The Four Color Media Monitor

The New York Daily News reports that disgraced novelist and comics writer Gaiman is now facing a lawsuit from at least one of his accusers in court, and so too is Amanda Palmer:

Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman and his estranged wife were sued in a set of federal cases filed in New York, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts on Monday, alleging the bestselling author violently raped and sexually abused the former nanny of his child.

The suits brought by Scarlett Pavlovich come after Gaiman, 64, was recently accused in a New York Magazine cover story of sexually assaulting, abusing, and forcing at least eight women into sex while at the height of his success.

[...] The New York and Massachusetts suits, which only name Gaiman’s estranged wife, artist and author Amanda Palmer, as a defendant, alleges Palmer was aware of her husband’s “need to humiliate his female sexual partners — with or without their consent.”

The Manhattan suit lists human trafficking, conspiracy to commit human trafficking, negligence, and related offenses as causes of action. The Wisconsin and Massachusetts suits list the same claims, and assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of extreme emotional distress against Gaiman.

This was surely to be expected, and what's undoubtably just as important is making sure their young son gets aid he'll need to recover from the bad influence his disgusting dad surely had on the poor little guy's psyche. Variety notes:

The suit accuses Gaiman of cultivating a reputation as a feminist, which caused her to think initially that he could be trusted. By the end, Pavlovich states that she was suicidal, and had to be hospitalized at a psychiatric center.

This scandal should serve as a vital lesson, that specific identities alone do not a trustworthy person make.

Rob Salkowitz at ICV2 commented on the subject, making points about all the inevitable effects the scandal will have:

In an age where "cancel culture" has faced backlash in some quarters, there is not really much debate about this example. Although Gaiman has denied that any of the sordid activities discussed at great length in the Vulture story, or previously on the "Master" podcast on Tortoise, were nonconsensual, the behavior he has not denied is bad enough to have just about everyone recoiling in disgust. And of course, there is no reason for anyone to accept Gaiman’s denials over the detailed, mutually corroborating accounts from several otherwise-anonymous women who have nothing to gain coming forward against one of the most beloved and influential figures in modern literature.

Outside the comics business, this is just one more example of someone whose bad behavior finally caught up to him. Lord knows we’ve had enough of those examples, even if some of the worst ones ultimately got away with it. But inside our industry, the consequences are more dire and more personally felt.

The bigger they come… A lot of the time, when a public figure is revealed to have feet of clay, the fault lies as much with the people who built them up and idolized them. We are taught in school to separate the artist from the art. But when the creator of darkly beautiful troubling work turns out to be a dark, troubled person who behaves badly or expresses odious opinions, some of that is on us for expecting too much.

It’s a little more complicated in this case. For nearly 40 years, Gaiman made his legacy as much about being a good guy as being a great writer. He not only elevated the artform of comics by giving us imaginative and gorgeously-crafted work, he also elevated the industry by speaking out on behalf of creators, free speech, marginalized people and business practices he saw as destructive.

Even that could be questioned. If he refused to give his backing to conservative creators like Chuck Dixon and Mike Baron, that says quite a bit for starters. And I'm not sure his free speech advocacy was very consistent or altruistic either. Sure, he seemingly condemned Islamic terrorism a few times in the past, yet he sent as many signs he was talking out of both sides of his mouth about the Religion of Peace. Why, even on race relations, his standings were questionable, recalling a part or two I'd noticed in the research I did on his writings. And what was so "gorgeous" about his writings? Even the Books of Magic miniseries he wrote was pretentious in that sense.

Salkowitz is correct, however, that those who build up clayfeet creators are just as guilty, and that includes any and every news source that fawned over them in the past. To say nothing of every and any news source that originally refused to follow up on Tortoise Media's initial report.

Gods and Tulips, a slim collection of essays and speeches from the late 1990s addressed to an audience of retailers, creators and professionals, accurately diagnosed many of the problems that comics were having in that era. The book was collected as a benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the free speech organization that Gaiman served as a member of the Board of Directors and visible spokesman for many years.

Umm, if memory serves, the CBDLF refused to represent Baron in a lawsuit he filed against Daily KOS the other year. CBDLF is also the same outfit once managed by Charles Brownstein, who turned out to be a sexual harasser himself. As a result, this whole scandal calls into question whether any other contributors to the CBDLF knew Gaiman was a bad lot, and whether Gaiman himself knew Brownstein was, effectively destroying their credibility as a legal business. So anybody with legal issues in comicdom might want to consider just seeking counsel from an ordinary lawyer with no official connections to the industry going forward. CBDLF does not need us as clients.

He was generous with his time with fans, doing readings and signings that could last for hours on end. He wielded his massive influence on Twitter and other social platforms to confront bullies and counterprogram other figures in the fantasy literature field with less inclusive views on gender issues.

In what way do certain figures not have inclusive views on gender issues? If that's actually an allusion to LGBT ideology, we could do without that for a change. That's practically why Donald Trump was elected. On which note, Salkowitz is a leftist, and further along in the column, he strongly hints at that:

That is different in both degree and kind from other examples of artists whose behavior ranges from disappointing to horrifying. Say what you want about Harvey Weinstein, but no one ever claimed he was some kind of paragon. Figures on the far right preach public morality while doing gross things in private, but most of them seem like pretty awful people and some of them even glory in that persona. I think most people who encountered Neil Gaiman personally or professionally found him to be a nice, reasonable, highly intelligent guy, at least if you weren’t one of his sexual targets. There is something existentially shattering about realizing there is a Mr. Hyde behind someone who spent so much time cultivating his image as Dr. Jekyll.

Wow, if you're going to use the column as an excuse for conservative-bashing, then surely that's not dampening the impact? What about the allegations against Joe Biden, now former POTUS? To say only "far-right" are capable of such acts only obscures the challenging queries of whether far-leftists could do the same. Sounds like Salkowitz is just too embarrassed to admit the left's got a problem.

The rest of the comics business is not so fortunate. This disaster radiates out in concentric circles, starting most unfortunately, with his collaborators on current projects. Colleen Doran, who has spoken out loudly and often about issues of sexual misconduct in the comics business, has done gloriously beautiful artwork in service of Gaiman’s stories for decades: not just the forthcoming Good Omens book, but also Eisner-winning material like Snow, Glass, Apples, Chivalry, American Gods and stories dating back to the original Sandman run. Their work together was recently the subject of a gallery exhibition at both the New York Society of Illustrators and the Comic-Con Museum.

Would that be the same Doran who once worked with the Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim of Cerebus infamy? I recall even some of his early work on titles like that bore traces of his demeaning attitude towards the fairer sex. Doran was also favorable to Brad Meltzer, and even associated with a cybertroll who was going after Ethan van Sciver (who also made the mistake of associating with Sim, but wisely parted ways with him). If Doran were really as expert as she says she is, I think she could've figured out long ago that Gaiman was a bad lot too, yet until recently, she associated with him, despite how the Sandman series too had questionable details that one would think conflicted with Doran's concerns. This only adds another discredit to Doran's standings, and explains why I'd rather not buy any of her GNs. And towards the end of this column:

For Gaiman’s fans and believers, we are now treated to an onslaught of "woke author was secretly abusive pervert" stories from exactly the people Gaiman stood against, at a particularly inconvenient moment to have a progressive cultural figure discredited.

Oh look, Salkowitz even made sure to take a jab at anybody who dared detract from Gaiman's overrated, leftist-laced resume, imply there's nothing wrong with being "woke", and serves up another tiresome implication that being "progressive" is only a good thing. Which all beggars the question: is the crowd Gaiman "stood against" really the misogynists he made them out to be, or was that just Orwellian smearing? I'm sure Salkowitz couldn't answer that question even if he were offered a million dollars to think of one.

So now Gaiman's likely to be spending plenty of time in court, as is Palmer, and for all we know, they might have to sell off some of their properties in the end to pay off legal debts. That's what can happen when wealthy scoundrels are caught, and have to attend court sessions as a result of their antics. Their fortunes only wither away as quickly as they came.

Labels: dc comics, exhibitions, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, museums, politics, violence