Well, I used to like Neil Gaiman.

But I never read Sandman, and the first book of his stories I read, I only partially liked. I particularly enjoyed a story about an old woman who bought the Holy Grail at a thrift shop. A few stories I didn’t like at all, and most of the others were fine.

Before I read the book, I actually came across a video of Gaiman speaking at Google. It was some series the company had, and Gaiman wasn’t as famous then. I had looked for videos of writers, and that came up. Not knowing who he was, I watched anyway, and I ended up liking what he had to say about writing. Then I saw a copy of Stardust, and I loved the illustrations by Charles Vess. Then I saw the movie Mirrormask, which was weird in all the ways I appreciate.

Actually, I may have the order of events wrong. The more I think about it, the less sure I am of what came first. Somewhere around this time, a friend lent me the book, Good Omens. I got a kick out of it. So, I found more interviews and read a few more books. I enjoyed the books, though they were never my favorites. I enjoyed the movies, Coraline and Stardust. Mostly, it was his interviews and talks that made me a fan. My husband bought me a ticket to go see Gaiman in person. A friend bought me a subscription to Masterclass, so I could watch that. I bought more and more Gaiman books.

And now here we are.

Look, I’ve read plenty about not making people heroes and the death of the artist. Yeah, yeah. I know some people will say, “I always knew he was a creep.” Does anyone, though, get through life without being fooled by a creep? Who from the get-go has such a fine creep detector? And what do the stories and art of an author or artist reveal? Writing about creeps doesn’t have to mean one is a creep, after all.

Others will shrug and say something about how we’ll have nearly no art left if we throw out all the work by terrible people. Well, I don’t think this is true. Plenty of decent people make great art. Maybe we just give too much attention to certain types of artists.

These horrific acts by a beloved author (artist/singer/actor/etc) spark more arguments about keeping the work, where is the line, and all that. Other people have made better arguments than me. To me, it’s usually personal. My experience with the art depends on a lot of things. Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe did things I can’t condone, but I love their work. And they’re long dead. If I teach about them, I teach the good and the bad.

But what can be forgiven? Can someone learn and be better? Do I believe in understanding or redemption? Sometimes yes. Sometimes, absolutely not.

It’s no fun to admit you’ve been had. And of course, Gaiman isn’t the only conman out there.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

At least with artists, it’s fairly easy to throw out the books or the DVDs or the posters. (Sure, I could keep Gaiman’s books, but frankly, I don’t want to see his name. The books no longer spark joy, as they say. And I always need more shelf space anyway.) But sometimes admitting to the bamboozle means throwing out a community you’ve built around it, and that’s a helluva lot harder to do.

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Thanks for reading!