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by David Bernard

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Niel Gaiman. Photo by Elliot Franks

His lifestyle is not likely to be emulated by A-list celebs, nor by most of the rest of us.

Neil Gaiman was named by Forbes Magazine as “the best selling author that nobody has heard of” less than ten years ago. For the recent past he has been unable to maintain that comparative anonymity. He is recognized as one of the best known and most successful writers of this generation.

On the fashion front, his style remains stubbornly individual. At a Fanzine convention in Orlando a decade back, on stage, holding a mike to take questions from the audience, he was asked when he got up in the morning did he have a problem on what clothes to choose. The question set a gale of laughter that lasted for a minute or more. Why? He wears black jeans or slacks, black tee shirt, and as gesture to success, black leather jackets that have become more expensive in the passing of time. It has remained his uniform for over twenty years, and has not changed in style.

Stardust poster. Image provided by DC Comics® and Paramount Pictures®

Beowulf Premiere. Photo by Elliot Franks

He drove the Mini Cooper when it was first released in the US which is as close as he will ever get to driving and owning a Ferrari. Currently he admits to owning a Prius the hybrid from Toyota. Never a creature of fashion, his watch is a Swiss Army watch. He loves and collects the latest electronic gadgets and things.

He has been seen in a tuxedo at least once. It was at the recent premiere in LA of the film Stardust based on his book of the same name. He was wearing it in that slightly embarrassed manner that one assumes when one is the only person at the party in fancy dress. By the London premiere of Beowulf he had reverted to type and appeared entirely comfortable in the black kit that is his trademark.

Apart from his bestsellers in the USA and UK, he has a faithful and completely international following from Japan to Poland and all points West. An Indian graduate student from Oxford confided, “The Sandman is our bible, and Neil Gaiman is the messiah.” For those who do not know, the Sandman is the graphic novel series that changed the perception of the comic. It has never been out of print, since he asked DC Comics to end it and not bring in another writer. (More on this later). His less than messianic response to the intellectual and esoteric interpretation of the work is: “It is a story, I make things up as stories”.

His list of awards and recognitions is very impressive. Neil Gaiman is the winner of 3 Hugos, 2 Nebulas, 1 World Fantasy Award, 4 Bram Stoker Awards, 9 Locus Awards, 1 British Fantasy Award, 2 British SF Awards, 4 Geffens, 1 International Horror Guild Award, 2 Mythopoeic Awards, not bad for a man who claims “I just make up stories”.

Photo by Elliot Franks

He has won practically every award available in the genres in which he has written. His fans make a very diverse and motley crew that includes: the late Norman Mailer (who said of Sandman, “Along with all else, Sandman is a comic strip for intellectuals, and I say it’s about time.”), Stephen King, Tori Amos (Tori Amos sings about Neil on her albums Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink, Boys for Pele, and Scarlet’s Walk), Harvey Weinstein, Tarantino’s mother, and Claudia Schiffer.
Neil’s writing career began in earnest when at 20 or so he read that Robert Silverberg was in London. Knowing nothing of the protocol, he phoned the Daily Telegraph and asked for the Mandrake Columnist (Mandrake was then a political, social and media commentary column).

“Do you know that Robert Silverberg is in town?”

“Who is Robert Silverberg?”

“The man that put sex into Science Fiction,” Neil lied. “I can do an interview for you with him”.

“We can pay you two hundred pounds.” said the Mandrake man. “But if you call Penthouse they will give you five hundred pounds for two thousand words.”

Neil called them and a freelance journalist professional was born.

Over the next few years he wrote a series of interviews on British and American personalities. Unlike a number of interviewers, he never abused his subject, never indulged in snide or cheap knocks and was genuinely interested in the subjects of the interviews. He wrote on the Monty Python members and was referred from one to the other. Douglas Adams who wrote for them at one time, (yes, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, etc.) was one of the interviews. Being decent pay, when asked to do the compendium for Hitchhiker Adams, who really did not enjoy writing, was not interested in doing it and told the publishers to have Neil Gaiman do it. The affinity and respect that Gaiman has for Adams is reflected in the compendium, which was published and later republished as Don’t Panic.
In 1987 he and Dave McKean wrote and drew Violent Cases a graphic novel. The publisher who commissioned it had disappeared before it was complete, so they took it along to Forbidden Planet, a Mecca (store), in London for the fantasy and science fiction sector. It was published by Titan and became a collectors’ item. It was a new type of comic, not least for the assumption that the reader was an intelligent and social individual.

Beowulf poster. Image provided by DC Comics® and Paramount Pictures®

For Dave McKean, the partnership with Neil was the commencement of his own multi-talented professional career, and a friendship based on mutual professional respect as well as affection. The association benefited them both, and continues.

Some time later, so the legend goes, in the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London, sat three executives from a division of the Warner Brothers Corporation. They were from DC Comics. Since Alan Moore, had set a new direction in the graphic novel, they came to the UK to find sources of writing talent, that was a bit more sophisticated than the stereotype ‘Superhero’ of which the USA readership was tiring. One of these executives was Carol Berger, an editor at DC.

Scene 1: Outside the Hilton.
Dave: They probably will not want to see us.
Neil: Well let us go in anyway. We have nothing to lose.
Dave: OK, but if they throw us out, be it on your head.
(The above and what follows is fiction, as they say, based on a reconstruction of the actual events).

Scene 2: Outside of the DC exec’s suite in the Hilton.
Knock, Knock
Voice: Come in!
Enter two nervous young men.
Carol Berger: Who are you?
Neil: (apologetically British) I am Neil Gaiman and this is Dave McKean.
Carol Berger: We have been looking for you two for three weeks.

They were hired to write a graphic novel series, Black Orchid. It did moderately well. Carol Berger, in discussion with Neil, asked what he would like to do for them next. He suggested bringing back the Sandman, a character that DC had used in the thirties. Only instead of a gas masked phantom figure who sprayed sleeping gas on criminals, his Sandman would be metamorphed into the God of Dreams. Originally predicted to run for four to six issues, The Sandman became a phenomenon. By issue number four in the series it was established and, much to the surprise of everyone connected with the project, it went to an increasing fan base following for years and years. The issue titled Midsummer Night’s Dream was voted by the World Fantasy Writers Association the best short story of the year. Thereafter the rules were changed to prevent a comic from doing it again. It is still read and printed, these days in book collection editions. In 1999 his return to Sandman, by way of the prose book The Dream Hunters, with art by Yoshitaka Amano, won the Bram Stoker Award for best illustrated work by the Horror Writers Association, and was nominated for a Hugo Award. Neil asked DC not to use another writer for his Sandman when he ended the series, on the basis that he would come back when he had more to say, or rather write. For the first time in their history they agreed to do what they had not done for the creators of Superman and others. It has paid. 2003 saw the appearance of the first Sandman graphic novel in seven years, Endless Nights, which was published by DC Comics and was the first graphic novel to make the New York Times bestseller list. .

Sandman poster. Image provided by DC Comics® and Paramount Pictures®

The only thing he ever wrote “just for the money” was an unauthorized biography of Duran Duran that he does not think was very good.

His capacity for reinventing himself in differing genres has enlarged his constituency and increased his audience. Good Omens written with Terry Pratchett, is a very funny book.

(Gaiman is co-author, with Terry Pratchett, of Good Omens, a very funny novel about how the world is going to end and we’re all going to die, which spent 17 consecutive weeks on the Sunday Times (London) bestseller list in 1990 and has gone on to become an international bestseller.) The Day I Swapped My Father for Two Goldfish (listed by Newsweek as one of the best children’s books of the year, and was reissued to acclaim by HarperCollins) is for young children. Coraline and Wolves in the Walls (in 2003 The Wolves in the Walls, was named by the New York Times as one of the best illustrated books of the year) for older children. Stardust a fairy story for adults so impressed Claudia Schiffer (she had a broken foot and was pregnant at the time) that she made her husband Matthew Vaughn read it. He produced the film and, as they say, the rest is history. His six-part fantastical TV series for the BBC, Neverwhere, aired in 1996. His novel, also called Neverwhere, set in the same strange underground world as the television series, was released in 1997. It appeared on numerous bestseller lists, including the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Locus. Film rights to Neverwhere were bought by Jim Henson Productions; Neil admits to have written a draft of the script for the film. He was not happy with the BBC version and wrote the novel to show what he meant it to be.

‘

Image provided by DC Comics®

Until very few years ago Neil had many stories optioned for films and none ever made. At this time Stardust and Beowulf are in the cinemas and Coraline is in production. Director Henry Selick is making the film Coraline, with music provided by the band They Might Be Giants.

The Wolves in the Walls was turned into a “musical pandemonium” rather than an opera by the Scottish National Theatre. Neil wrote lyrics for it and Dave McKean, who had illustrated the book, did the design. (Dave also was the technical genius that made the film from Neil’s screenplay Mirror Mask).

American Gods and the more recent Anansi Boys novels have been international bestsellers (London Times, New York Times, etc.)

He travels and promotes his work and meets his fans and likes people.

He is, as are other family members, intensely interested in human rights issues. In August 1997 the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), a First Amendment organization, awarded Gaiman their Defender of Liberty Award. In 2000 he did the final series of Guardian Angel readings, which he began doing for the CBLDF in 1993, and replaced the retiring Frank Miller on the CBLDF Board of Directors. In September 2005 he was one of 17 bestselling authors who, in support of the First Amendment Project, auctioned off the chance to name a character in an upcoming book. It is doubtful if anyone has equaled or surpassed his contribution to the CBLDF.

This is a very decent individual who considers himself extremely fortunate. “People pay me for doing the things that I would most want to do. I would do it for nothing if they did not pay me!”
He has bought a place in the Scottish Highlands, lonely and near the sea.

Some lifestyles are just simply unique.

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