things, all while presenting as a safe, progressive figure...FFS! I'd say that does the opposite of absolving him! Of course regarding a specific piece of art or fiction as "evidence" for something is always speculation anyway, unless the artist explicitly states otherwise

the emotion that his work generated in me, the way i feel when i think about idk, Sandman is the best example, like that in my mind now feels like a ~trick~ he pulled

like now i look at it & my brain just automatically thinks that he wrote like that not to serve a muse but to get a certain kind of response … and that COMPLETELY tanks any love i have ever had for them

I think this is precisely what has made it impossible for me to continue engaging with any of the stuff Cosby did. In hindsight, it all feels like it was in the service of constructing an avuncular public persona that was directly counter to the person he actually is.

I'd been wondering about Tori Amos's response to the allegations, and I guess she already addressed them at the end of last year. Just devastating: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/03/tori-amos-on-trauma-trump-and-neil-gaiman-a-heartbreaking-grief

from the tori amos article:

One of the women who has made allegations against Gaiman says he mentioned Amos to her, and said he could get her full-time work on the singer’s rape helpline – a reference to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the largest anti-sexual violence organisation in the US.

beyond vile

NG must be relieved that Lynch passed when he did. I keep coming back to how pathetic and risible his “call me master” schtick sounds, the skeezy, sad little fuck.

AP fans may be taking this hard. A casual friend who's closer friends with my wife than with me sent my wife a series of vituperative texts, apparently mad because I called AP "self-absorbed" on Facebook and said she didn't come off well in the article — in a post where I led with calling Gaiman monstrous. I'm sure the AP collective is going through some things.

Wife needs better friends, absolutely pathetic for them to message her like that

the AP collective doesn't believe she is narcissistic and self-absorbed let alone capable of being party to this type of passive, callous disregard for the safety of vulnerable women, and wouldn't ever entertain the idea of her possibly being an active participant in using vulnerable women/exposing her child to inappropriate activity.

one thing i'll say about those who have NPD is they certainly tend to reel in people who will defend them to the bitter end even while receiving nothing in return except the feeling that they're allowed in the orbit of someone special.

Amanda Palmer cannot fail, she can only be failed

That sounds like a Chuck Norris joke.

I never enjoyed NG's work aside <i>Dream Hunters</i> and maybe the film version of <i>How to talk to girls</i> so I don't feel conflicted about this news, but in terms of the art/artist question, Lindsay Ellis has a sadly evergreen video that is basically, "the art enabled the artist, because would he have been able to do what he did, at the scale he managed, without his art?"

Gaiman's primary publisher, W.W. Norton, appears to have cut ties with him.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/96857-how-neil-gaiman-s-publishers-have-responded-to-the-sexual-misconduct-allegations.html

A spokesperson for Norton, which released Gaiman’s 2018 book on Norse mythology as well as an illustrated version last year, confirmed to PW that “Norton will not have projects with the author going forward.” (Notably, in 2021, after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct were leveled at author Blake Bailey, the publisher ceased publication of Bailey’s Philip Roth: The Biography and took that book, and one other by Bailey, out of print.)

Norton licensed one book from Bloomsbury in 2017, afaik, and have had no other titles / would not have had future projects with him. HarperCollins has been his primary publisher in prose for 24 years.

the AP collective doesn't believe she is narcissistic and self-absorbed let alone capable of being party to this type of passive, callous disregard for the safety of vulnerable women

I'm not sure I agree except definitionally, like if the AP collective is "who she has left now" - when I looked at the comments for one of her Instagram posts, it was half "I loved you and trusted you and believed in you and what the fuck" and half "you suck and you always have" - there were like two people out of 400 flying the flag of "the interviewer was clearly biased against AP."

Since then she's closed the comments on that one and so they've moved to older ones - some of the first half have followed but naturally not all.

right i suppose i meant those who would remain loyal to her, with the AP collective perhaps being (at some point soon?) a minority of those who were her fans before this.

(wait, no: Bloomsbury acquired C’wealth from Norton but beat them to print — I was going off remembering the SOH preview as being the world premiere.)

I have Norton's v nice New Annotated Dracula, edited with a foreword and notes by Leslie Klinger, that has an introduction by Gaiman. I have lots of other books or graphic novels or whatnot with introductions by him, or blurbs from him, I'm sure lots of us do. He's everywhere. A part of the sorrow and sympathy I'm feeling about this is given to his many collaborators in comics, good dedicated artists who have benefitted from the association or his endorsement and who must now be facing a significant reduction in royalties or ongoing series work. And his patronage brought many excellent things back into print, or into focus. All ruined now.

And at the same time, I saw more than one comics professional utterly lose it on the social media over their proximity to such a hip glam Goth power couple as NG/AP.

The day the Gaiman article came out, an Alan Moore book I had ordered arrived in the post - I guess him and NG were the two really big fish of my 1980s/1990s comics reading - Moore clearly the bigger talent but Gaiman was a little more warm/approachable/relatable (sigh) - anyway had a very strong precarious feeling of “oh hey Alan pls don’t also reveal yourself to be a fuckin pathetic abuser”

I don't think you should think less of any author for having a blurb from someone, those are solicited by the publisher and they often don't have a choice about them, have never met the person, etc.

those are solicited by the publisher and they often don't have a choice about them, have never met the person, etc.

Not in my experience. Granted, all my books have been published by tiny independent outfits, but any blurb that has appeared on any of my books is one that I personally solicited from the writer. The publisher didn't do shit.

Just based this on my friends' anecdotes about blurbs for their books (which were for sizeable publishers, I'm sure it's different for small presses)

it really depends on the situation aiui -- someone like NG probably blorps out blurbs like yesterday's breakfast

I read a comment from a fellow widower this week saying he was glad his wife didn't live to see this. on balance I'm sure mine would probably have preferred to be alive and see this than not be and miss it. but the point has been on my mind a lot this week. she was a big fan, and while I wasn't really, I had half a shelf full of his books that I would sometimes read sort of as a reminder of her and what she liked. it's taken me a while to even think about posting about this and I'm not really sure it's a good idea now. the books are going in the bin or to a charity shop, probably in the bin. when I first met B she had "delirium" in her email address. maybe I should buy some Tanith Lee books instead and pretend that's what it was all about to begin with

ouch, that's a tough one CP - I get wanting to bin them, but those books & stories obviously meant something to her, and she was able to enjoy them free of the knowledge that he was/is a wretched human being

oh I'm not worried about the books really in that sense. they're just things. I have other things she liked that don't make me feel sick

it really depends on the situation aiui -- someone like NG probably blorps out blurbs like yesterday's breakfast

1995:

https://i.ibb.co/nnRrTbY/blurbs.jpg

Sadly the author of that comic has a daughter who wrote a hagiography of Gaiman.

The day the Gaiman article came out, an Alan Moore book I had ordered arrived in the post - I guess him and NG were the two really big fish of my 1980s/1990s comics reading - Moore clearly the bigger talent but Gaiman was a little more warm/approachable/relatable (sigh) - anyway had a very strong precarious feeling of “oh hey Alan pls don’t also reveal yourself to be a fuckin pathetic abuser”

― Cognosc in Tyrol (emsworth)

well anybody could, of course, and... i know the feeling of just... the anxiety of being a fan of a cis white man haha.

of course most of the people i was a fan of were cis white men, for a lot of my life. and most of them did turn out to have done terrible things. not always abuse, but sometimes, i mean.... it's not exactly a secret that jimmy page committed a lot of SA. idk, nobody really ever acted like that was a problem, so for a long time it didn't occur to me that it might be a problem.

what you say about gaiman being more approachable/relatable, that's something i was thinking about last night. for a while i kinda didn't trust moore simply because i didn't really _like_ him, personally. he seems like kind of an asshole in a lot of ways, someone who's hard to get along with. i mean, maybe. i don't actually know the man. "not being approachable" maybe is just the way he enforces appropriate boundaries.

the whole idea of, like, parasociality... one of the things that struck me about the tori amos guardian interview linked up thread is her talking about is why she started working on RAINN. she talks about after a concert, a girl coming up to her and talking about the adverse experiences she was having and Amos, said "oh my God, look, come with me, I'll get you somewhere safe". and she wanted to do that, except that her record company took her aside and said "Tori, that's legally kidnapping, you can't do that." that's a hard lesson to learn. i think it's an important lesson to learn.

i think a lot of cis guys don't necessarily learn that lesson. a song like "motel blues", i think that kind of expresses an attitude a lot of guys have. even if we leave aside the fact that the song's protag is obviously sleeping with an underage girl, even if she actually _was_ 19, it's not a good habit to get into. it's not just that he's expecting this girl to save his life. _trying to save the life_ of people who are, in a personal sense, strangers... sooner or later that's gonna cause problems. that's not just a celebrity thing, that's a lesson that i've had to learn myself. people aren't gonna shrug and look the other way if i behave inappropriately - and no matter what someone else says or does, that behavior is _my_ responsibility. that wasn't something i was really taught as a "cis man". when i transitioned, that was one of the things i had to figure out pretty fucking quick. my life would be significantly less difficult if i'd figured it out sooner than i did.

Sadly the author of that comic has a daughter who wrote a hagiography of Gaiman.

Why is it not sad that the author of the comic was a friendly collaborator of Gaiman on 3 or so occasions 14-25 years before the recent reporting, and received a book blurb 34 years before

Because being a young writer who did a big book all about Gaiman and his wonderfulness with his cooperation would leave you feeling pretty betrayed and awful in retrospect, surely. Campbell Sr has a much broader range of collaborations.

Thanks, that does seem a reasonable inference. It was hard to parse, given your immediately bringing in the topic of someone who was a child at the time, identifying a woman solely via their paternal lineage rather than as a professional writer, describing the fulfillment of a commissioned brief to deliver a pop 'rough guide to the work of' as a hagiography, and your post the other day about the (imaginary) "near complete silence" of "people who made their careers writing with or about Gaiman" (not sure who is on this list) being "pretty telling" (of what?).

Not sure I can cosign that anyone who has had notable career and personal associations with Gaiman, and has publicly spoken about feeling betrayed and awful - before urging focus instead on the women who have come forward – probably doesn't really if they have collaborated more extensively with other people, though.

I don't agree with that last parsing (to the extent I can follow it) - it seemed clear to me that James meant that the silence was damning where there was silence, nothing more.

But contrariwise I did get the same read as sic off the 'Sadly the author...' - it read more as a criticism than sympathy - but I take your explanation!

Sorry, I can absolutely see that, but what I meant was that it seems like another bit of Gaiman nastiness--using someone yet again to promote yourself and add to myth of this kindly magical nice guy so you can just be more of a predator.

And as for the "imaginary" silence of Gaiman collaborators, what I meant is that I haven't seen much from anyone who's worked with him or known him well in comics talking about it, Scott McCloud aside. Perhaps I'm just not looking in the right places--I'm not as across comics journalism as I used to be. I suppose I could spend the rest of the day googling the names of various people to see if/what they've said, but I frankly have better and less depressing things to do. That's why is didn't provide a list, though--I'm not going to falsely accuse anyone. Would be happy to see anything posted here that proves me wrong! It would make this whole thing a little less grim.

I only spoke to four people in July who had significant professional histories with Gaiman (two in person, one by phone, one by text), but all four of them brought the subject up themselves. One I haven't happened to speak to since, one has frequently reskeeted posts or reporting by women denouncing or expressing disgust, and the other two have continued to discuss it periodically, both before and after the NY Mag piece.

Who are they?

Yeah I'm not 100% sure of the salience of "I haven't spoken to them since" - are they talking about it publicly?

The one person I know who had NG as a significant mentor has acknowledged the situation but has asked for space to process their own shock and disgust.

Yeah I'm not 100% sure of the salience of "I haven't spoken to them since" - are they talking about it publicly?

I just interpreted this as either the person doesn't do social media (the "publicly" I guess you mean, since not every Gaiman collaborator is, like, a public figure that gives interviews) or sic doesn't check their social media.

This is a weird line of questioning, I’ll be honest.

I'm reading sic's first post today in the context of the previous discussion - apologies if that's a mistake.

Unsure about how it matters how unnamed people who wrote about Gaiman are choosing to deal with this when the man himself is the predator but go off

I mean go off and google people if you’re that interested. Sometimes it takes people time to process and come up with a public response to shit especially if they were remotely linked. How is that hard?

^^^^