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Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is a highly acclaimed British-born author, screenwriter, and comic creator, celebrated for his imaginative speculative fiction across novels, comic series, short stories, film, and television. His work blends fantasy, horror, and literary themes, earning widespread critical praise and a global fanbase.
Key moments
1960-11-10Born in Portchester, Hampshire, England
1989Launched *The Sandman* comic series with DC Vertigo, a landmark title that redefined comic book artistic credibility
1990Co-published *Good Omens* with Terry Pratchett
2001Released *American Gods*, which won the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novel
2002Published *Coraline*, a dark fantasy children's novel later adapted into an Oscar-nominated stop-motion film
2009Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
2019Amazon Prime Video premiered the *Good Omens* TV adaptation he co-wrote
2022The Netflix series adaptation of *The Sandman*, for which he served as executive producer, launched
2024Released *The Book of Dreams*, a retrospective of his creative career and process
Cross-Media Trailblazing
Gaiman is unique in successfully transitioning between niche comic book audiences and mainstream literary markets, a rare feat for speculative fiction creators. He has adapted his own works and created original screen content, blurring clear lines between comic prose, visual media, and live performance.
Genre and Cultural Impact
His Sandman series revolutionized the comic medium, earning critical respect outside traditional fandom and winning literary awards including a World Fantasy Award for its 1990 issue A Midsummer Night's Dream, the first comic story to take such a prize. His works often explore morality, identity, and the overlap between mundane daily life and magical worlds, resonating with both young adult and adult readers.
Global Reach and Fan Connection
Gaiman has a dedicated international fanbase, with his works translated into dozens of languages. He actively engages with fans through social media, public lectures, and creative workshops, and has also been open about personal experiences including his Jewish heritage and advocacy for creative freedom.
genre
Fantasy · horror · science fiction · dark fantasy · comedy
notableworks
The Sandman, Neverwhere, American Gods, Stardust, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
website
neilgaiman.com
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman ([2] born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays.His works include the comic series The Sandman (1989–1996) and the novels Good Omens (1990), Stardust (1999), American Gods (2001), Coraline (2002), Anansi Boys (2005), The Graveyard Book (2008) and The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013).He co-created the TV adaptations of Good Omens and The Sandman.
Gaiman's awards include Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards and Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book. The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards, and it was adapted into an acclaimed stage play at the Royal National Theatre in London.
Beginning in 2024, news outlets published sexual assault accusations against Gaiman by numerous women. This affected or halted production on several adaptations of his work. One accuser sued Gaiman and his estranged wife Amanda Palmer for rape and human trafficking. Gaiman has denied these allegations.
Personal life
Early life and education
Neil Richard Gaiman[3] was born on 10 November 1960[4] in Portchester, Hampshire.Gaiman's family is of Polish-Jewish and other Ashkenazi origins.[5] His great-grandfather emigrated to England from Antwerp before 1914[6] and his grandfather settled in Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores, changing the family name from Chaiman to Gaiman.[7] His father, David Bernard Gaiman, worked in the same chain of stores;[8]
Career
Journalism, early writings, and literary influences
Gaiman has mentioned several writers who have influenced his work, including Mary Shelley,[53][54]Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Dave Sim,[55][56]Alan Moore, Steve Ditko,[57]
Sexual assault and misconduct allegations
In July and August 2024, five women accused Gaiman of sexual assault and abuse. All five were interviewed on the Tortoise Media podcast Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.One, using the pseudonym "Claire", was also interviewed by The New York Times.[175] Claire described non-consensual kissing and groping by Gaiman after meeting him at a book tour event, as well as a US$60000 payment from Gaiman to her in August 2022.[175] A woman identified as "K", who also first met Gaiman at a book signing, said that during their relationship he subjected her to painful sex that she "neither wanted nor enjoyed".[23][176]
Scarlett Pavlovich, a former nanny for Gaiman and Palmer's child, alleges that Gaiman sexually assaulted her within hours of their first meeting in February 2022.[176] Pavlovich recalled that he said, "Amanda told me I couldn't have you" after the assault; according to one of Palmer's friends, Palmer had previously told Gaiman, "You could really hurt this person and break her; keep your hands off of her".
Artistic work
Bibliography
Literary allusions
Gaiman's work is known for its use of allusions.[197] Meredith Collins, for instance, has commented upon the degree to which his novel Stardust depends on allusions to Victorian fairy tales and culture.In The Sandman, literary figures and characters appear often; the character of Fiddler's Green is modeled on G. K. Chesterton, and both William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer appear as characters, as do several characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream[198] and The Tempest.The comic also draws from numerous mythologies.[199]
Analyzing Gaiman's The Graveyard Book
Awards and honours
Note: Gaiman's Carnegie Medal win for The Graveyard Book made him the first author to have won both the Carnegie & Newbery Medals for the same work.[229]
Other Awards & Honours
3- time winner (1991/1992/1993) of the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards for "Favorite Writer".
3-time (1992/1993/1994) winner of the Don Thompson Awards for "Best Achievement by a Writer".
1997 Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Defender of Liberty award[247]
2005 The William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie, nomination for MirrorMask. The other nominated films were Green Street Hooligans, Nine Lives, Up for Grabs, and Opie Gets Laid.[248]
3.Born as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer.Wedding: Palmer — Gaiman
his mother, Sheila Gaiman (née Goldman), was a pharmacist.
Neil has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy.[9]
The Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead, where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town; one of Gaiman's sisters works for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles.His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, "Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I'd say, 'I'm a Jewish Scientologist. Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his family's religion.[10] About his personal views, Gaiman has stated, "I think we can say that God exists in the DC Universe. I would not stand up and beat the drum for the existence of God in this universe. I don't know, I think there's probably a 50/50 chance. It doesn't really matter to me."[11]
Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said, "I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school, they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them—which would mean that I'd know what was coming up because I'd read it."[12] When he was about 10 years old, he read his way through the works of Dennis Wheatley; The Ka of Gifford Hillary and The Haunting of Toby Jugg made a special impact on him.[13]
Another work that made a particular impression was J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which he got from his school library. Although they only had the first two of the novel's three volumes, Gaiman consistently checked them out and read them. He later won the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third volume. For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. He later recalled that "I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you ... I'd think, 'Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses.' I liked the power of putting things in brackets." Narnia also introduced him to literary awards, specifically the Carnegie Medal, won by the concluding volume in 1956.When Gaiman won the 2010 Medal himself, he said "it had to be the most important literary award there ever was"[14] and "if you can make yourself aged seven happy, you're really doing well – it's like writing a letter to yourself aged seven."[15]Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was another childhood favourite, and "a favourite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart."He also enjoyed Batman comics.
Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools, including Fonthill School in East Grinstead, Ardingly College (1970–1974), and Whitgift School in Croydon (1974–1977).[16] His father's position as a public relations official of the Church of Scientology was the cause of the seven-year-old Gaiman being forced to withdraw from Fonthill School and return to the school which he had previously attended.[10][17] He lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965 to 1980 and again from 1984 to 1987.[18]
In the 1970s, he spent three years as an auditor for the Church of Scientology, an unusually high-ranking position given his age.He also sang in a punk rock band Ex Execs, formerly called Chaos.[19]
He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology and living in a house in East Grinstead that was owned by his father. The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child.[10]
Adult life
Gaiman moved near Menomonie, Wisconsin, in 1992 to be closer to the family of his then-wife, Mary McGrath, with whom he has three children.Gaiman has also lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[20][21] He was close friends with fellow author Terry Pratchett until the latter's death in 2015.[22] Gaiman met Amanda Palmer in 2008,[23] and the two entered a relationship in 2009,[24] marrying in 2011.[25] They have one son together.[23] The two had an open marriage,[26] and encouraged one another to have other partners,[23] including fans of their work.[23]
Gaiman, Palmer and their son moved to New Zealand in March 2020.Weeks later, their marriage collapsed and Gaiman left the country,[23] travelling from New Zealand to his holiday home on the Isle of Skye, which broke COVID-19 lockdown rules.Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP Ian Blackford described Gaiman's behaviour as unacceptable and dangerous.[27] Gaiman published an apology on his website, saying he had endangered the local community.[28] After Gaiman's departure, Palmer announced on Patreon that she and Gaiman had separated.[24] Gaiman stated the split was "my fault, I'm afraid", and requested privacy.The couple later released a joint statement clarifying that they were not getting divorced,[29] reconciled in 2021,[30][31]
Blog and social media
In February 2001, when Gaiman had completed writing American Gods, his publishers set up a promotional website featuring a weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of revising, publishing, and promoting the novel.After the novel was published, the website evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Website.[34] Gaiman generally posts to the blog describing the day-to-day process of being Neil Gaiman and writing, revising, publishing, or promoting whatever the current project is. He also posts reader emails and answers questions, which gives him unusually direct and immediate interaction with fans. One of his answers on why he writes the blog is "because writing is, like death, a lonely business."[35] The original American Gods blog was extracted for publication in the NESFA Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, Adventures in the Dream Trade.[36] To celebrate the seventh anniversary of the blog, the novel American Gods was provided free of charge online for a month.[37]
Gaiman joined Twitter in 2008.
Blog and social media
In February 2001, when Gaiman had completed writing American Gods, his publishers set up a promotional website featuring a weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of revising, publishing, and promoting the novel.After the novel was published, the website evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Website.[34] Gaiman generally posts to the blog describing the day-to-day process of being Neil Gaiman and writing, revising, publishing, or promoting whatever the current project is. He also posts reader emails and answers questions, which gives him unusually direct and immediate interaction with fans. One of his answers on why he writes the blog is "because writing is, like death, a lonely business."[35] The original American Gods blog was extracted for publication in the NESFA Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, Adventures in the Dream Trade.[36] To celebrate the seventh anniversary of the blog, the novel American Gods was provided free of charge online for a month.[37]
Gaiman joined Twitter in 2008.In 2013, Gaiman was named by IGN as one of "The Best Tweeters in Comics", describing his posts as "sublime".[38]
Other personal relationships
Gaiman is godfather to Tori Amos's daughter Tash,[39][40] and wrote a poem called "Blueberry Girl" for Tori and Tash.[41] The poem was adapted into a book by illustrator Charles Vess.[42] Gaiman read the poem aloud to an audience at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco on 5 October 2008 during his book reading tour for The Graveyard Book.[43] It was published in March 2009 with the title Blueberry Girl.
Advocacy
In 2016, Gaiman, along with several other celebrities, appeared in the video "What They Took With Them", from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to help raise awareness of the issue of global refugees.[44][45]
Gaiman is a supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and has served on its board of directors.[46] In 2013, Gaiman was named co-chair of the organization's newly formed advisory board.[47]
In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gaiman supported Ukraine by announcing on Twitter that he does not want to renew contracts with Russian publishers.[48] Gaiman also encouraged donating to Ukrainian refugees.[49][50]
In 2023, Gaiman signed an open letter addressed to Russian president Vladimir Putin, alongside over 100 other public figures, calling for the release of Russian prisoner Alexei Navalny.[51][52]
When he was 19 or 20 years old, he contacted his favourite science fiction writer,
R. A. Lafferty
, requesting advice on becoming an author and including a Lafferty
pastiche
he had written.
Lafferty sent Gaiman an encouraging and informative letter back, along with literary advice.[62][63]
Gaiman has named Roger Zelazny as the author who influenced him the most.[64][65] Gaiman claims that other authors such as Samuel R. Delany and Angela Carter "furnished the inside of my mind and set me to writing".[64] Gaiman takes inspiration from the folk tales tradition, citing Otta F Swire's book on the legends of the Isle of Skye as his inspiration for The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains.[66]
In the early 1980s, Gaiman pursued journalism, conducting interviews and writing book reviews, as a means to learn about the world and to make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published.[53] He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society.[67] His first professional short story publication was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in Imagine magazine in May 1984.[67]
While waiting for a train at London's Victoria Station in 1984, Gaiman noticed a copy of Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, and read it.Moore's approach to comics had such an impact on Gaiman that he later wrote "that was the final straw, what was left of my resistance crumbled. I proceeded to make regular and frequent visits to London's Forbidden Planet shop to buy comics".
In 1984, he wrote his first book, a biography of the band Duran Duran, and co-edited Ghastly Beyond Belief, a book of quotations, with Kim Newman. Although Gaiman thought he had done a terrible job, the book's first edition sold out very quickly. When he went to relinquish his rights to the book, he discovered the publisher had gone bankrupt.[53][68] After this, he was offered a job by Penthouse.He refused the offer.[53]
He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including Knave. During this, he sometimes wrote under pseudonyms, including Gerry Musgrave, Richard Grey, and "a couple of house names".[69] Gaiman has said he ended his journalism career in 1987 because British newspapers regularly publish untruths as fact.[70][71]In the late 1980s, he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humour" style.[72]
Following this, he wrote the opening of what became his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novelGood Omens, about the impending apocalypse.[73]
Comics
After forming a friendship with Alan Moore, who taught him how to write comic scripts,[74][75] Gaiman started writing comic books and picked up Miracleman after Moore finished his run on the series.He continued his professional relationship with Moore by contributing quotations for the supplemental materials in the Watchmen comic book series.[75]
Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham collaborated on several issues of the series before its publisher, Eclipse Comics, collapsed, leaving the series unfinished.His first published comic strips were four short Future Shocks for 2000 AD in 1986–87.He wrote three graphic novels with his favourite collaborator and long-time friend Dave McKean: Violent Cases, Signal to Noise, and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch.Impressed with his work, DC Comics hired him in February 1987,[76] and he wrote the limited series Black Orchid.[77][78]Karen Berger, who later became head of DC Comics's Vertigo, read Black Orchid and offered Gaiman a job: to re-write an old character, the Sandman, but to put his own spin on him.[53]
The Sandman tells the tale of the ageless, anthropomorphic personification of Dream that is known by many names, including Morpheus.The series began in January 1989 and concluded in March 1996.[79] The various artists who contributed to the series include Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, and Michael Zulli, with lettering by Todd Klein, colours by Daniel Vozzo, and covers by Dave McKean.[53] The series became one of DC's top selling titles, eclipsing even Batman and Superman.[80]
In the eighth issue of The Sandman, Gaiman and artist Mike Dringenberg introduced Death, the older sister of Dream, who became as popular as the series' title character.[81] The limited series Death: The High Cost of Living launched DC's Vertigo line in 1993.[82]
Comics historian Les Daniels called Gaiman's work "astonishing" and noted that The Sandman was "a mixture of fantasy, horror, and ironic humor such as comic books had never seen before".[83][84] DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz observed that "The Sandman became the first extraordinary success as a series of graphic novel collections, reaching out and converting new readers to the medium, particularly young women on college campuses, and making Gaiman himself into an iconic cultural figure."[85]
Gaiman and Jamie Delano were to become co-writers of the Swamp Thing series following Rick Veitch.An editorial decision by DC to censor Veitch's final storyline caused both Gaiman and Delano to withdraw from the title.[86]
Gaiman produced two stories for DC's Secret Origins series in 1989: a Poison Ivy[87] tale drawn by Mark Buckingham and a Riddler[88] story illustrated by Bernie Mireault and Matt Wagner.A story that Gaiman originally wrote for Action Comics Weekly in 1989 was shelved due to editorial concerns but it was finally published in 2000 as Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame.[89]
In 1990, Gaiman wrote The Books of Magic, a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he is destined to be the world's greatest wizard.[90] The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber.[91]
Gaiman's adaptation of Sweeney Todd, illustrated by Michael Zulli for Stephen R. Bissette's publication Taboo, was stopped when the anthology itself was discontinued.[92]
In the mid-1990s, he also created a number of new characters and a setting that was to be featured in a title published by Tekno Comix.The concepts were then altered and split between three titles set in the same continuity: Lady Justice, Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man, and Teknophage,[93] and tie-ins.Because the publisher aimed to expand their characters into other media such as television, Gaiman designed his concepts with potential TV and computer game adaptations in mind.[94] Although his name appeared prominently as the creator of the characters, he was not involved in writing any of the above-mentioned books.
Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with Michael Moorcock's anti-hero Elric of Melniboné for Ed Kramer's anthology Tales of the White Wolf. In 1996, Gaiman and Kramer co-edited The Sandman: Book of Dreams.Nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the original fiction anthology featured stories and contributions by Tori Amos, Clive Barker, Gene Wolfe, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Tad Williams, and others.
Asked why he likes comics more than other forms of storytelling, Gaiman said: "One of the joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on Sandman, I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I'm writing novels I'm painfully aware that I'm working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. You know, you can go back. We have things like The Golden Ass. And you go, well, I don't know that I'm as good as that and that's two and a half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like – I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun.[95]"
Gaiman wrote two series for Marvel Comics.Marvel 1602 was an eight-issue limited series published from November 2003 to June 2004 with art by Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove.[96] The Eternals was a seven-issue limited series drawn by John Romita Jr., which was published from August 2006 to March 2007.[97][98]
In 2009, Gaiman wrote a two-part Batman story for DC Comics to follow Batman R.I.P. titled "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?"[99] a play-off of the classic Superman story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore.[100][101] He contributed a twelve-part Metamorpho serial drawn by Mike Allred for Wednesday Comics, a weekly newspaper-style series.[102][103] Gaiman and Paul Cornell co-wrote Action Comics #894 (December 2010), which featured an appearance by Death.[104]
Gaiman oversaw The Sandman Universe, a line of comic books published by Vertigo.The four series — House of Whispers, Lucifer, The Books of Magic, and The Dreaming — were written by new creative teams.The line launched on 8 August 2018.[108][109]
After teaming with Colleen Doran for a series of graphic novel adaptations based on his short stories "Troll Bridge", "Chivalry", and "Snow, Glass, Apples", Gaiman and the Terry Pratchett estate chose Doran to adapt Good Omens into graphic novel form, and to self publish the work via the Pratchett estate's Dunmanifestin label.It was financed on Kickstarter where it became a record-setter in less than a week as the top fan-supported and top-earning comics project in the history of the platform.[110]
Novels
In a collaboration with author Terry Pratchett, best known for his series of Discworld novels, Gaiman's first novel Good Omens was published in 1990.In 2011, Pratchett said that while the entire novel was a collaborative effort and most of the ideas could be credited to both of them, Pratchett did a larger portion of writing and editing if for no other reason than Gaiman's scheduled involvement with Sandman.[111]
The 1996 novelisation of Gaiman's teleplay for the BBC mini-series Neverwhere was his first solo novel. The novel was released in tandem with the television series, though it presents some notable differences from the television series. Gaiman has since revised the novel twice, the first time for an American audience unfamiliar with the London Underground, the second time because he felt unsatisfied with the originals.[112]
In 1999, the first printings of his fantasy novel Stardust were released.The novel has been released both as a standard novel and in an illustrated text edition.[113] This novel was highly influenced by Victorian fairytales and culture.[114]
American Gods became one of Gaiman's best-selling and multi-award-winning novels upon its release in 2001.[115] A special 10th Anniversary edition was released, with the "author's preferred text" 12,000 words longer than the original mass-market editions.[116] Gaiman has not written a direct sequel to American Gods but he has revisited the characters.A glimpse at Shadow's travels in Europe is found in a short story which finds him in Scotland, applying the same concepts developed in American Gods to the story of Beowulf.The 2005 novel Anansi Boys deals with Anansi ('Mr. Nancy'), tracing the relationship of his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unassuming bookkeeper, as they explore their common heritage.It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.[117]
In 2002, Gaiman entered the world of children's books with the dark fairy tale Coraline.In 2008 he released a young adult novel, The Graveyard Book. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. It is heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and H. P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.[118] Literary critic Danel Olson defended it as one of the first canonical novels of 21st century Gothic literature.[119] As of late January 2009, it had been on The New York Times Bestseller children's list for fifteen weeks.[120]
In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards.[121] The novel follows an unnamed man who returns to his hometown for a funeral and remembers events that began forty years earlier.[122] Themes include the search for self-identity and the "disconnect between childhood and adulthood".[123] It was later adapted into a critically acclaimed stage play at the Royal National Theatre in London.[124]
In September 2016, Neil Gaiman announced that he had been working for some years on retellings of Norse mythology.[125]Norse Mythology was released in February 2017.[126]
Several of his novels have been published as paperbacks with retro covers by artist Robert McGinnis.[127][128]
Film and screenwriting
Gaiman wrote the 1996 BBC dark fantasy television series Neverwhere.He co-wrote the screenplay for the movie MirrorMask with his old friend Dave McKean for McKean to direct.In addition, he wrote the localised English language script for the anime movie Princess Mononoke, based on a translation of the Japanese script.[129]
After his disappointment with the production limitations of Neverwhere, Gaiman asked his agent to pull him out of an (unnamed) UK television series that was to begin production immediately afterwards. "I didn't want to do it unless I had more control than you get as a writer: in fantasy, the tone of voice, the look and feel, the way something is shot and edited is vital, and I wanted to be in charge of that."
He co-wrote the script for Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf with Roger Avary, a collaboration that has proved productive for both writers.[130] Gaiman has expressed interest in collaborating on a film adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.[131]
He was the only person other than J. Michael Straczynski to write a Babylon 5 script in the series' last three seasons, contributing to the season five episode "Day of the Dead".[129] The series also features a recurring alien race called the Gaim, who resemble the character of Dream and are named after Gaiman.
Gaiman has also written at least three drafts of a screenplay adaptation of Nicholson Baker's novel The Fermata for director Robert Zemeckis,[132][133] although the project was stalled while Zemeckis made The Polar Express and the Gaiman-Roger Avary-penned Beowulf film.
Neil Gaiman was featured in the History Channel documentary Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked.[134]
Several of Gaiman's original works have been optioned or greenlighted for film adaptation, most notably Stardust, which premiered in August 2007 and stars Charlie Cox, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes and Mark Strong, directed by Matthew Vaughn.A stop-motion version of Coraline was released on 6 February 2009, directed by Henry Selick and starring the voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher.[10]
In 2007, Gaiman announced that after ten years in development, the feature film of Death: The High Cost of Living would finally begin production with a screenplay by Gaiman that he would direct for Warner Independent.Gaiman said that he agreed to direct the film "with the carrot dangled in front of me that I could direct it. And we'll see if that happens, and if I'm a good director or not."[135]Don Murphy and Susan Montford were named as producers, and Guillermo del Toro was named as the film's executive producer.[136][137] By 2010, it had been reported that the film was no longer in production.[138]
Seeing Ear Theatre performed two of Gaiman's audio theatre plays, "Snow, Glass, Apples", Gaiman's retelling of Snow White, and "Murder Mysteries", a story of heaven before the Fall in which the first crime is committed.Both audio plays were published in the collection Smoke and Mirrors in 1998.[139]
At Guillermo del Toro's request, he rewrote the opening of Hellboy II: The Golden Army to make it look more like a fairy tale.[140]
Gaiman's 2009 Newbery Medal winning book The Graveyard Book will be made into a movie, with Ron Howard as the director.[141]
Gaiman wrote an episode of the long-running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, broadcast in 2011 during Matt Smith's second series as the Doctor.[142] Shooting began in August 2010 for this episode, the original title of which was "The House of Nothing"[143] but which was eventually transmitted as "The Doctor's Wife".[144] The episode won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).[145][146] Gaiman made his return to Doctor Who with an episode titled "Nightmare in Silver", broadcast on 11 May 2013.[147][148]Gaiman returned to the
In 2015, Starz greenlighted a series adaptation of Gaiman's novel American Gods.Bryan Fuller and Michael Green wrote and were showrunners for the series.[154] Gaiman received a Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form Hugo Award in 2020 for the TV miniseries adaptation of Good Omens, for which he wrote the screenplay.[155] He voiced Gef in the black comedy filmNandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, one of the film's titular characters, in 2023.[156]
Radio
A six-part radio play of Neverwhere was broadcast in March 2013, adapted by Dirk Maggs for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra.The performance featured James McAvoy as Richard, Natalie Dormer, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Bernard Cribbens, and Johnny Vegas.[157]
In September 2014, Gaiman and Terry Pratchett joined forces with BBC Radio 4 to make the first-ever dramatisation of their co-penned novel Good Omens, which was broadcast in December in five half-hour episodes and culminated in an hour-long final apocalyptic showdown.[73] In 2021, Gaiman was cast as Duke Aubrey in an adaptation of Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist, a novel Gaiman had previously proclaimed one of his favourites (and to which he had contributed a foreword for an edition by Cold Spring Press), for BBC Radio 4.[158]
Public performances
Gaiman frequently performs public readings from his stories and poetry, and has toured with his wife, musician Amanda Palmer.In some of these performances he has also sung songs, in "a novelist's version of singing",[159] despite having "no kind of singing voice".[160]
In 2015, Gaiman delivered a 100-minute lecture for the Long Now Foundation entitled How Stories Last about the nature of storytelling and how stories persist in human culture.[161] In April 2018, Gaiman made a guest appearance on the television show The Big Bang Theory, and his tweet about the show's fictional comic book store became the central theme of the episode "The Comet Polarization".[162]
Intellectual property disputes
In 1993, Gaiman was contracted by Todd McFarlane to write a single issue of Spawn, for Image Comics, which McFarlane had recently co-founded.McFarlane was promoting his new title by having guest authors Gaiman, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Dave Sim each write a single issue.[163][164]
In issue No. 9 of the series, Gaiman introduced the characters Angela, Cogliostro, and Medieval Spawn. Prior to this issue, Spawn was an assassin who worked for the government and came back as a reluctant agent of Hell but had no real direction in his actions. In Angela, a cruel and malicious angel, Gaiman introduced a character who threatened Spawn's existence, as well as providing a moral opposite. Cogliostro was introduced as a mentor character for exposition and instruction, providing guidance. Medieval Spawn introduced a history and precedent that not all Spawns were self-serving or evil, giving additional character development to Malebolgia, the demon that creates Hellspawn.[163][164]
As intended, all three characters were used repeatedly throughout the next decade by Todd McFarlane within the wider Spawn universe.[165] In papers filed by Gaiman in early 2002, however, he claimed that the characters were jointly owned by their scripter (himself) and artist (McFarlane), not merely by McFarlane in his role as the creator of the series.[163][164] Disagreement over who owned the rights to a character was the primary motivation for McFarlane and other artists to form Image Comics (although that argument related more towards disagreements between writers and artists as character creators).[166] As McFarlane used the characters without Gaiman's permission or royalty payments, Gaiman believed his copyrighted work was being infringed upon, which violated their original oral agreement.McFarlane initially agreed that Gaiman had not signed away any rights to the characters, and negotiated with Gaiman to effectively "swap" McFarlane's interest in the character Marvelman.[167] McFarlane had purchased an interest in the character when Eclipse Comics was liquidated while Gaiman was interested in being able to continue his aborted run of the Marvelman title. McFarlane later changed his initial position, claiming that Gaiman's work had only been work-for-hire and that McFarlane owned all of Gaiman's creations entirely.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court ruling in February 2004[169] granting joint ownership of the characters to Gaiman and McFarlane.On the specific issue of Cogliostro, presiding Judge John C. Shabaz proclaimed, "The expressive work that is the comic-book character Count Nicholas Cogliostro was the joint work of Gaiman and McFarlane—their contributions strike us as quite equal—and both are entitled to ownership of the copyright".[170] Similar analysis led to similar results for the other two characters, Angela and Medieval Spawn.
This legal battle was brought by Gaiman and the specifically formed Marvels and Miracles, LLC, which Gaiman had previously created to help sort out the legal rights surrounding Marvelman.Gaiman had written Marvel 1602 in 2003 to help fund this project[171] and all of Gaiman's profits for the original issues of the series were donated to Marvels and Miracles.[171] The rights to Marvelman were subsequently purchased, from original creator Mick Anglo, by Marvel Comics in 2009.[172]
Gaiman returned to court again over the Spawn characters Dark Ages Spawn, Domina, and Tiffany, claiming that they were "derivative of the three he co-created with McFarlane."[173] The judge ruled that Gaiman was right in these claims as well and gave McFarlane until the beginning of September 2010 to settle the matter.[174]
Pavlovich said that Gaiman had anal sex with her in the presence of his son.[23]
Caroline Wallner, a former tenant of Gaiman's, alleges that he demanded sexual favours in exchange for being allowed to continue living on his property.[23][177] Wallner says that on one occasion, Gaiman grabbed her hand and placed it on his penis while his young son was asleep in the same bed.[23] In 2021, Wallner, her ex-husband, and Gaiman signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and Gaiman paid Wallner US$275000.In early 2025, Gaiman and Wallner both requested arbitration, the dispute resolution method mandated by the NDA, each accusing the other of violating the agreement.[178]
The writer Julia Hobsbawm accused Gaiman of "an aggressive, unwanted pass" and described how Gaiman pushed her onto a sofa and French kissed her in 1986.[177][179]
In September 2024, Disney halted production on the film adaptation of The Graveyard Book due to a variety of factors, including the sexual assault allegations against Gaiman.[175][180][181] That same month, production on season three of Good Omens was put on hold; Gaiman ultimately left the project in October.[182][183]
In January 2025, New York magazine published a cover story detailing the allegations against Gaiman.This article, which was published online on Vulture, included interviews with four of the women who had previously spoken to Tortoise Media, as well as four more women.[23][184] Later the same month, Dark Horse Comics announced that they would cut ties with Gaiman over the allegations, including cancelling his ongoing comic adaptation of Anansi Boys.[185] Gaiman was also dropped as a client by his agent Casarotto Ramsay.[186]
In February 2025, Pavlovich filed three federal lawsuits in the US that alleged human trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, alongside formal allegations of sexual assault and coercion.One named Gaiman and Palmer as co-defendants and two were against Palmer alone, seeking at least US$7million in damages.[187][188] In his response to the lawsuit, Gaiman accused Pavlovich of lying, presenting text messages in which she appeared to confirm that no sexual abuse had taken place, and claimed that police in New Zealand had already investigated her claims and found them to be false.[189] Gaiman also claimed that the American court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case—because the alleged assaults happened in New Zealand—and asked for the case to be dismissed.[190] A Wisconsin federal judge granted this request without ruling on the facts of the case,[191] and Pavlovich appealed the dismissal.[192] Pavlovich's remaining US lawsuits against Gaiman were dismissed in October 2025 and February 2026, noting the proper location to pursue any potential case is New Zealand.[193]
Gaiman has denied engaging in non-consensual sex, and dismissed Hobsbawm's allegations as misreading the situation.[177][179] Gaiman's representatives claim that Wallner initiated their sexual encounters and that none of these occurred in the presence of Gaiman's child.[23] In a blog post responding to coverage of the allegations against him, Gaiman said there were "moments I half-recognise and moments I don't".He denies engaging in any non-consensual sexual activity, but said he could have "done so much better" and was "trying to do the work needed".[194][195][196]
, bibliographer and librarian
Richard Bleiler
detects patterns of and allusions to the Gothic novel, from
Horace Walpole
's
The Castle of Otranto
to
Shirley Jackson
's
The Haunting of Hill House
.
He concludes that Gaiman is "utilizing works, characters, themes, and settings that generations of scholars have identified and classified as Gothic... [yet] subverts them and develops the novel by focusing on the positive aspects of maturation, concentrating on the values of learning, friendship, and sacrifice."[200] Regarding another work's assumed connection and allusions to this form, Gaiman himself quipped: "I've never been able to figure out whether Sandman is a gothic."[201]
Clay Smith has argued that this sort of allusiveness serves to situate Gaiman as a strong authorial presence in his own works, often to the exclusion of his collaborators.[202] However, Smith's viewpoint is in the minority: to many, if there is a problem with Gaiman's scholarship and intertextuality it is that "... his literary merit and vast popularity have propelled him into the nascent comics canon so quickly that there is not yet a basis of critical scholarship about his work."[203]
David Rudd takes a more generous view in his study of the novel Coraline, where he argues that the work plays and riffs productively on Sigmund Freud's concept of Unheimlich ("the Uncanny").[204]
Though Gaiman's work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure laid out in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces,[205] Gaiman says that he started reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces but refused to finish it: "I think I got about halfway through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true – I don't want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I'd rather do it because it's true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."[206]
2007 & 2008: Winner of the Galaxy Award for Most Popular Foreign Writer.
2010 Gaiman was selected as the Honorary Chair of National Library Week by the American Library Association.[249]
2012: Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of the Arts[250]
2016: University of St Andrews Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters[251]
2018: Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.[252]
2019: Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award ("celebrat[ing] authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community.") Gaiman was given the award "for advocating for freedom of expression worldwide and inspiring countless writers."[253]
2020: Children's Literature Lecture Award
Inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame in 2022.
2023: Time’s 100 most influential people in the world list[254]
64."Of Meetings and Partings" by Neil Gaiman, introduction to This Mortal Mountain: Volume 3 of The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, NESFA Press, edited by David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs, and Ann Crimmins, 2009, page 12.^
76.Hy Bender. The Sandman Companion DC Comics, 1999^
77.Alex Irvine. The Vertigo Encyclopedia Dorling Kindersley, 2008^
78.Matthew K. Manning, Hannah Dolan. DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle Dorling Kindersley, 2010^
79.Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 238: "In arguably one of the greatest achievements in serialized modern comic books, writer Neil Gaiman crafted the seventy-five-issue ongoing series The Sandman, introducing its readers to a complex world of horror and fantasy."^
81.Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 240: "Neil Gaiman, aided by penciller Mike Dringenberg, introduced the character Death to a fascinated readership...Death was an instant hit and arguably became more popular than the Sandman himself."^
82.Manning "1990s" in Dolan, p. 262: "In March 1993, DC Comics debuted a three-issue limited series entitled Death: The High Cost of Living...Written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by future comics superstar Chris Bachalo, The High Cost of Living had one notable trait besides a brilliant story: its cover bore a new logo. With this debut, DC's provocative new mature-reader imprint, Vertigo, was born."^
83.Les Daniels. DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes Bulfinch Press, 1995^
87.Matthew K. Manning, Alastair Dougall. Batman: A Visual History Dorling Kindersley, 2014^
88.Manning "1980s" in Dougall (2014), p. 179: Secret Origins Special No. 1 "Gaiman wrote the Riddler's tale, with the help of artist Bernie Mireault."^
89.Brian Martin. Where the Action is...Weekly Back Issue!, August 2017^
90.Manning "1990s" in Dolan, p. 247: "Neil Gaiman chronicled the adventures of magic pupil Timothy Hunter in this miniseries. each issue explored the realms of magic as portrayed by a different painter."^
99.Cowsill, Alan "2000s" in Dolan, p. 337: "Writer Neil Gaiman and art legend Andy Kubert teamed up to present a touching imaginary tale of a wake for the dead Batman...A love song to the Dark Knight's long history...it went on to win SFX's Best Comic award in 2010."^
102.Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 338: "The [series] contained fifteen continuous stories, including...'Metamorpho' scripted by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Michael Allred."^
164.See also the [http://vlex.com/vid/20111002 official decision by Judge John Shabaz in The United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Nos. 03–1331, 03–1461] . Retrieved 22 September 2008.^
165.See Judge Shabaz's ruling for the legal reasoning: "As a co-owner, McFarlane was not violating the Copyright Act by unilaterally publishing the jointly owned work, but, as in any other case of conversion or misappropriation, he would have to account to the other joint owner for the latter's share of the profits."^
166.See Khoury, George, Image Comics: The Road To Independence (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2007), ISBN 1-893905-71-3^
167.See Judge Shabaz's ruling : "A tentative agreement was reached that... Gaiman would exchange his rights in Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro for McFarlane's rights in another comic book character, Miracleman."^
168.Judge Shabaz, Official ruling, as per "Schiller & Schmidt, Inc. v. Nordisco Corp., 969 F.2d 410, 413 (7th Cir. 1992)"^
As of January 2025, in the fifth year of proceedings, negotiations had become "ugly", with Palmer moving in with her parents due to financial difficulties.
In 2013, Gaiman was named by IGN as one of "The Best Tweeters in Comics", describing his posts as "sublime".[38]
Other personal relationships
Gaiman is godfather to Tori Amos's daughter Tash,[39][40] and wrote a poem called "Blueberry Girl" for Tori and Tash.[41] The poem was adapted into a book by illustrator Charles Vess.[42] Gaiman read the poem aloud to an audience at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco on 5 October 2008 during his book reading tour for The Graveyard Book.[43] It was published in March 2009 with the title Blueberry Girl.
Advocacy
In 2016, Gaiman, along with several other celebrities, appeared in the video "What They Took With Them", from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to help raise awareness of the issue of global refugees.[44][45]
Gaiman is a supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and has served on its board of directors.[46] In 2013, Gaiman was named co-chair of the organization's newly formed advisory board.[47]
In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gaiman supported Ukraine by announcing on Twitter that he does not want to renew contracts with Russian publishers.[48] Gaiman also encouraged donating to Ukrainian refugees.[49][50]
In 2023, Gaiman signed an open letter addressed to Russian president Vladimir Putin, alongside over 100 other public figures, calling for the release of Russian prisoner Alexei Navalny.[51][52]
The 75 issues of the regular series, along with an illustrated prose text and a special containing seven short stories, have been collected into 12 volumes that remain in print.
; he wrote the mini-episode "Rory's Story" which saw
Arthur Darvill
reprise his role of
Rory Williams
.
Also in 2011, it was announced that Gaiman would be writing the script to a new film version of Journey to the West.[149][150] Gaiman appeared as himself on The Simpsons episode "The Book Job", which was broadcast on 20 November 2011.[151][152][153]
The presiding judge, however, ruled against their agreement being work for hire, based in large part on the legal requirement that "copyright assignments must be in writing."[168]
