Neil Gaiman

New to Tattle Life? Click "Order Thread by Most Liked Posts" button below to get an idea of what the site is about:
My point really was, most of these lads who claim to be Allies are actually the worst type of man. They hide behind it to get access to women. And he's been one to say Believe ALL women, so lets hope he believes his victims this time too. And yeah his ex is rum. Not really shocking though, she claims to be a "Shock Rocker".
He calls himself a "male feminist" often. And like you, I can't remember a time a good man felt the need to announce that he saw women as equal to men. I mean... who does that?! If I went around announcing that I thought Black people deserved equality with white people, everyone would rightly be like "What the duck, why are you announcing that like it's a cool idea you just came up with? All normal people think like that as default."
 
  • Like
  • Heart
Reactions: 25
Ugh he’s vile.

(please read with caution if easily triggered, the article expands on the sexual abuse he’s been accused of, and is quite detailed).

I've read this yesterday and I was physically ill afterwards. I could almost hear him say all those things, having watched his interviews and listened to speeches for years. I won't make a comment over every individual thing mentioned in the article, it's sickening but I am so upset. Not just with what Gaiman has done, but furious that Amanda Palmer knew what he was like, chose to stay in this relationship for whatever reasons of her own but didn't leave it there and practically handed him vulnerable women to exploit. Apparently she's refusing to testify or give interviews now.

Neil Gaiman has been one of my favourite authors, some his stories practically kept me going at difficult times. I'm heartbroken for the women who have gone through this, and maybe rather selfishly, I'm also angry that he has taken away a place of comfort from me (and from others I imagine) and tainted it forever. I doubt I can ever unsee what I've read on Vulture.

Edit: Apparently Palmer asked for "privacy".
 
  • Heart
  • Like
Reactions: 9
I wouldn't say that I'm a massive fan of Gaiman's. I read American Gods and thought it was phenomenal but am not really into fantasy fiction so struggled with any other books. The tv series based on his work have been...OK.

I read the article (with much difficulty) and then spoke to my partner about it, without giving him too much of the detail, and I really struggled to find the words to describe Gaiman. p doesn't seem apt...I believe he is depraved. It takes a lot to shock me but I actually felt physically sick at some of what I read. I hope that the women he has abused find some peace and I hope we never have to see his face again. But I doubt the latter.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 9
A "friend" of mine is huge fan of Gaiman's, she was a huge fan of Marilyn Manson and Johnny Depp too so I think she's quite a good barometer for nasty ducks. I'll have to ask her what she thinks of David Tennant...
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: 17
It's all awful, but if the stuff involving his kid is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), I hope that kid has been paired with a decent therapist who can handle covert CSA adequately (and not some wooey woo buller like the one that's quoted in the article) and never has unsupervised contact with Gaiman again, the sick duck
 
  • Like
Reactions: 18
Yes, @lilykestrel that poor child needs help. What a misfortune to be born to such twisted parents. Neither of them should have custody of him - Amanda is complicit and her childcare arrangements are exploitative at best, and do not have her son's interests in mind.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 17
Yes, @lilykestrel that poor child needs help. What a misfortune to be born to such twisted parents. Neither of them should have custody of him - Amanda is complicit and her childcare arrangements are exploitative at best, and do not have her son's interests in mind.
no, it felt glib to say it given *gestures at everything else* but there's something desperately wrong with someone who, rather than employ, you know, a qualified background-checked childcare professional to take care of your child, you just hand your kid over to someone you *literally* met on the street.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 22
no, it felt glib to say it given *gestures at everything else* but there's something desperately wrong with someone who, rather than employ, you know, a qualified background-checked childcare professional to take care of your child, you just hand your kid over to someone you *literally* met on the street.
This is why I’m wondering if she picked girls she knew would appeal to him. So satisfying his sexual proclivities came first, care for their child second.
 
  • Like
  • Sick
  • Sad
Reactions: 15
Found this on twitter. Mr Talented Feminist stole his ideas from a woman.
From a brief look into Tanith Lee's work, this seems like a stretch on the part of this poster. Her work and Gaiman's cover similar themes, but they aren't original to either of them.

I notice no side by side comparisons of text are included.

Gaiman is facing very serious allegations and muddying the waters with petty tit like this is imo disrespectful to the victims. Now isn't the time for fantasy stan wars.
 
  • Like
  • Heart
Reactions: 13
I have only read a little Tanith Lee, she had some really interesting ideas. I really need to read more.

I think saying his work is a ' rip off' is a little bit of a stretch. Having a pale goth looking MC is not a unique idea to anyone. I think it it is also likely that some of Gaimans own appearance at the time went into the design , pale, tall, likes wearing black and with wild dark hair.

He writes a lot about mythology and gods, again having a same theme is not a rip off of another writer.

Sandman used a lot of different artists over its run. Different stories and chapters look very different because of this, it is one of the neat things about the comic imo. Gaiman is not an artist, he just wrote the story and scripts.

I think, if there were more clear evidence of copying, it would have been picked up by now.

When a writer/creator does something awful, people always rush to try and say ' well they were not that good, they copied xyz....' to try and help, but it is always a big reach. Like people who say Harry Potter is a rip off of The Worst Witch as they both take place at a magic school....because only one person is ever allowed to use a setting or theme.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 7
I have only read a little Tanith Lee, she had some really interesting ideas. I really need to read more.

I think saying his work is a ' rip off' is a little bit of a stretch. Having a pale goth looking MC is not a unique idea to anyone. I think it it is also likely that some of Gaimans own appearance at the time went into the design , pale, tall, likes wearing black and with wild dark hair.

He writes a lot about mythology and gods, again having a same theme is not a rip off of another writer.

Sandman used a lot of different artists over its run. Different stories and chapters look very different because of this, it is one of the neat things about the comic imo. Gaiman is not an artist, he just wrote the story and scripts.

I think, if there were more clear evidence of copying, it would have been picked up by now.

When a writer/creator does something awful, people always rush to try and say ' well they were not that good, they copied xyz....' to try and help, but it is always a big reach. Like people who say Harry Potter is a rip off of The Worst Witch as they both take place at a magic school....because only one person is ever allowed to use a setting or theme.
Argh, I made a really long post on my phone yesterday about how the first Harry Potter book is quite heavily ripped off from Eva Ibbotson's 'The Secret of Platform 13', but Ibbotson was really cool about it. The whole post has disappeared! I had links to an article, and me banging on about having heard Ibbotson's daughter speaking about it at Jewish Book Week a few years ago.

I CBA to type it all out again but very briefly
- the portal between the normal and magical worlds is Platform 13 at Kings Cross station (!)
- the story revolves around a magical prince who's been abducted into the normal world
- he is treated as a servant and made to sleep in a cupboard with the Trottle family
- the large, spoilt son of the family is called Raymond Trottle
et cetera.

It was published in 1994, about four years before HP came out.

I love JKR but there's no doubt that she was heavily influenced by Ibbotson (who is also a brilliant writer and was a fascinating human being).

I did actually think of the Worst Witch when HP first came out, but I think the similarities there are flimsy. But not with Ibbotson.

Eva Ibbotson, another Macmillan author, is a case in point. The author of eight children's novels, she won the Smarties Gold Prize this year for Journey to the River Sea, which is also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Booker of the children's world, which she is hotly tipped to win. Her novels, though always well-received, were not well-known until two years ago. They now sell 200,000 copies a title. Partly this is due to their being rejacketed, but the real impulse is that children themselves wrote in to the Internet bookstore Amazon to say the words publishers have been attempting in vain to attach to other authors - that "if you love Harry Potter, you'll love this." And they did, particularly with regard to The Secret of Platform 13, published three years before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The similarities between the two are astounding: Ibbotson's novel describes a door at Platform 13 of King's Cross opening onto a magical world of wizards, ghosts and giants. The hero is a young boy who belongs to this world but who is ignorant of his true nature, and bullied by the grotesquely rich and nasty Trottle family, and made to sleep in the servants' quarters until magic comes to rescue him. Ibbotson would seem to have at least as good a case for claiming plagiarism as the American author currently suing JK Rowling, but unlike her, Ibbotson says she would "like to shake her by the hand. I think we all borrow from each other as writers."
 
  • Like
  • Wow
Reactions: 8
Thanks for sharing. That is something I have not heard of before .

Given that she was a teacher, it would make sense if she had read or was aware of other children's books at the time. It does seem to be a clear influence.

I have read the Good Omens has started filming this week. It must feel very odd for the actors knowing what has happened since they last filmed for the show.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 6
I listened to all the podcasts released by Tortoise Media. They were painful to listen to. Amanda Palmer is disgusting and entirely complicit in this situation.

The journal entry he wrote is so flat and dismissive. I believe he hired the same lawyer as Prince Andrew did, Andrew Brettler. He's defended some deplorable people.
 
  • Like
  • Heart
  • Sad
Reactions: 8
Petty considering the seriousness of it but I am glad I could never much get into Good Omens.

I never read the book but I found the TV to be unbearably pleased with itself. The bits with Tennant and Sheen were fun but the rest I thought was rubbish. I feel bad because they are kids but the kids acting was painful to watch.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4
Petty considering the seriousness of it but I am glad I could never much get into Good Omens.

I never read the book but I found the TV to be unbearably pleased with itself. The bits with Tennant and Sheen were fun but the rest I thought was rubbish. I feel bad because they are kids but the kids acting was painful to watch.
I liked the first series as it's based on the actual book and still had the influence and wit of Terry Pratchett there but the second one felt like a cash-in. The lesbian relationship just seemed to be there for diversity tickboxing, instead of being fully fledged characters.

There was a radio series of the book a few years back which was much better.
 
  • Like
  • Heart
Reactions: 5
Petty considering the seriousness of it but I am glad I could never much get into Good Omens.

I never read the book but I found the TV to be unbearably pleased with itself. The bits with Tennant and Sheen were fun but the rest I thought was rubbish. I feel bad because they are kids but the kids acting was painful to watch.
The book bored me to death and the TV show looked like smug rubbish - I don't have much time for Tennant either.

I liked The Graveyard Book, though, and I was planning to read some more Gaiman, but I don't think I'll bother now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5
I absolutely agree with whoever said that Good Omens was very ' Pleased with itself'. I think a lot of the humour of the book only works when it is read, the jokes and situations are not the same when you can actually see them play out.

I have read the book once or twice and I never got what the big deal about it was. I think maybe it was very subversive for the time it was written, but it felt a bit dated and slow by time I actually got to it.

I have not watched series 2, but i have heard what happens and I do not for a minute believe that PTerry would have written the characters as being romantically together. I think the characters were originally meant to have a lot of the writers in them, and it would be weird to write yourself as romantically paired with your friend/colleague/cowriter.


The netflix sandman had a lot of box tick diversity in it. I had no issue with the lady playing Death, she was great.

Some of the race swaps felt really shallow and lazy, you can't just change someone's sex or race and pretend that changes nothing about the character.

It was also really silly that the ' good guy' characters were more likely to be swapped to being none white, whilst the bad people stayed white.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5
Funnily enough I remember saying to someone that I did enjoy Good Omens but there were times when I felt like the narrator made a joke and then you glance at them and they're giving you a look as if to say "well aren't I exceedingly intelligent and witty harharharhar" and it threw me off quite a bit

ETA basically my long disjointed way of saying it does feel rather smug
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5