Two things can be true at the same time:

A: The allegations of sexual and emotional abuse against author Neil Gaiman, as well as the allegations surrounding his relationship with his son's nanny, are viscerally repugnant. They are published in an admirably well-reported article exist New York Magazine and its website vulture this week—and Gaiman denies most of this.

B: Works by Neil Gaiman, including comic series Sandman and novels american gods and The ocean at the end of the alleyhas been compelling, insightful, and inspiring to many, including myself.

A does not make B's fundamental, enduring truth disappear. B also does nothing to allay A's fears.

last year, on the Turtle Media Podcast The Master: The Charge Against Neil Gaiman, Five women came forward alleging that they had previously experienced unwanted and often violent sexual behavior from Gaiman. Reporter from New York The magazine interviewed four of the women, as well as four new ones, in an article this week that included accounts of forced sexual contact, violent sexual assault, and even sexual advances and unwanted advances in the presence of Gaiman's young son. Allegations of sexual conduct. Gaiman denies this. The plaintiffs are all adults, most of whom are much younger than Gaiman, including his son's former nanny, who was in her early 20s when she met the author, who was 61 at the time.

"As I read this latest collection of accounts, there were moments I half-understood and moments I didn't recognize, descriptions of what happened juxtaposed with things that clearly didn't happen," Gaiman said. wrote in an article on his website after New York Magazine article published. "I am far from a perfect person but I have never engaged in non-consensual sex with anyone." He added: "I do not admit to any abuse."

While we don't know whether these disturbing accusations are true, learning about them naturally raises a deeply personal and complex question: How do we deal with accusations against artists we admire and even respect?

I should point out: this is a complex issue most us. It doesn’t sit well with those who rush to proclaim on social media that they’ve never really liked a creator’s work, or that they’ve always been skeptical of a creator’s work, or that absolutely everyone’s only possible reaction is to get out of the present complex. Poisoning the art they loved so much before learning of the charges against their creators.

It's not that complicated for those who insist that the personal lives of creators have no bearing on how we choose to respond to their work, and that art history is a series of horrific, relentless monsters who created lasting, inviolable Beautiful work. .

However, most of us find ourselves stuck somewhere in the middle. We'll make personal, concrete choices, we'll pick from art, and we'll imagine ourselves, for years to come, gently tasting from the artist's collection of salad bars and feeling a little bad about it.

Closing the door on future work for artists

My personal approach whenever accusations are made against an artist whose work is important to me is this: I view the moment I get to know them as a turning point. From that moment on, it was all about me.

Knowledge of these accusations will color their past work should I choose to revisit them in the future. It doesn't change the impact those works had on me at the time, and there's no point in pretending it does. But my new understanding of these claims can and will change the impact these works have on me today and tomorrow.

From a practical standpoint: if I owned any physical media of their past work, I could revisit it at will, while leaving plenty of room for new charges to influence my impressions. But as for future work – that’s a door I’m more than willing to close.

Take Gaiman, for example. I've written extensively about how Gaiman Sandman It unlocked something in me - a love of big stories, a love of grand mythological themes and characters rooted in everyday life, a love of finding magic in the mundane. If I go back and pull these graphic novels off the shelf, I'll remember my younger self marveling at a series that began as a scary little horror comic - a series so influenced by the work of Stephen King that it felt Usury – can be transformed into an epic story, using anthropomorphic representations of abstract concepts such as dreams, death, and desire to address human issues such as family, alienation, guilt, and responsibility. Reading this book is like witnessing an artist emerging from the shadows of adolescence and finding her own, quiet and confident voice.

This will never change. But based on what I understand about the allegations so far, my thoughts and concerns about him or his future work - and most importantly, money - will change. Everything will end. Season 2 of the Netflix adaptation Sandman It seems to be on its way and I absolutely loved everything about the first one. But I will leave.

I admit, this is an arbitrary distinction. But importantly, choosing the moment when I learned of Gaiman’s charges as the dividing line between engaging with him and not engaging with him was a choice. In a way, it feels declarative. The smallest flag, planted firmly in the ground.

I did the same thing with JK Rowling. Now, I've never been as closely connected to her work as I am to Gaiman's, but At one point she launched a fierce campaign against it on Twitter Thinking trans women are women, I decided she didn't need my support and moved on. this Hogwarts Legacy From the videos I've seen on TikTok, the game does look like a lot of fun. I idly wondered if it would be worth it to go to a Harry Potter theme park and buy myself a wand. But involvement in the properties could mean putting more money in her pocket and represent a clear affirmation of her hostile stance. To me, giving up a game, a ride, or the wizarding experience of choosing a wand isn’t a sacrifice at all; It's pretty much the least I can do.

Alice Munro's writing tapped into the human soul and made me want to be a writer. It chilled me when her daughter wrote that she was sexually abused by Munro's second husband and the author did nothing about it. How could such an insightful, probing, and perfectly authentic writer be lying to herself about her daily life? For your own daughter?

Munro's situation was different, of course - she died before these accusations came to light, so I won't have any more of her work in the future - but they will forever color every word she wrote.

I understand that some people believe that a creator's entire canon should be declared banned once accusations of their behavior come to light. In Gaiman's case, he was allegedly abusing his victim while I was enjoying the first season on Netflix Sandmanand american godsand his books Coraline and The ocean at the end of the alley. Why does the fact that I didn't know about the charges at the time matter? Now that my blindfold is gone, why do these pieces remain in my library?

My only answer is: they remain in my physical library as they remain in my memory. Removing them from one does not make them disappear from the other. The impact these works had on me when I first encountered them cannot be changed, but the impact they have on me today and in the future can and will be. And - and I think most importantly - I will not give Gaiman a penny for his past work, present and future endeavors.

but give Sandman My ratings eyeballs are still starting to rise in the second season Hogwarts Legacy — these actions, in some small way, represent a sane, knowledgeable endorsement of Gaiman and Rowling that I am no longer willing to grant.

I can't separate the art from the artist, it's impossible for me. But knowing what I now know about the accusations, I can and will separate myself from this artist's future work. There is no doubt that this work will continue and will continue to be devoured by the fans who support him. The fact that I am not one of these fans makes no difference to Gaiman, nor does it make any difference to his alleged victims. But it will make a difference for me - a small but noticeable change.

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