Six Damn Fine Degrees #265: Poisoned pages

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

If you had asked me in the early aughts about my favourite writers, it’s very likely that Neil Gaiman would have been one of the names I mentioned. Like many I know, I first encountered him via Terry Pratchett, when I read Good Omens (1990), co-written by Pratchett and Gaiman, and fell in love with it. Next came the short story collection Smoke and Mirrors (1998), with its tales that ranged from urban fantasy and horror to stranger, more meta fare, and shortly after, I got into The Sandman (1989-1996), arguably Gaiman’s magnum opus in a big way. Once I’d made my way through the ten volumes of that series, there was a phase during which I bought almost everything Gaiman wrote. (Ironically, not his anthology comic Endless Nights, which is what furnishes this post with its link to last week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.) I recommended him to friends, even to some of my teachers at university. After I graduated and started teaching at Uni myself, I did an introductory course on comics, and one of the texts I had my students read was issue 19 of The Sandman, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Yes, I was that kind of fan.

After a while, I realised that I wasn’t as big a fan of the later comics and stories, many of which read like pale imitations of the weird fiction I’d fallen in love with to begin with. Even then, though, Gaiman was undoubtedly one of the writers who has had a major impact on me. Even this site, A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, wouldn’t be what it is without him: I came to know Julie, our very own pre-eminent film historian, through The World’s End, a Neil Gaiman fan forum.

In 2024, Neil Gaiman was accused by a number of women of sexual abuse and assault, and in 2025 the magazine New York published a cover story detailing the allegations. The details of the accusations were, and still are, distressing. (You will find them online, but be warned that they are quite triggering.) Gaiman reacted like so many of the rich, influencial people – and, let’s be concrete: so many men – accused of such deeds have: he denied that he had done these things, or at least those things that are legally actionable. He tried to put the accusers in a bad light. He tried to use his money to shut them up. Eventually, he issued some mealy-mouthed half-excuses about how he should have “done so much better” and was “trying to do the work needed”. His career seems to have stalled since: adaptations of books he’d been involved with were cancelled or cut short, and he doesn’t seem to have published anything in the last few years.

How do we deal with our idols turning out to be toxic? What do we do when the writers of the books we love, the actors and directors whose films are dear to us, turn out to be horrible excuses for human beings? I know that there are people who quickly come to draw a personal line: they cut these creators out of their lives, they get rid of the books and films and albums. This isn’t something I’ve ever done: if anything, I have stopped buying the works of such creators once their actions had been revealed, in order not to send more money their way. (I don’t particularly care to fund their lawyers when they are taken to court.)

However, I sometimes think that perhaps it’d be better if I did. I don’t think it’s unethical to hang on to books and films you’ve bought if it turns out that their creators were, or are, horrible human beings. But when I look at the four big boxes of the Absolute Sandman edition, I can’t say that I’m much enticed to re-read the stories – even though I know that I have loved many of them. There are some stories that have taken on a very bitter taste in the face of the revelations about Gaiman, in particular “Calliope” (The Sandman #17), in which a writer keeps the titular muse imprisoned and repeatedly rapes her in order to find the inspiration he sorely lacks: while the story clearly condemns its author, it is difficult not to see him as a version of Gaiman now. But even those stories that don’t resonate with the accusations feel like they’ve been poisoned.

What would be a good, fair, healthy way of dealing with such creators? Should we banish them from our shelves, once they have revealed themselves to be monsters, less for ourselves than for the people they have hurt? Perhaps this would be the right way of dealing with such revelations – but even if I were to banish my Neil Gaiman books to the cellar or take them to the nearest recycling centre, it would not change the fact that, for a decade or so, these were books I derived enjoyment from, even solace and inspiration. They had a part in shaping my imagination. The thought that sometimes pops up in my mind is this: for a long time, Neil Gaiman used his writer’s persona to present himself to the world at large as progressive, a male feminist, someone who cares about the weak and those in need of protection – all while he preyed on others, thanks to his position, influence, and most likely his money as well. How much of that Gaiman is in the stories? How much of that person have I allowed into my head?