Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German artist known for his works of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, visual arts, and science.

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only. The term is often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers (less often for actors). "Artiste" (the French for artist) is a variant used in English only in this context. Use of the term to describe writers, for example, is certainly valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like criticism.

Dictionary definitions[link]

Wiktionary defines the noun 'artist' (Singular: artist; Plural: artists) as follows:

1. A person who creates art.
2. A person who creates art as an occupation.
3. A person who is skilled at some activity.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the older broad meanings of the term "artist":

• A learned person or Master of Arts
• One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry
• A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice
• A follower of a manual art, such as a mechanic
• One who makes their craft a fine art
• One who cultivates one of the fine arts – traditionally the arts presided over by the muses

A definition of Artist from Princeton.edu: creative person (a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination).

History of the term[link]

Although the Greek word "techně" is often mistranslated as "art," it actually implies mastery of any sort of craft. The Latin-derived form of the word is "tecnicus", from which the English words technique, technology, technical are derived.

In Greek culture each of the nine Muses oversaw a different field of human creation:

• Calliope (the 'beautiful of speech'): chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry
• Clio (the 'glorious one'): muse of history
• Erato (the 'amorous one'): muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs
• Euterpe (the 'well-pleasing'): muse of music and lyric poetry
• Melpomene (the 'chanting one'): muse of tragedy
• Polyhymnia or Polymnia (the '[singer] of many hymns'): muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric
• Terpsichore (the '[one who] delights in dance'): muse of choral song and dance
• Thalia (the 'blossoming one'): muse of comedy and bucolic poetry
• Urania (the 'celestial one'): muse of astronomy

No muse was identified with the visual arts of painting and sculpture. In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour.^[1]

The word art is derived from the Latin "ars", which, although literally defined means, "skill method" or "technique", holds a connotation of beauty.

During the Middle Ages the word artist already existed in some countries such as Italy, but the meaning was something resembling craftsman, while the word artesan was still unknown. An artist was someone able to do a work better than others, so the skilled excellency was underlined, rather than the activity field. In this period some "artisanal" products (such as textiles) were much more precious and expensive than paintings or sculptures.

The first division into major and minor arts dates back to Leon Battista Alberti's works (De re aedificatoria, De statua, De pictura), focusing the importance of intellectual skills of the artist rather than the manual skills (even if in other forms of art there was a project behind).^[2]

With the Academies in Europe (second half of 16th century) the gap between fine and applied arts was definitely set.

Many contemporary definitions of "artist" and "art" are highly contingent on culture, resisting aesthetic prescription, in much the same way that the features constituting beauty and the beautiful, cannot be standardized easily without corruption into kitsch.

The present day concept of an 'artist'[link]

Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art. An artist also may be defined unofficially as "a person who expresses him- or herself through a medium". The word is also used in a qualitative sense of, a person creative in, innovative in, or adept at, an artistic practice.

Most often, the term describes those who create within a context of the fine arts or 'high culture', activities such as drawing, painting, sculpture, acting, dancing, writing, filmmaking, photography, and music—people who use imagination, talent, or skill to create works that may be judged to have an aesthetic value. Art historians and critics define artists as those who produce art within a recognized or recognizable discipline. Contrasting terms for highly-skilled workers in media in the applied arts or decorative arts include artisan, craftsman, and specialized terms such as potter, goldsmith or glassblower. Fine arts artists such as painters succeeded in the Renaissance in raising their status, formerly similar to these workers, to a decisively higher level, but in the 20th century the distinction became rather less relevant^{[citation needed]}.

The term may be also used loosely or metaphorically to denote highly skilled people in any non-"art" activities, as well— law, medicine, mechanics, or mathematics, for example.

Often, discussions on the subject focus on the differences among "artist" and "technician", "entertainer" and "artisan", "fine art" and "applied art", or what constitutes art and what does not. The French word artiste (which in French, simply means "artist") has been imported into the English language where it means a performer (frequently in Music Hall or Vaudeville). Use of the word "artiste" can also be a pejorative term.^[3]

The English word 'artiste' has thus, a narrower range of meaning than the word 'artiste' in French.

Examples of art and artists[link]

See also[link]

Arts portal

• Art
• Art history
• Arts by region
• Artist in Residence
• Fine art
• Humanities
• List of painters by name
• List of painters
• List of composers
• List of sculptors
• Mathematics and art
• Social sciences

Notes[link]

References[link]

• P.Galloni, Il sacro artefice. Mitologie degli artigiani medievali, Laterza, Bari, 1998
• C. T. Onions (1991). The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Clarendon Press Oxford. ISBN 0-19-861126-9

Look up artist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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Neil Gaiman
Gaiman and his dog, Cabal
Born	(1960-11-10) 10 November 1960 (age 51) Portchester, Hampshire, England
Occupation	Novelist, graphic novelist and screenwriter
Nationality	British
Period	1980s–present
Genres	Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction, Dark fantasy
Notable work(s)	The Sandman, Neverwhere, American Gods, Stardust, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens
Spouse(s)	Amanda Palmer (2011–present) Mary McGrath (1985–2007)
Influences Douglas Adams, Alan Moore, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny,[1] Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, various fairy tales, G. K. Chesterton, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert A. Heinlein, Shirley Jackson, R. A. Lafferty, C. S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, H. P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, Clive Barker, Dave Sim, Thorne Smith, J. R. R. Tolkien, Peter S. Beagle, Gene Wolfe, Lewis Carroll,[2] Gilbert and Sullivan,[2] Tori Amos
Influenced Susanna Clarke, Ekaterina Sedia, Guillermo del Toro, Russell Payne, Dave McKean, Tori Amos
neilgaiman.com

Neil Richard Gaiman ( /ˈɡeɪmən/;^[3] born 10 November 1960^[4]) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Newbery Medal, and Carnegie Medal in Literature. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work.^[5]

Early life[link]

Gaiman's family is of Polish and other Eastern European Jewish origins;^[6] his great-grandfather emigrated from Antwerp before 1914^[7] and his grandfather eventually settled in the Hampshire city of Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores.^[8] His father, David Bernard Gaiman,^[9] worked in the same chain of stores;^[8] his mother, Sheila Gaiman (née Goldman), was a pharmacist. He has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy.^[10] After living for a period in the nearby town of Portchester, Hampshire, where Neil was born in 1960, the Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town; one of Gaiman's sisters works for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles. His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, "Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I’d say, 'I’m a Jewish Scientologist.'" Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his family's religion.^[11]

Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said, "I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them--which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it."^[2] One work that made a particular impression on him was J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings from his school library, although it only had the first two books in the trilogy. He consistently took them out and read them. He would later win the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third book in the trilogy.^[2]

For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series. He later recalled that "I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you...I'd think, 'Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses.' I liked the power of putting things in brackets."^[2] Another childhood favorite was Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which he called "a favourite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart."^[2] He also enjoyed Batman comics as a child.^[2]

Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools, includging Fonthill School in East Grinstead,^[12] Ardingly College (1970–74), and Whitgift School in Croydon (1974–77).^[13] His father's position as a public relations official of the Church of Scientology was the cause of the seven-year-old Gaiman being blocked from entering a boys' school, forcing him to remain at the school that he had previously been attending.^[11][14] He lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965–1980 and again from 1984–1987.^[12] He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology and living in a house in East Grinstead that was owned by his father. The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child, Michael.^[11]

Journalism, early writings, and literary influences[link]

As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Rudyard Kipling, Lord Dunsany and G. K. Chesterton.^[2] He later became a fan of science fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Alan Moore,^[15] Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Robert A. Heinlein, H. P. Lovecraft, Thorne Smith, and Gene Wolfe.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[2] He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society.^[16] His first professional short story publication was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in Imagine Magazine in May 1984, when he was 24.^[17]

When waiting for a train at Victoria Station in 1984, Gaiman noticed a copy of Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore, and carefully read it. Moore's fresh and vigorous approach to comics had such an impact on Gaiman that he would later write; "that was the final straw, what was left of my resistance crumbled. I proceeded to make regular and frequent visits to London's Forbidden Planet shop to buy comics".^[15]

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.^[2] Even though Gaiman thought he did a terrible job, the book's first edition sold out very quickly. When he went to relinquish his rights to the book, he discovered the publisher had gone bankrupt.^[2][18] After this, he was offered a job by Penthouse. He refused the offer.^[2]

He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including Knave. As he was writing for different magazines, some of them competing, and "wrote too many articles", he sometimes went by a number of pseudonyms: Gerry Musgrave, Richard Grey, "along with a couple of house names".^[19] Gaiman ended his journalism career in 1987 because British newspapers can "make up anything they want and publish it as fact."^[20][21]

In the late 1980s, he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humour" style.^{[citation needed]} 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.^[22]

Comics and graphic novels[link]

After forming a friendship with comic book writer Alan Moore,^[15] Gaiman started writing comic books, picking up Marvelman 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 2000 AD 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. Impressed with his work, DC Comics hired him, and he wrote the limited series Black Orchid.^[23] Karen Berger, who later became head of DC Comics's Vertigo, read Black Orchid and offered Gaiman a job: to re-write an old character, The Sandman, but to put his own spin on him.^[2]

The Sandman tells the tale of the ageless, anthropomorphic personification of Dream that is known by many names, including Morpheus. The series began in December 1988 and concluded in March 1996: the 75 issues of the regular series, along with an illustrated prose text and a special containing seven short stories, have been collected into 12 volumes that remain in print (14 if the Death: The High Cost of Living spin-off is taken into account). Artists include Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III, lettering by Todd Klein, colors by Daniel Vozzo, and covers by Dave McKean.^[2]

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 is destined to be the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber.

In the mid-90s, 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.^[24] They were later featured in Phage: Shadow Death and Wheel of Worlds. Although 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).^{[citation needed]}

Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with Michael Moorcock's anti-hero Elric of Melniboné 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.

Asked why he likes comics more than other forms of storytelling Gaiman said “One of the joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on Sandman, I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I’m writing novels I’m painfully aware that I’m working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. You know, you can go back. We have things like The Golden Ass. And you go, well, I don’t know that I’m as good as that and that’s two and a half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like – I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun.”^[25]

In 2009, Gaiman wrote a two-part Batman story for DC Comics to follow Batman R.I.P. It is titled "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" a play off of the classic Superman story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore.^[26][27][28] He also contributed a twelve-page Metamorpho story drawn by Mike Allred for Wednesday Comics, a weekly newspaper-style series.^[29]

Novels[link]

Neil Gaiman at the 2007 Scream Awards

In a collaboration with author Terry Pratchett (best known for his series of Discworld novels), Gaiman's first novel Good Omens was published in 1990. In recent years Pratchett has said that while the entire novel was a collaborative effort and most of the ideas could be credited to both of them, Pratchett did a larger portion of writing and editing if for no other reason than Gaiman's scheduled involvement with Sandman.^[30]

The 1996 novelization of Gaiman's teleplay for the BBC mini-series Neverwhere was his first solo novel. The novel was released in tandem with the television series though it presents some notable differences from the television series. In 1999 first printings of his fantasy novel Stardust were released. The novel has been released both as a standard novel and in an illustrated text edition.

American Gods became one of Gaiman's best-selling and multi-award winning novels upon its release in 2001.^[31] A special 10th Anniversary edition was released, with the "author's preferred text" 12,000 words longer than the original mass-market editions. This is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition that was released by Hill House Publishers in 2003. This is also the version released by Headline, Gaiman's publisher in the UK, even before the 10th Anniversary edition. He did an extensive sold-out book tour celebrating the 10th Anniversary and promoting this edition in 2011.

In 2005, his novel Anansi Boys was 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 debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.^[32]

In late 2008, Gaiman released a new children's book, The Graveyard Book. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. It is heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. As of late January 2009^[update], it had been on the New York Times Bestseller children's list for fifteen weeks.^[33]

As of 2008, Gaiman has several books planned. After a tour of China, he decided to write a non-fiction book about his travels and the general mythos of China. Following that, will be a new 'adult' novel (his first since 2005's Anansi Boys). After that, another 'all-ages' book (in the same vein as Coraline and The Graveyard Book). Following that, Gaiman says that he will release another non-fiction book called The Dream Catchers.^[34] In December 2011, Gaiman announced that in January 2012 he would begin work on what is essentially, "American Gods 2."^[35]

Film and screenwriting[link]

Gaiman wrote the 1996 BBC dark fantasy television series Neverwhere. He cowrote the screenplay for the movie MirrorMask with his old friend Dave McKean for McKean to direct. In addition, he wrote the localized English language script to the anime movie Princess Mononoke, based on a translation of the Japanese script.

He cowrote the script for Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf with Roger Avary, a collaboration that has proved productive for both writers.^[36] Gaiman has expressed interest in collaborating on a film adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[37]

He was the only person other than J. Michael Straczynski to write a Babylon 5 script in the last three seasons, contributing the season five episode "Day of the Dead".

Gaiman has also written at least three drafts of a screenplay adaptation of Nicholson Baker's novel The Fermata for director Robert Zemeckis,^[38][39] although the project was stalled while Zemeckis made The Polar Express and the Gaiman-Roger Avary written Beowulf film.

Neil Gaiman was featured in the History Channel documentary Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked.

Several of Gaiman's original works have been optioned or greenlighted for film adaptation, most notably Stardust, which premiered in August 2007 and stars Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Claire Danes, directed by Matthew Vaughn. A stop-motion version of Coraline was released on 6 February 2009, with Henry Selick directing and Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher in the leading voice-actor roles.^[40]

In 2007, Gaiman announced that after ten years in development, the feature film of Death: The High Cost of Living 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.^[41][42]

Seeing Ear Theatre performed two of Gaiman's audio theatre plays, "Snow, Glass, Apples", Gaiman's retelling of Snow White and "Murder Mysteries", a story of heaven before the Fall in which the first crime is committed. Both audio plays were published in the collection Smoke and Mirrors in 1998.^{[citation needed]}

Gaiman's 2009 Newbery Medal winning book The Graveyard Book will be made into a movie, with Neil Jordan being announced as the director during Gaiman's appearance on The Today Show, 27 January 2009.^{[citation needed]}

Gaiman wrote an episode of the long-running science fiction series Doctor Who, broadcast in 2011 during Matt Smith's second series as the Doctor.^[43][44] Shooting began in August 2010 for this story, whose original title was "The House of Nothing"^[45] but has been retitled as "The Doctor's Wife.^[46] In 2011, it was announced that Gaiman would be writing the script to a new film version of Journey to the West.^[47][48]

Blog and Twitter[link]

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 Website.^[49]

Gaiman generally posts to the blog describing the day-to-day process of being Neil Gaiman and writing, revising, publishing, or promoting whatever the current project is. He also posts reader emails and answers questions, which gives him unusually direct and immediate interaction with fans. One of his answers on why he writes the blog is "because writing is, like death, a lonely business."^[50]

The original American Gods blog was extracted for publication in the NESFA Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, Adventures in the Dream Trade.^[51]

To celebrate the 7th anniversary of the blog, the novel American Gods was provided free of charge online for a month.^[52]

Gaiman is an active user of the social networking site Twitter with over 1.6 million followers as of January 2012, using the username @neilhimself.^[53] Gaiman also runs a Tumblr account on which he primarily answers fan questions.^[54]

Personal life[link]

Home and family[link]

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer (Vienna 2011)

Gaiman lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.^[55][56][57] and has lived there since 1992. Gaiman moved there to be close to the family of his then-wife, Mary McGrath, with whom he has three children: Michael, Holly, and Madeleine.^[2][58]

Gaiman is married to songwriter and performer Amanda Palmer. The couple publicly announced that they were dating in June 2009,^[59][60] announced their engagement on Twitter on 1 January 2010,^[61] and confirmed their engagement on their respective websites two weeks later.^[62][63] On 16 November 2010, Amanda Palmer hosted a non-legally binding flash mob wedding for Gaiman's birthday in New Orleans.^[64] They were legally married on 2 January 2011.^[65] The wedding took place in the parlour of writers Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon.^[66]

Friendship with Tori Amos[link]

One of Gaiman's most commented-upon friendships is with the musician Tori Amos, a Sandman fan who became friends with Gaiman after making a reference to "Neil and the Dream King" on her 1991 demo tape, and whom he included as a character (a talking tree) in Stardust.^[67] Amos also mentions Gaiman in her songs, "Tear in Your Hand" ("If you need me, me and Neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king. Neil says hi by the way"),^[68] "Space Dog" ("Where's Neil when you need him?"),^[69] "Horses" ("But will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?"),^[70] "Carbon" ("Get me Neil on the line, no I can't hold. Have him read, 'Snow, Glass, Apples' where nothing is what it seems"),^[71] "Sweet Dreams" ("You're forgetting to fly, darling, when you sleep"),^[71] and "Not Dying Today" ("Neil is thrilled he can claim he's mammalian, 'but the bad news,' he said, 'girl you're a dandelion'").^[71] He also wrote stories for the tour book of Boys for Pele and Scarlet's Walk, a letter for the tour book of American Doll Posse, and the stories behind each girl in her album Strange Little Girls. Amos penned the introduction for his novel Death: the High Cost of Living, and posed for the cover. She also wrote a song called "Sister Named Desire" based on his Sandman character, which was included on his anthology, Where's Neil When You Need Him?.

Gaiman is godfather to Tori Amos's daughter Tash,^[72] and wrote a poem called "Blueberry Girl" for Tori and Tash.^[73] The poem has been turned into a book by the illustrator Charles Vess.^[74] Gaiman read the poem aloud to an audience at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco on 5 October 2008 during his book reading tour for The Graveyard Book.^[75] It was published in March 2009 with the title, Blueberry Girl.

Litigation[link]

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 write a single issue.

In issue #9 of the series, Gaiman introduced the characters Angela, Cogliostro, and Medieval Spawn. 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 who 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.

As intended,^[76] all three characters were used repeatedly throughout the next decade by Todd McFarlane within the wider Spawn universe. In papers filed by Gaiman in early 2002, however, he claimed that the characters were jointly owned by their scripter (himself) and artist (McFarlane), not merely by McFarlane in his role as the creator of the series.^[77][78] Disagreement over who owned the rights to a character was the primary motivation for McFarlane and other artists to form Image Comics (although that argument related more towards disagreements between writers and artists as character creators).^[79] 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, oral, agreement. McFarlane initially agreed that Gaiman had not signed away any rights to the characters, and negotiated with Gaiman to effectively 'swap' McFarlane's interest in the character Marvelman^[80] (McFarlane believes he purchased interest in the character when Eclipse Comics was liquidated; Gaiman is interested in being able to continue his aborted run on that title) but later claimed that Gaiman's work had been work-for-hire and that McFarlane owned all of Gaiman's creations entirely. The presiding judge, however, ruled against their agreement being work for hire, based in large part on the legal requirement that "copyright assignments must be in writing."^[81]

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court ruling in February 2004^[82] granting joint ownership of the characters to Gaiman and McFarlane. On the specific issue of Cogliostro, presiding Judge John Shabaz proclaimed "The expressive work that is the comic-book character Count Nicholas Cogliostro was the joint work of Gaiman and McFarlane—their contributions strike us as quite equal—and both are entitled to ownership of the copyright".^[83] Similar analysis lead to similar results for the other two characters, Angela and Medieval Spawn.

This legal battle was brought by Gaiman and the specifically formed Marvels and Miracles, LLC, which Gaiman created in order to help sort out the legal rights surrounding Marvelman (see the ownership of Marvelman sub-section of the Marvelman article). Gaiman wrote Marvel 1602 in 2003 to help fund this project.^[84] All of Marvel Comics' profits for the original issues of the series went to Marvels and Miracles.^[84] In 2009, Marvel Comics purchased Marvelman.^[85]

Gaiman returned to court over three more Spawn characters, Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany, that are claimed to be "derivative of the three he co-created with McFarlane."^[86] The original three characters, whose first appearance was never reprinted in Spawn trade paperback collections, are just now appearing printed for the first time. The judge ruled that Gaiman was right in his claims and gave McFarlane until the start of September 2010 to settle matters.^[87]

Gaiman is a major supporter and board member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.^[88]

Literary allusions[link]

Gaiman's work is known for a high degree of allusiveness.^[89] Meredith Collins, for instance, has commented upon the degree to which his novel Stardust depends on allusions to Victorian fairy tales and culture.^[90] Particularly in The Sandman, literary figures and characters appear often; the character of Fiddler's Green is modelled visually on G. K. Chesterton, both William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer appear as characters, as do several characters from within A Midsummer Night's Dream^[91] and The Tempest. The comic also draws from numerous mythologies and historical periods. Such allusions are not unique to Sandman; Stardust, for example, also has a character called Shakespeare.

Clay Smith has argued that this sort of allusiveness serves to situate Gaiman as a strong authorial presence in his own works, often to the exclusion of his collaborators.^[92] However, Smith's viewpoint is in the minority: to many, if there is a problem with Gaiman scholarship and intertextuality it is that "... his literary merit and vast popularity have propelled him into the nascent comics canon so quickly that there is not yet a basis of critical scholarship about his work."^[93]

David Rudd takes a more generous view in his study of the novel Coraline, where he argues that the work plays and riffs productively on Sigmund Freud's notion of the Uncanny, or the Unheimlich.^[94]

Though Gaiman's work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure laid out in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces,^[95] Gaiman says that he started reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true – I don’t want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it’s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."^[96]

Selected awards and honours[link]

Bibliography[link]

Notes[link]