'Neil Richard Gaiman' () (born
November 10,
1960) is an
English author of
science fiction and
fantasy short stories and novels,
graphic novels, comics, and films. He lives near
Minneapolis, Minnesota,
U.S..
[2][3][4] He is married to Mary T. McGrath and has two daughters, Holly and Maddy, and a son, Michael. He has two younger sisters.
3
Biography
Early life
Gaiman's family is of
Polish Jewish origins; after immigrating from the
Netherlands in 1916, his grandfather eventually settled in the
Hampshire city of
Portsmouth on the south coast of
England and established a chain of grocery stores.
[5]
His father,
David Bernard Gaiman,
[6] worked in the same chain of stores;
5 his mother, Sheila Gaiman (''née'' Goldman), was a pharmacist. After his parents discovered
Scientology, the family settled in 1965 in the
West Sussex town of
East Grinstead. Gaiman lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965-1980 and again from 1984-1987.
[7]
Gaiman was educated at several
Church of England schools, including
Fonthill School (East Grinstead),
7 Ardingly College (1970-74), and
Whitgift School (Croydon) (1974-77).
[8]
Journalism, early writings and literary influences
As a child and a teenager, Gaiman grew up reading the works of
C.S. Lewis,
J.R.R. Tolkien,
Michael Moorcock,
Ursula K. Le Guin and
G.K. Chesterton. He later became a fan of
science fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as
Samuel R. Delany,
Roger Zelazny,
Harlan Ellison,
H.P. Lovecraft,
Thorne Smith, and
Gene Wolfe.
In the early 1980s, Gaiman pursued
journalism, conducting
interviews and writing
book reviews, as a means to learn about the world and to make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published. He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society.
[9] His first professional short story publication was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in
Imagine Magazine in May 1984, when he was 23.
[10]
In 1984, he wrote his first book, a biography of the band
Duran Duran, as well as ''
Ghastly Beyond Belief'', a book of quotations, with
Kim Newman. He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including ''
Knave''. In the late 1980s, he wrote '' in what he calls a "classic English humour" style. Following on from that he wrote the opening of what would become his collaboration with
Terry Pratchett on the
comic novel ''
Good Omens'', about the impending
apocalypse.
[11]
After forming a friendship with comic book writer
Alan Moore, Gaiman started writing comics, picking up ''
Miracleman'' after Moore finished his run on the series. Gaiman and artist
Mark Buckingham collaborated on several issues of the series before its publisher,
Eclipse Comics, collapsed, leaving the series unfinished. His first published comic strips were four short ''
Future Shocks'' for ''
2000AD'' in 1986-7. He wrote three graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long-time friend
Dave McKean, ''
Violent Cases'', ''
Signal to Noise'', and ''
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch''. In between, he landed a job with
DC Comics, his first work being the limited series ''
Black Orchid''.
Comics
Gaiman has written a plethora of comics for several publishers. His award-winning series ''
The Sandman'' tells the tale of
Morpheus, the
anthropomorphic personification of
Dream. The series began in 1987 and concluded in
1996: the 75 issues of the regular series, along with a special and a seven issue coda, have been collected into 11 volumes that remain in print.
In
1989, Gaiman published ''
The Books of Magic'' (collected in 1991), a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the
DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he has a destiny as the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by
John Ney Rieber.
In the mid-90's, he also created a number of new characters and a setting that was to be featured in a title published by
Tekno Comix. The concepts were then altered and split between three titles set in the same continuity: ''
Lady Justice'', ''
Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man'', and ''
Teknophage''.
[12] They were later featured in '' and ''
Wheel of Worlds''. Although Neil Gaiman's name appeared prominently on all titles, he was not involved in writing of any of the above-mentioned books (though he helped plot the zero issue of Wheel of Worlds).
Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with
Michael Moorcock's anti-hero ''
Elric'' for
Ed Kramer's anthology ''Tales of the White Wolf.'' In 1996, Gaiman and
Ed Kramer co-edited ''
The Sandman: Book of Dreams''. Nominated for the
British Fantasy Award, the original fiction anthology featured stories and contributions by
Tori Amos,
Clive Barker,
Gene Wolfe,
Tad Williams, and others.
Novels and films
Gaiman also writes songs,
poems,
short stories, and
novels, and wrote the
1996 BBC dark fantasy
television series ''
Neverwhere'', which he later adapted into a novel. He also wrote the screenplay for the movie ''
MirrorMask'' with his old friend
Dave McKean for McKean to direct. In addition, he wrote the English language script to the
anime movie ''
Princess Mononoke'', based on a translation of the Japanese script. Several of his works have been optioned or greenlighted for film adaptation, most notably ''
Stardust'', which premiered in August of 2007 and stars
Robert De Niro,
Michelle Pfeiffer and
Claire Danes. ''
Coraline'' is currently in production with
Dakota Fanning and
Teri Hatcher in the leading roles.
He cowrote the script for
Robert Zemeckis's
Beowulf with
Roger Avary.
He was the only person other than
J. Michael Straczynski to write a ''
Babylon 5'' script in the last 3 seasons, contributing the season 5 episode
Day of the Dead.
In February 2001, when Gaiman had completed writing ''
American Gods'', his publishers set up a promotional web site featuring a
weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of revising, publishing, and promoting the novel. After the novel was published, the web site evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Web Site, and Gaiman regularly adds to the weblog, describing the day-to-day process of being Neil Gaiman and writing, revising, publishing, or promoting whatever the current project is.
The original ''
American Gods'' blog was extracted for publication in the
NESFA Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, ''
Adventures in the Dream Trade''.
In 2007 Gaiman announced that after ten years in development the feature film of '' would finally begin production with a screenplay by Gaiman that he would direct for Warner Independent.
Don Murphy and
Susan Montford are the producers, and
Guillermo del Toro is the film's executive producer.
[13][14]
Adaptations
Gaiman has also written at least three drafts of a screenplay adaptation of
Nicholson Baker's novel ''
The Fermata'' for director
Robert Zemeckis, although the project was stalled while Zemeckis made
Polar Express and the Gaiman-
Roger Avary written ''
Beowulf'' film.
Beowulf is a
motion capture film starring
Ray Winstone and
Angelina Jolie with a scheduled release date of October 2007.
Several of Gaiman's original works are in various stages of being adapted for film.
Matthew Vaughn directed the
film adaptation of ''
Stardust,'' and
Henry Selick is directing a stop-motion version of ''
Coraline''.
"
Snow, Glass, Apples," Gaiman's retelling of
Snow White, was published in the collection
''Smoke and Mirrors'' in 1998. It was also performed by Seeing Ear Theatre as an audio play.
Friendships
Gaiman maintains friendships with several celebrities outside the comic book and science fiction fields, including author
Terry Pratchett (it is not uncommon to see Terry Pratchett in the "thank yous" in Gaiman's books, and Gaiman in Pratchett's), singers
Thea Gilmore and
Tori Amos (a ''Sandman'' fan who has mentioned him in some of her songs, and whom he included as a character (a talking tree) in 'Stardust'),
[15] actor/comedian
Lenny Henry (a fan of
Black Orchid who pitched the idea that eventually became
Neverwhere to Gaiman),
[16], Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman (who appear as 'themselves' in Gaiman's short story 'The Mysterious Disappearance of Miss Finch', collected in his [Smoke and Mirrors] collection, and illusionist
Penn Jillette of
Penn & Teller (who has mentioned Gaiman on his
Free FM radio show, and appeared in the Gaiman written
Day of the Dead episode of
Babylon 5).
Legal battle with Todd McFarlane
In
1993, Gaiman was contracted by
Todd McFarlane to write a single issue of
Spawn, a popular title at the newly created
Image Comics company. McFarlane was promoting his new title by having guest authors; Gaiman,
Alan Moore,
Frank Miller, and
Dave Sim each wrote a single issue.
In issue #9 of the series, Gaiman proceeded to introduce the characters
Angela,
Cogliostro, and
Medieval Spawn. In doing so, he set up a familiar Gaiman theme of characters whose nature works against their perceived roles. Prior to this issue,
Spawn was an assassin who worked for the government and came back as a reluctant agent of Hell but had no direction. In Angela, a cruel and malicious Angel, Gaiman introduced a character that threatened Spawn's existence, as well as providing a moral opposite. Cogliostro was introduced as a mentor character for exposition and instruction, providing guidance. Medieval Spawn introduced a history and precedent that not all Spawns were self-serving or evil, giving additional character development to
Malebolgia, the demon that creates Hellspawn.
All three characters were used repeatedly through the next decade by Todd McFarlane. Gaiman claimed that the characters were owned by their creator, not by the creator of the series. As McFarlane used the characters without Gaiman's permission or royalty payments, Gaiman believed his copyrighted work was being infringed upon, which violated their original agreement. McFarlane initially agreed that Gaiman had not signed away any rights to the characters but later claimed that Gaiman's work had been work-for-hire and that McFarlane owned all of Gaiman's creations entirely. McFarlane had also refused to pay Gaiman for the volumes of Gaiman's work he republished and kept in print.
In
2002, Neil Gaiman filed a lawsuit against
Todd McFarlane and
Image Comics and won a sizable judgement. The characters are now owned 50/50 by both men.
This legal battle was in part funded by Marvels and Miracles,
LLC, which Gaiman created in order to help sort out the legal copyrights surrounding
Miracleman (see
the ownership of Miracleman sub-section of the Miracleman article). Gaiman wrote
Marvel 1602 in 2003 to help fund this project. All of Marvel Comics' profits for the series go to Marvels and Miracles.
Gaiman does a great deal of work for the
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
2005 onwards
In
2005, his novel ''
Anansi Boys'' was simultaneously released worldwide. The book deals with
Anansi ('Mr. Nancy'), a supporting character in ''
American Gods''. Specifically it traces the relationship of his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unaware Englishman of American origin, as they explore their common heritage. It hit the ''
New York Times'' bestseller list at number one.
[17]
In 2006, Gaiman relaunched
Jack Kirby's ''
Eternals'' for Marvel Comics.
Awards
★ Gaiman received a
World Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1991 for the ''Sandman'' issue, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (see '') (Due to a subsequent rules change disqualifying comics for that category, Gaiman is the only writer to win that award for a comics script).
★ He has won the ''
Comics Buyer's Guide'' Award for Favorite Writer for the years 1991-1993, and received nominations from 1997-2000. His work on ''Sandman'' was awarded the Favourite Comic Book Story for 1991 and
1994.
★ The illustrated version of ''
Stardust'' won the
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature 1999.
★ ''
American Gods'' won the
Hugo Award for Best Novel 2002, the
Nebula Award for Best Novel 2002 and the
Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel 2001. It is among the most-honored works of fiction in recent history.
[18]
★ ''
Coraline'' won the
Hugo Award for Best Novella 2003, the
Nebula Award for Best Novella 2003 and the
Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers 2002.
★ In
2004, his short story "
A Study in Emerald" won another Hugo (in a ceremony the author presided over himself, having volunteered for the job before his story was nominated).
★ ''
Marvel 1602'' Volume 1, written by Gaiman and illustrated by
Andy Kubert, won the Best Graphic Novel at the
2005 Quill awards.
★ ''
Anansi Boys'' won him a second
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in
2006. The book was also nominated for a Hugo Award, but Gaiman asked for it to be withdrawn from the list of nominations, stating that he wanted to give other writers a chance, and it was really more fantasy than science fiction
[19].
★ Gaiman has won 19
Eisner Awards for his comics work.
★ From the comics fans in the rec.arts.comics
★ newsgroups, Gaiman won the
Squiddy Award for Best Writer five years in a row from 1990 to 1994. He was also named Best Writer of the 1990s in the Squiddy Awards for the decade.
★ in 2007 he was awarded the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award
[20]
Neil Gaiman and Shakespeare
★ Neil Gaiman draws on
Shakespeare as a literary source. Allusions to Shakespeare's writings can be found in''
Anansi Boys'', in which several lines of ''
Hamlet'' appear, and the protagonist is compared to ''
Macbeth'' more than once.
★ In ''
The Sandman'' series, Shakespeare himself appears in three stories. In these appearances he makes and fulfills a deal with
Morpheus, who grants Shakespeare the gift of inspiration in exchange for two plays celebrating dreams: ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream'' and ''
The Tempest''. (''Sandman'' #13, "Men of Good Fortune"; "Midsummer Night's Dream"; and "The Tempest.")
★ In ''
Neverwhere'' the protagonist misquotes the line "Lead On, Macduff" from ''
Macbeth,'' to which a character reacts: "Actually, it's 'Lay on, Macduff' but I didn't have the heart to correct him".
Bibliography
Main articles: List of works by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman has written many comics and graphic novels, as well as numerous books (including 5 novels). He has also created a number of audio books, a TV miniseries, and the scripts for several movies.
See also
★
List of fantasy authors
★
List of horror fiction authors
★
List of science fiction authors
References
1. "Gaiman Interrupted: An Interview with Neil Gaiman (Part 2)" conducted by Lawrence Person, Nova Express, Volume 5, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2000, page 5.
2. Dream weaver Stephen McGinty
3. A writer's life: Neil Gaiman
4. Neil Gaiman - Biography
5. Everyone has the potential to be great James Lancaster
6. Everyone has the potential to be great James Lancaster David Gaiman quote: "It's not me you should be interviewing. It's my son. Neil Gaiman. He's in the New York Times Bestsellers list. Fantasy. He's flavour of the month, very famous."
7. "East Grinstead Hall of Fame - Neil Gaiman", East Grinstead Community Web Site.
8. "Neil Gaiman". Exclusive Books.
9. [1]
10. [2]
11. ''Science Fiction Weekly Interview''
12. ref?
13. Neil Gaiman on Stardust and Death: High Cost of Living!
14. The best film of 2006 was...
15. Tori Amos, "Tear in Your Hand," Little Earthquakes
16. "Gaiman Interrupted: An Interview with Neil Gaiman (Part 2)" conducted by Lawrence Person, Nova Express, Volume 5, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2000, page 2.
17. "There's a first time for everything", Neil Gaiman's journal, 28 September 2005
18. Honor roll:Fiction books
19. Hugo words...
20. [3]
★
External links
★
Neil Gaiman's personal web site
★
★
Neil Gaiman's weblog
★
Official site for children's books with Dave McKean (US publisher)
★
Official site for children's books with Dave McKean (UK publisher)
★
★
★
★
neilgaiman.info: The Neil Gaiman wiki
★
Exhaustive Neil Gaiman Bibliography
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
