Anyone else dislike Neil Gaiman?

I don’t dislike him but I do agree he’s overrated. As far as comic book writing I always preferred Alan Moore.

Alan Moore wishes he were Neil Gaiman. Moore made a career out of perverting established children's stories. Gaiman creates new worlds.

His Twitter feed annoys me.

r2, Gaiman has done his share of idea filching. Note the similarities between his 1996 TV miniseries "Neverwhere" and the 1977 miniseries "King of the Castle."

Good Omens sucked. Horrible acting. Boring. Couldn't believe how cheesy it was.

[quote] Gaiman has done his share of idea filching

Fine. No one said he didn't. But he also created worlds.

Moore delights in making super-heroes child-rapists.

"Gaiman has done his share of idea filching."

Indeed. "Coraline" was entirely filched from a very dark little fairy tale called "The New Mother" by Lucy Clifford. I would recommend reading it; it's definitely superior to "Coraline." You can find it in a very good horror story anthology called "The Dark Descent", edited by David G. Hartwell.

As for Gaiman, well, I liked his "Sandman" comic series. But he takes himself way too seriously.

Try reading Super Folks by Robert Mayer if you are a fan of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?"

Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and George R. R. Martin are this century's idea of great fantasy writers, God help us.

Smell you!

He’s a clam too.

[quote] While some speculated that his latest book explores his past in Scientology, Gaiman firmly denies being a Scientologist. In an interview with The Big Issue, Gaiman said, “I think there are about three mad people [saying that], only they keep repeating the same things. And then you get other people come in and say, ‘This isn’t actually true’ and they never reply, just go elsewhere. Bonkers people.”

Overrated. Can't write female characters for shit.

[quote] Can't write female characters for shit.

You're talking about Moore?

His wife, Amanda Palmer, is an insufferable, pretentious twat. Her delusions of grandeur vary from purely tragic to endlessly entertaining.

Gaiman admitted to taking older stories and refurbishing them for modern audiences. He has been quite humble about it. He was also quite humble when people realized the dark-haired English boy wizard he created was stolen by a certain children's author to create a well known franchise.

He was raised clam. So you could call him a lapsed clam.

I liked the "Sandman" comic book series but I wasn't impressed with "American Gods." "Good Omens" tried too hard to be Pythonic but was mostly enjoyable.

I don't mind his writing, and have been a long time fan....that said, he has become pretentious with age

He has an ego, but I like some of his stuff. The Gaiman worship is a little out of control.

He's not a clam, but he was raised as one and his first wife (and their kids) are, so I think he doesn't openly criticize the operation because he wants to have contact with his family.

There's an anti-cult subtext running in a couple of his stories--Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

The word "twee" defines Neil Gaiman. I also can't stand his harpy of a wife Amanda Palmer.

He’s a good writer but has become a personality over the years. Lost respect for him when he married that hack Amanda Palmer.

HATED Good Omens. It was awful and trying too hard.

Bump for Gaiman/Amanda Palmer split.

Love Sandman.

All his other writing is shit

I'm sure his interminable VS poem is a gas. Don't people simply make anonymous donations anymore? Would rather read computer code than his dreck. Assclown.

I love love love Sandman comics, it's just an absolutely gorgeous series. I've only read a couple of novels from him and didn't like either of them. I actually read American Gods when it was first released and found it rather lame and boring. It's been surprising to watch the tv show, which I like a lot, since it seems to be something totally different from the novel. BTW, I wonder what was Gaiman's role in getting Bryan Fuller fired from the show? He got bumped into a proper producer after Fuller and his partner Michael Green left. I was mostly fine with the second season but there's no denying it lacked that certain Fuller touch the first one had.

The only thing I really appreciate Gaiman for is creating Sandman. I haven't liked anything else he's done but there's no denying I haven't read everything from him.

[quote]He was also quite humble when people realized the dark-haired English boy wizard he created was stolen by a certain children's author to create a well known franchise.

Oh please, even Gaiman didn't think it happened: "Back in November I was tracked down by a Scotsman journalist who had noticed the similarities between my Tim Hunter character and Harry Potter, and wanted a story. I disappointed him by explaining that, no, I certainly didn’t believe that Rowling had ripped off Books of Magic, that I doubted she’d read it and that it wouldn’t matter if she had: I wasn’t the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school."

I'm just reading my childhood favorite, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence, published in the early 70s. One of the main characters is a young boy who finds out he's one of the Old Ones, a magical being of good fighting the evil. Harry Potter wasn't necessarily anything new but neither was Gaiman's boy magician since a quick googling tells there have been previous creations earlier than his, including Susan Cooper's Will Stanton.

BTW, I just noticed Gaiman's wife has a Patreon account where people pay her monthly to do... something. She's an indie rocker so I assume she's not necessarily a millionaire herself but it still seems a bit funny she's basically begging people to give her money when she's been married to a rather successful author for quite some time. I vaguely remember being annoyed with Gaiman when he was trying to push Palmer for something a year or two ago and I remember finding her totally annoying herself. Can't remember what it was, though, and I could be totally wrong since I really know nothing about her.

Well, presumably Palmer will need that Patreon money now that she and Gaiman have split. He actually fled New Zealand for the UK in the middle of a pandemic just to get away from her.

Does anyone else find “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” to be a terribly tacky title?

R23 thank you for bumping this due to the Palmer/Gaiman split. That has been the only tasty breakup in the news of late. So much drama involved, thanks to Ms Palmer's narcissism and Gaiman's passive aggressiveness.

I used to like him a lot, but not really anymore. Looking forward to Sandman tough.

I lost respect for him when he married that no-talent trashpile Amanda Palmer, who stripped on a red carpet. I mean there’s attention-whoring and then there’s attention-whoring.

His "The Graveyard Book," a rewriting of Kipling's "Jungle Books" with supernatural beings in place of animals, is openly inspired by Kipling; it's an excellent children's book and the writing is lively.

He is very twee. I never get out of one of his books ever truly satisfied.

Neil and Amanda published a joint letter today that starts off

[quote]This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It’s not that exciting.

Well, drat.

Damage control, R33..

Neither of their actions have been those of a couple who are "still very much together."

ie Neil Gaiman fucked a local Kiwi bro-ette

I love how Neil writes dismissively about "newsfeed headlines saying I've moved to the UK...I have not" when it was Amanda who wrote exactly those words: "Neil has moved to the UK and I am heartbroken." Gaslighting 101.

They blame "the internet community" for supposedly spreading misinformation about their relationship when they were the ones writing publicly about having jet lag (of course people were going to ask Neil where he went during a lockdown that he had jet lag), being heartbroken and needing her fans more than ever for emotional support (followed by accusing those fans of prying into matters that aren't their business), going through a rough patch, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is, fuck both these guys.

I used to work at an independent book/comic shop. The best thing I can say about his books is that they sold. They sold so well, that I was able to put some of that money into our queer zine and comic section!

I loved his American Gods. How's the tv series?

They wouldn't have to tell us to mind our own businesses if they hadn't announced their issues with a megaphone.

Narcissists that are nothing without an audience.

They are both very tiresome

[quote] This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It’s not that exciting.

Because the divorce would get in the way of their endless shameless famewhoring. Can't both of those insufferable cunts go away for a while?

Police warn writer Gaiman over lockdown trip from New Zealand to Scotland:

It's pretty bad r38. Terrible directing, bad cinematography, bad all around.

I met him back in the '90s and liked him. He was friendly and unpretentious and seemed to be a good father (his kids were with him). This was back when he was still married to wife #1, and it sounds as though he's changed a lot since those days.

He did delightful work on Doctor Who.

The straight people problems aren’t nearly as odd as the fan art on Twitter. Bits of hair, a tooth, and glitter. Throw in a hoof and we’re good.

Can't stand him. I'm a huge, long-time sci fi and fantasy fan, and he's always been an unwelcome, oversized presence to me. Pompous overexposed jerkoff.

I've always liked it work. I've never met him, but was in the same hotel lobby as he was, once, about 20+ years ago. It was the middle of the night and he was wearing sunglasses.

His marriage to Amanda Palmer immediately changed my view of him, or at least called his judgment into question. Like others have said upthread, she's just such an insufferable famewhore. Very off-putting. Years ago, she did a Kickstarter/GoFundMe (I forget which, *shrugs*) for her fans to pay for the recording costs for her new album; her target was $1 million! She's either insane, or just shamelessly greedy. Then she did another fan solicitation where she wanted people to sign up to volunteer (key word there) to play onstage with her in whatever city she would be in on her forthcoming tour. That sounded nice and like a fan's dream come true, but really, it was her being shamelessly greedy, because this would conveniently allow her to avoid paying union scale for professional musicians to back her (much less a % of the gate, or travel arrangements). This was all long after she had been married to Gaiman, who I'm pretty sure was (and remains) a multimillionaire. Not to mention her own prior prolific recording and touring career. She's a terrible poseur and hypocrite.