One of Neil Gaiman's public speaking tours has been cancelled
According to the following information provided by a writer for Tortoise Media, which first reported about the sexual assault allegations he's now facing, with a police report to back them up:
There have been a few more articles since then, however, and the following from Air Mail, though largely behind a paywall, does have something most eyebrow-raising to say about one of his Sandman issues from nearly 35 years before, in the first 2 paragraphs that are accessible:
Here's a more recent op-ed on the subject from the New Indian Express, which also discusses the scandal of the late Canadian writer Alice Munro siding with a sexually abusive husband, and it notes:
So it looks like the reports have indeed had some negative effect on Gaiman's career and reputation, though as some may have noticed, any coverage by the comics specialty press has been very muted, and last time I looked, sources like leftist Bleeding Cool, Newsarama, Comics Beat and even Popverse don't seem to have said anything at all. Only CBR and Comic Book Movie seem to have reported anything. Most peculiar the liberal establishment in comicdom has apparently chosen to ignore this serious issue.Neil Gaiman’s first scheduled event since we reported sexual assault allegations against him has been cancelled. pic.twitter.com/btyPSG1Ve8
— Paul Caruana Galizia (@pcaruanagalizia) July 16, 2024
There have been a few more articles since then, however, and the following from Air Mail, though largely behind a paywall, does have something most eyebrow-raising to say about one of his Sandman issues from nearly 35 years before, in the first 2 paragraphs that are accessible:
In 1990, in the 17th issue of his comic-book series The Sandman, the writer Neil Gaiman told the story of a character called Erasmus Fry. In the story, Fry is a world-renowned author with a dark secret: he had kidnapped and imprisoned a muse, whom he raped for inspiration while forcing her to call him “Master.”Since the time of the two allegations so far was said to have come years later, this suggests Gaiman was influenced by his own work and ideas, taking them out of the pages of fiction and translating them into real life in sickening ways. Which makes the whole scandal even more jaw-dropping and stupefying. After this, who knows how much longer the tale from The Sandman's 17th issue will be received positively.
For years, this story was received warmly. It was as if Gaiman had chosen to ridicule the notion of the “great man of letters” by explicitly showing us the toll that these men take on the people—more specifically the women—around them. However, that reputation has just been complicated enormously by a new podcast series from Tortoise Media (written by AIR MAIL Writer-at-Large Rachel Johnson and AIR MAIL contributor Paul Caruana Galizia), which accuses Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting two women decades younger than he is. The podcast is entitled Master. According to one of his accusers, this is what he made one of the women call him.
Here's a more recent op-ed on the subject from the New Indian Express, which also discusses the scandal of the late Canadian writer Alice Munro siding with a sexually abusive husband, and it notes:
...In Gaiman’s: I would bet my last rupee that there are more than two women out there whom he has harmed this way. There always are. Men who predate on young women tend to be serial offenders.Sadly, it's very possible, as some info I'd previously highlighted indicated too. Now, he's facing long-awaited fallout for his terrible misdeeds, and while Munro may be gone now, her reputation's taking a fall too. Time doesn't look like it'll be kind to the reputations of these disgraces to the literary/comics world.
Labels: dc comics, history, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, violence
