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'

also "fun" to see will smith for what felt like an hour at the grammys in the tribute to QJ. he's already forgiven. for assaulting someone. in public. too big to fail!

fyi can we rein this in - we’re talking about egregious sexual assault with Neil Gaiman and not slapping someone on an awards show ffs

sorry! it was just weird to see him on another awards show so soon! like nothing happened. because he's really rich.

scott have you read the accounts of the women in these cases

Yeah, there's no comparison here.

no need to pile on scott, the thought-exercise had already been started upthread & he was just joining in — i just wanted to make sure we didn’t get too far astray in a thread that deserves solemnity

But speaking of being back on the awards shows, the other night Amanda Palmer was given an award by the women’s international music network and gave a speech. Which, considering everything, was extremely tone deaf at the very best. I do suspect Gaiman at least is going to pay the price of a ruined career for this one tbh, as noted he’s already been off the radar for awhile and this isn’t exactly going to get him on the comeback trail.

yeah no i was not making a comparison. thinking of mel gibson being accepted again in hollywood after his nazi stuff and the horrible stuff with him and women made me think of seeing will smith smiling like the old days on t.v. and i thought less of hot ones for having him on like it was the old days and they weren't allowed to ask him about the slap. and i for one was horrified by that slap. it was really violent and scary to me. and i do think will smith is an angry creep who belongs to a cult and who wants to rule the world like tom cruise and who started a scientologist school for children and swore up and down that it wasn't until parents started pulling their kids out because of all the pictures of l. ron hubbard everywhere and the school had to close. and i do think there is something going on with those kids of his too...like they know stuff. maybe i'm being paranoid. and there are the diddy party rumors about will smith...but nobody has any real proof of that.

and yeah i read most of the ny magazine piece until i had to stop because it was so horrible. it was not something that i should have read. not so i could ignore it or dismiss it. just for my own mental health. it was nightmarish. i can take horror movies but real life stuff gets to me much harder as i get older and just feel more fragile in general. what people do...is too much for me sometimes.

i would never make light of anything like this. i've been too close to people who have endured horrible things. their survival is a continued miracle.

but you're still talking about the other stuff, on here. And you could... not

(i'm just so sick of rich creeps getting away with stuff because they are rich and make other people rich. i want them all to go to friggin' space forever.)

Read that court filing and it is haunting but particularly:

207. Palmer and Gaiman knew that Scarlett was penniless and homeless.
208. Scarlett could not afford housing.
209. Scarlett could not easily afford transport off the island.
210. Scarlett could not even easily afford food.
211. Gaiman and Palmer did not forget to pay Scarlett.
212. Gaiman and Palmer intentionally withheld Scarlet's pay.
213. Gaiman and Palmer intended to have Scarlett trapped, vulnerable, and penniless.
214. Because that would leave her without a real chance to defend herself or escape.
215. It worked.

I found that format really distracting, I get (or I think I get) why it's like that, but the repetition and "drop-out" lines like 215 did my head in (as well as, rather than instead of, the horrifying content).

I'm not sure how I feel about this (probably not great), but there is a part of me that is horrified that Gaiman is, or is pretending to be for his defence, just another fuckboi dom, just another 20s lad who reads a thing and thinks "Well, I do like hurting women, and I do like it when they don't like that, and this says that there's a name for that, and it's BDSM, and it's its own thing".

I've known one, and known of a few others, who go for the "I'm your master you must obey me", and they don't usually last long (though some do!) but they can do a lot of damage, and of course they pick people with mental health issues in the first place. He says it to Scarlett, so it's not entirely a retroactive defence - though maybe he's laying the groundwork - or maybe it's just easier for him if she believes it. He surely doesn't though - the thing I'm not proud of is that alongside all of the revulsion at the scale and details of the evil, I'm aware that there's a strand of my reaction which is just "That's so stupid!". I appreciated that the Vulture article went to lengths to say "This isn't actually what BDSM is at all. AT ALL."

I completely agree about the content!

to be cynical i'd say that a lot of fuccboi "doms" aspire to be the kind of "dom" neil gaiman was (god help us, _is_).

The author says she broke her NDA by sharing her story with the media, including with New York Magazine. Wallner accused Gaiman of sexual misconduct during the time she lived and worked on his property in Woodstock.

Neil Gaiman Seeks $500,000 from Accuser Caroline Waller

https://bsky.app/profile/vulture.com/post/3lnddrkz57s2y
https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-nda-caroline-wallner.html

I am paywalled away from this article so I haven’t read it yet

Gaiman denied that he’d abused Wallner and told New York that it was she who had initiated their sexual encounters, but in 2021, Gaiman paid Wallner $275,000 in exchange for signing an extensive nondisclosure agreement that prevents her from suing Gaiman or telling anyone about her alleged experiences with him. Now, Gaiman has filed a demand for arbitration, accusing Wallner of breaching their NDA by sharing her story with the media, including with New York Magazine. In his claim, Gaiman argued that Wallner violated the confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions of their agreement and is requesting a full repayment of their settlement amount, plus attorneys’ fees and $50,000 for each interview she’s given to the media. (Wallner’s ex-husband, who signed the NDA as well, is also named in the claim, shared with New York.)

Vincent White, Wallner’s lawyer, was surprised Gaiman had filed the claim against his client. White, an employment lawyer in New York who specializes in sexual harassment in the workplace, said that in his experience, allegedly abusive men only rarely sued women for violating NDAs because the optics were so poor. When you’re trying to silence someone who’s alleging “really heinous acts,” White said, “everyone thinks, Oh, the allegation must be true. I would think he may have come to the conclusion he has nothing left to lose.”

Just an absolutely disgusting human being, I didn't think he could get any lower:

The author Neil Gaiman is seeking more than $500,000 from Caroline Wallner, the potter who accused him of sexual misconduct during the time she lived and worked on his property in Woodstock.

Wallner moved to Gaiman’s property in 2014 when he offered her and her ex-husband, a builder, work as caretakers. The alleged abuse occurred between 2018 and 2020, after Wallner’s marriage had fallen apart and her husband had moved out, leaving Wallner behind to take care of their three children. It was then, Wallner says, that Gaiman began to pressure her for sex in exchange for staying on the property. “‘I like our trade,’” she recalled him saying. “‘You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.’”

Gaiman denied that he’d abused Wallner and told New York that it was she who had initiated their sexual encounters, but in 2021, Gaiman paid Wallner $275,000 in exchange for signing an extensive nondisclosure agreement that prevents her from suing Gaiman or telling anyone about her alleged experiences with him. Now, Gaiman has filed a demand for arbitration, accusing Wallner of breaching their NDA by sharing her story with the media, including with New York Magazine. In his claim, Gaiman argued that Wallner violated the confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions of their agreement and is requesting a full repayment of their settlement amount, plus attorneys’ fees and $50,000 for each interview she’s given to the media. (Wallner’s ex-husband, who signed the NDA as well, is also named in the claim, shared with New York.)

So I know nothing about NDAs, but am I correct in assuming they can't bind you once a criminal act occurs? Just typing that out it sounds impossible that this wouldn't be the case, feel a bit stupid asking.

That's my understanding.

Very telling that he's not even suing her for slander or libel or whatever, just for breaking the NDA.

And that said NDA has a "non disparagement" clause!!! Who the fuck feels the need to write a legal contract that says "you cant say I did any bad things" aside from someone whose going to do just that?

2021 was after 2020.

Granted but my point stands regardless (assuming you were nitpicking in my direction)

finally got around to selling off all my sandman TBPs on ebay (including a few hardcovers, the Dream books, and the prequel book)...bottom has really fallen out of gaiman books, I have to say, I got $55 for the lot.

Seeing lots of Gaiman bks in charity shops nowadays….along with plenty of Russell Brand…

they should do a collab

the grifter goths

Put two of his (American Gods, Norse Mythology) in a ferry "leave one take one" bookdrop. They were gone next visit. Have a handful more to donate. Conflicted about passing back Neverwhere (for the story) and The Graveyard Book (for the art), but not as much Anansi Boys and The Ocean At the End Of the Lane.

my point stands regardless

Just noting that the NDA followed the three years of bad things, it did not herald them, and that this pattern is repeated in other testimonies since the July Tortoise report. None of these women had reason to take the NDA as a warning of pending behaviour.

Non-disparagement clauses are standard in settlement agreements like these. Gaiman is a scumbag and predator, but it would be malpractice for an attorney not to include one.

I had to sign one when I got RIFed from my teaching job. I don’t feel good about it but I needed their cooperation in finding a new job so I capitulated. :(

I signed an NDA once for a short-term gig. They asked if I was uncomfortable doing so before I was hired, and I was like "whatever." Luckily it was a great office to work in, they just didn't want people leaking anything sensitive I guess.

TBH I find the whole concept of NDAs rather on the nose.

Wallner's lawyer very otm obviously — trying to enforce an NDA while also trying to claim nothing bad happened is nagl. And also the damaging information is already out there, so it's just punishment, he's mad at her.

Is that so ? I have a hard time thinking suing for NDA breach is not profitable, at least for the lawyers but not only. The reputation damage is already done in the case of Gaiman, so it's not clear him suing makes it much worse, so I'm not sure what the "bleak optics" refer to. In other cases where the optics are also bleak for the perpetrator, it still does not create an incentive to breach (Cassie - Diddy for ex). Morality obviously does not enter into it.

Has anyone seen the latest episode of Law&Order SVU? It feels like the writer had a field day not only using the Gaiman/Palmer case, but they turned the husband into the husband/help (but he was still the rapist), and made the wife the snooty, selfabsorbed, British, writer. But kept some Palmer-isms - constantly making it about herself, her reputation etc.

But demoting the husband to "the help" felt like a deliberate burn on Gaiman as well. Anyway it was good, if utterly over-ham acted.

About what they both deserve, then.

did ice-t get any kickass lines?

no he’s got some ptsd storyline going on lately, feels like they’re giving him reasons to not appear much.

I saw someone reading a Gaiman novel on the tube recently and did think "I wonder if she knows?".

Federal judges have dismissed three lawsuits accusing the bestselling fantasy author Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting his children’s nanny in New Zealand four years ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit against Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer, in Wisconsin in February 2025, accusing Gaiman of multiple sexual assaults while she worked as the family’s nanny in 2022. She filed lawsuits against Palmer in Massachusetts and in New York on the same day she filed the Wisconsin action.

Apparently the judges all said Pavlovich had to purse her case in New Zealand (i.e. the lawsuits were tossed for being in the wrong jurisdiction). No idea what that means about her chances of getting justice.

What were the (I assume, techincal/legal) reasons for filing in the US?

I think that's where those two are currently residing

This is sickening.

The writer Elizabeth Sandifer has been writing about comics and comics people in the framing of a history of a magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, and last February wrote a sidepiece on Gaiman. If you're reading this the chances are probably high that you know of her, if not then "Andrew Hickey but for comics (and not a podcast)" is a decent first approximation - astonishing amounts of detail and research and tied together very well. The piece is here if any of you have a day off coming soon: https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cuddled-little-vice-sandman - I am only partway through and I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it, but it's great stuff.

The framing may well be off-putting to some of you - it barely impinges on the story, the word magic appears only 50 times in 60,000 words, and some of those are because he wrote the miniseries The Books of Magic. The 60,000 words may also be off-putting, that's fair enough.

i'm maybe 10% into that story and it immediately had me wanting to rewatch The Master. i also may or may not have started seeing how much vintage scientology e-meters go for nowadays.

The writer Elizabeth Sandifer has been writing about comics and comics people in the framing of a history of a magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, and last February wrote a sidepiece on Gaiman. If you're reading this the chances are probably high that you know of her, if not then "Andrew Hickey but for comics (and not a podcast)" is a decent first approximation - astonishing amounts of detail and research and tied together very well. The piece is here if any of you have a day off coming soon: https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cuddled-little-vice-sandman - I am only partway through and I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it, but it's great stuff.

The framing may well be off-putting to some of you - it barely impinges on the story, the word magic appears only 50 times in 60,000 words, and some of those are because he wrote the miniseries The Books of Magic. The 60,000 words may also be off-putting, that's fair enough.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, February 12, 2026 12:44 AM (seven hours ago)

tl;dr - strong cosign

gushy ramble - sandifer is absolutely one of my favorite writers and one of my biggest influences as a writer. the last thing i wrote (about a year ago now) was inspired by her breakthrough piece on "the tenth planet". it's one of the few things i'm actually proud of writing.

i haven't read her last war in albion stuff, for a couple of reasons. even though i did grow up reading moore and morrison's stuff, i'm not as invested in it as i was in the previous topic she wrote about. for the past six years my life has been very, uh, personally complex, and hasn't left me the free time to read i used to have. for a while now i've been pretending to be very, very stupid, in about the same way, and with about the same level of success, as i used to pretend to be a man. i don't think pretending to be stupid is _good_, but it's kind of a survival skill i've adopted. reading almost-certainly-brilliant book-length analyses of neil gaiman as a person and as a writer is... not compatible with that goal.

i have been curious for a while about whether the process of writing last war in albion has changed her thoughts. the impression i got was that she was pro-moore and anti-morrison, which was pretty much my take when she started writing it. my feelings on morrison haven't changed, mostly because i haven't read anything of his in the past eight years, but over time i've become markedly less sympathetic to moore, who is _such_ a Cis White Man (derogatory).

Yeah, I haven't read the whole of Last War in Albion, but I did read her analysis of Doom Patrol and she was so negative on Morrison (who uses "they/them" pronouns now) as a person that I don't really want to read the rest of it. I did start reading Cuddled Little Vice though after seeing the mention pop up here as well as other places, have gotten to her coverage of the first Sandman arc, and I don't know, this is more of the same thing, nicely researched and reasoned, but I don't mind her target in this case. I'm probably not going to finish it; too much else I want to do with my limited free time, and I don't need to read 60,000 words to write Gaiman off at this point.

Can't take Morrison seriously after the "corporations are ok to screw artists over because superheroes are MYTHS that belong to EVERYONE" bullshit.