Creator / Neil Gaiman

Neil "Scary Trousers" Gaiman, master of modern horror^note Nickname bestowed by Alan Moore

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is a contemporary British writer of stories. Of all known kinds.

He's especially famous for his Urban Fantasy works, including the renowned The Sandman comic series, which was the only work in its medium to win a World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story ^note To prevent it happening again, they changed the rules so that comic books had to be relegated to their own special category, and couldn't be judged alongside prose works. Two of his novels, Stardust and Coraline, have been made into movies. He's also written scripts for other projects, such as MirrorMask by Dave McKean and the Neverwhere TV series. In addition, he worked on the translated script of Princess Mononoke. More recently, his young adult work The Graveyard Book became the first book to win both the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal. When they started running out of awards to give him, they began making up new awards specially for him. And most recently, he wrote two episodes for Doctor Who, The Doctor's Wife for Series 6 and Nightmare in Silver for Series 7.

A masterful storyteller, he excels at building fantastic, yet believable settings for his stories. His works are marked by extensive use of mythological references and symbolism, often times in "modern" settings. Also a notable One of Us, and despite his work's breathtaking popularity, he has remained remarkably humble and personable, managing to remain faintly bemused every time he finds hundreds of people waiting for him to sign their books or whatnot. Also, he's a highly respectable marsh-wiggle◊ with a very Nice Hat. Or, if you prefer, a Time Lord with a fondness for improbably long scarfs. Adorkable? Very.

Gaiman has some affection for Canon Defilement — and is living proof that this particularly negative trope isn't bad. He described Snow, Glass, Apples, a Perspective Flip of "Snow White", as a mindvirus that he hoped would prevent the reader from ever experiencing the original innocently again. His External Retcon of Beowulf pulls a similar trick. The Problem of Susan is something of a meta-twist on the concept, riffing off of Susan's exile from Narnia: her embrace of adolescence means that, retroactively, she experienced the original adventure as a Darker and Edgier pagan allegory. He is also fairly preoccupied with, though not necessarily an apologist for, Muse Abuse.

Stephen King thinks Neil may well be the greatest storyteller alive today, and has said so publicly. Considering that's Stephen King talking, that's saying something.

He's married to Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls. He has a Twitter account and a Tumblr blog, as well as a more traditional blog, one of the first blogs on the internet (it was originally created to document his promotion tour for American Gods back in 2001, and it took off from there). He's also been known to dispense writing advice to fans (often via Tumblr), which usually boils down to "Write something, and keep on writing."

Sang a song about Jeanne d'Arc with Ben Folds on piano. It is magnificent. Also sang the theme song from Fireball XL5 (in honor of Gerry Anderson's passing days earlier) onstage with Palmer during New Year's Eve 2012. It was... quirky.

He's a part-time professor at Bard College. He played a parody of his good friend Alan Moore in a student project (he appears around 24 minutes in).

He once delivered an awe-inspiring (and quite hilarious) commencement speech to the 2012 graduates of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Here◊'s a screen-breaking photo with him, Neal Stephenson and Neil Armstrong. Kneel before the Neils!

His latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, was released on June 18th, 2013.

His works include:

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Tropes of which Neil Gaiman is an example:

• Adam Westing: Specifically, his guest appearance on The Simpsons in 2011 where he claims he Never Learned to Read despite being a famous author. Ditto his appearance in The Guild.
• As Himself: In the second Shadow Police novel, The Severed Streets, Neil—with his involvement and permission—appears as a supporting character who has some information regarding the magic of London that the protagonists find useful. He also aids a villain in murdering one of the protagonists. He also appears in "The Original Dr Shade", a short story by Kim Newman.
• Adorkable: Just in case any further proof was needed, see this.

• Comically Missing the Point: An intentional example; when someone said to him, "I want to be a writer when I grow up. Am I insane?", Gaiman answered, "Yes. Growing up is very overrated. Just be an author."

• Deep South: On his blog Gaiman has actually expressed displeasure at the typical view of people in the American South, and asked why it took him 22 years not only to visit Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but to visit literally ANYWHERE in the US South outside of Atlanta, GA on his book signings.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Even after all these years of being recognized as one of Earth's greatest living writers he still seems to think of himself as a relatively normal person and is genuinely bemused at all the attention people give him.
• Limited Wardrobe: He dresses all in black in all public appearances. Until a few years ago he wore a black leather jacket in public appearances too. He used to claim to own the world's largest collection of black t-shirts, too.
• Messy Hair: In all his author photos, he sports an untidy dark mop. This is probably the inspiration for the looks of several characters he's written, including The Sandman, Richard Mayhew, and Tristran Thorn, not to mention the picture book Crazy Hair. One of his "about the author" notes includes the sentence, "He thanks you for the offer of a comb, but doubts that it would do any good."
• Money, Dear Boy: He's quite happy to admit this as the only reason he wrote a biography for Duran Duran early in his career. However, because of complications with the publisher, he never saw a dime save for his advance fee, which was only a few hundred £.
  • The book actually did make it to print before the publisher went belly-up and, ironically, copies of it can now fetch a good bit of money. It's also just about the only book about them that the members of Duran Duran actually liked.
  • His other early non-fiction book, Don't Panic, a book about Douglas Adams and The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, was a mixture of Money, Dear Boy and One of Us.

• Older Than They Look: He's pretty youthful for a guy born in 1960.
• One of Us: As this image◊ of Neil on the TARDIS set demonstrates.

• "Sesame Street" Cred: He guest starred as himself in an episode of Arthur.
• Shout-Out: Tori Amos says Hi by the way.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Neil Gaiman would like you to know he did not participate in spying on you. Especially those photos.

Tropes common in his work:

• All Myths Are True: This is the basic premise of American Gods, but it's common in other works.
• Animal Motifs: Used most prominently in Anansi Boys, but ubiquitous throughout his work.
• Apocalypse Cult: Shoggoths Old Peculiar has an (initially) Unfazed Everyman American tourist who visits the picturesque English town of Innsmouth and converses in a pub with the friendly Cthulhu-worshippers who live there. He ends up with a bad hangover and a "feeling of nameless dread" (TM).

• Blue and Orange Morality: Due to the frequent use of Eldritch Abomination in his works, they usually have their own morality.

• Commedia dell'Arte: Especially in Mr. Punch and "Harlequin Valentine".
• Contemptible Cover: Ghastly Beyond Belief certainly has a lurid cover. However, the book was something of an Affectionate Parody, so this may be what the authors were hoping for.

• Creator Thumbprint: His novel protagonists follow a specific pattern: young-ish males who are pretty much completely unfamiliar with the fantasy realm in which they find themselves, who survive and triumph by a combination of luck, compassion, and a lot of help from a more knowledgeable, often female character.

• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: It's entirely possible for main characters to meet with a Humanoid Abomination and have a perfectly pleasant time, not even realizing exactly what they were dealing with.

• The Everyman: The hero of his works is often this. Notably, the Anti Anti Christ in Good Omens winds up being described as "human incarnate" rather than "demon incarnate" as expected.
• Eye Scream: A recurrent theme.

• In Which a Trope Is Described: Used in the novels Stardust and Anansi Boys, the Sandman story arcs Season of Mists and Brief Lives. even the occasional Tweet.
• Light Is Not Good: Several works have villainous angels, and other similar subverted tropes.

• Old Shame: Invoked in promotions for the Humble Bundle, a collection of rare stories and books rereleased to raise funds for charity. These include his infamous debut book — a biography of Duran Duran — and a short story, “Manuscript Found in a Milk Bottle", which Gaiman claims "is so bad I've never let it be reprinted. Not even to give young writers hope that if I was that awful once, there is hope for all of them."
• Political Correctness Gone Mad: Deconstructed in a blog post in which he proposed replacing the polarizing term "Politically Correct" with the more accurate "Treating Other People With Respect."
  • He is however against the desire for censorship sometimes implicit in the PC movement, as discussed here
• Reference Overdosed: For more information click here.
• Surreal Horror: This cannot be stressed enough. The guy made buttons scary, for crying out loud. And, that's among the least of the screwy, nightmare, weirdly juxtapositioned tomfoolery he pulls on you. It's almost a relief when you get to see it upfront and in-your-face in such places as Delirium's realm, rather than sneaking up to randomly grab you from "normal" environments... like say, in Neverwhere. Or American Gods. Or anything else.
• Trigger: Invoked in the title of his short-story anthology Trigger Warning.
• Those Two Bad Guys: Many of his works have a pair of bad guys with little characterization outside of being an inseparable antagonistic pair. Examples include Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar; Hastur and Ligur; and Mr. World and Mr. Stone.

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