#separating art from the artist

[howlingday]

I dunno who needs to hear this, but...

Liking Harry Potter does not make you a transphobe.

Liking Ren & Stimpy does not make you a pedophile.

Liking a creation does not mean you approve of the creator's personal actions. You can separate the art from the artist and like a series for what it is without diving into the politics and scandals that the creator was involved in.

[gemliteraturedtooclosetothesun]

Neil Gaiman

I think this is an important lesson on the concept of removing the art from the artist, as many people are already saying to do about Gaiman. “Sure,” they say. “What he did was wrong, and there is no excuse. But his books did nothing wrong.”

I know I’m hardly the first person to make the connection between the character Madoc and Gaiman himself—especially since the Vulture article lays it out very clearly. To those of you who haven’t read the article or Sandman, the character Richard Madoc is a writer who loses inspiration after a successful debut novel and receives a naked woman (Calliope, one of the Nine Muses) as a gift from another author, who he proceeds to rape continuously as ideas flow to him. Madoc collects awards, fans and general fame until Sandman punishes him in a poetically justified manner. This story allegorises the painful experiences of women worldwide who are sucked dry of their energy, souls, lives, ideas, love, identity and used by men who have no care for the impact their actions have on their victims. It was a beautiful and apt depiction of the inhumane act of vampirism and violation and painted such an accurate picture of the many weapons wielded against women that I could not help but believe the author is someone who cares very deeply about women and the downtrodden. Right? Right?

Why is this story particularly important? And why does it lead to a further discussion about separating art and artist? 

Well, anyone with any amount of critical thinking skills can draw a handful of parallels between Madoc and Gaiman. They’re both successful artists, consider themselves feminists and have made announcements to that effect, and ultimately fail to uphold the moral standards of the works they publish. And both of them have thoroughly misled the world at large about their own natures. In fact, according to the Vulture article, people likened Gaiman not to Madoc, but Sandman himself, as they are both considered an “inexhaustible fountain of story”.

So how can I ever hope to separate creation and maker? How can I ever continue to support the works of someone who KNOWS. Because he does. He knows exactly what the impact of his work is, knows enough about the moral pillars of our society to accurately represent the interpersonal complexities of sexism, sexual assault and feminism played out in his works. How can I ever consume more media from a man who has made a mockery of our daily struggles, who reaps the awards and the glory and the money from a parody of the uphill battles every woman fights every day to assert her identity in a world created to pander to everyone else? 

I refuse to read fake feminism from an anti-feminist, refuse to read about the horrors of sexual assault from a sexual assaulter. I refuse to support this man in any endeavours he takes. I own no copies of any of his books and don't intend to get any. I’m not saying to burn your books—they're your property, and you've already gotten them, treat them with respect—but as someone whose most awaited show release since 2022 has been the second season of The Sandman, I don’t think I’ll watch it now, and if I do it’s to support the artists, and I’ll probably pirate it, to be honest. 

All this to say, there is no feasable way to remove the art from the artist. The art is an extension of the artist and even if we remove all economic and social advantages creators get from their content from the equation, we’re left with the stark realisation that when an author has personal morals that inherently clash with his works, it’s because he measured those morals and found them wanting for portrayal, therefore choosing to pretend at being a good person to achieve his goals and sell his trade. And I’m not so deprived of perfectly good literature that I’ll swallow my pride and sense of morality to take in the ironic preaching of a man who doesn’t believe in his own gospel. 

[theguildwriter]

Neil Gaiman: A Monster Among Men

I wasn't sure if I was going to write anything about this. In a way, I'm still processing it but feel that putting my thoughts to paper may help that process along. I am not the sort of person that dwells on most current events or suffers from the kind of parasocialism that gives me faith in people I've never met. Often, when a celebrity falls from grace, I pay attention to the story, frown, and shake my head in disappointment, but the investment stops there. Even when I enjoy their work, I don't translate their talent to morality, and I don't mistake their charisma in interviews for anything tangible, certainly not intimacy.

There have been stories that have disturbed me, and for the sake of the crimes and the victims, I have felt outrage, sympathy, passion. But I never took personal offense from the perpetrator. Never felt let down or wronged in any capacity. Yesterday, that changed.

I discovered Neil Gaiman late in life. I had heard of Coraline, but I had been easily frightened as a kid and didn't discover a love for horror until my teens. I had skipped over tales like Coraline and jumped directly into the deep end with IT, Carrie, The Shining, etc. King had my heart first and still does. Then, when it came to fantasy, well, I was the Potter generation. I went from Rowling to Lewis to Paolini to Tolkien to McKinley and on and on I went.

It wasn't until the pandemic that I stumbled across Gaiman. I had been gifted a Masterclass subscription for Christmas and had found his class on Storytelling. I decided to try the first video and was instantly charmed by his calm, measured speech, that lullaby of a voice that taught storytelling as if it was an arcane art. His approach to writing connected with something deep in my soul and dissolved a block I didn't know I had.

After finishing his class, I bought countless books of his. I started with Coraline, then American Gods, then Trigger Warning, then Good Omens, and on and on. I consumed as much of his content as I could get my hands on. I watched lectures online, found interviews on podcasts, and attended one of his events in 2022. My husband listened to him that night and was drawn in as well and spoke admirably of him in the years that followed. We read The Sandman comics together.

I felt that Gaiman was a generational talent. I, unfortunately, still feel that. He is a well of creativity, and his sins do nothing to take that away from him. In fact, his sins do all but take it away from him. They instead tarnish it, fill the well with toxic, gurgling sludge that poisons all that once drank from it and riddles us with this feverish disgust and contempt.

Headlines of major publications won't use the word, so I will: rape. What he did, to call it "assault" feels a violation in and of itself. That cannot encompass the vileness of what he did. He raped those women. He did it with a casualness that feels sociopathic. He brings to mind that quote from Sherlock villain, Culverton Smith: "I like to turn people into things. Then you can own them (Season 4, Episode 2)." The approach he had to these women reeks of that sentiment; he handled them as toys, as a pretty inheritance the world owed him simply for the grace of his presence.

I'll admit that when the allegations first were announced last summer, I was hesitant to believe them. I had, at the time, little information about them beyond their existence and had heard (at the time) his claims that he would be cooperating with the police. I remembered the storm that initially brewed around Johnny Depp when he was first accused by his ex-wife, Amber Heard. I decided to wait for more information and, until then, pause my consumption of any new work.

I almost forgot about it. In my initial binge of Gaiman's work, I had overstuffed myself, had purchased all the books I had planned to until new releases, had moved on to other authors I had discovered since him or, even, through him (Terry Pratchett, a god amongst writers). I caught up on Sanderson's works in time for Wind and Truth, did a horror-genre stint by re-reading IT for Halloween and washing it down with Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth, and started 2025 with Normal People by Sally Rooney and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. When I opened Instagram on January 13th and saw an account refer to the article, I could only stare. These weren't mild allegations (if any sexual assault allegations can, in fact, be mild, but, hopefully, you understand my meaning); this was aggressive, deplorable, dehumanizing rape.

I searched for the article (non-paywall link here) to read it for myself. Not only did the allegations have solid sources, detail, pictures to establish timelines, a consistent story from women across the globe who have never met one another, and the existence of payoffs and NDAs, but it was written with care and diligence by the author, Lila Shapiro. This is someone who had not only done her homework but seemed to understand -- if not have, at one point, felt it herself -- the love fans had for this author and the gravity of his career on the literary world.

If you're here for a summary of the article, you're in the wrong place. I have no wish to repeat it. The things this man did to women in their most vulnerable states are, to put it simply, shockingly vile. They were in the interest of his inflation to godhood and the reduction of his victims to sub-human. "Call me Master," he told them. I can hear it now, in that velvety voice he used to read poetry and tell of the magic of stories. But the lighting has changed, the camera angle has shifted, and the music, once the soothing melody of a gentle hero now dips to sinister tones that tell of a villain.

Though Gaiman is not responsible for his upbringing, I did find his work for the church of Scientology in his teen years to be of note. He was raised by people who had cultivated a talent for sniffing out the vulnerabilities in others, in prodding at the right places and luring them into their caves. And, in his adolescence, he had excelled working for them, had gotten to exhibit all that he had learned and had been called "ambitious" and "precocious." Instead of breaking the cycle of abuse, Gaiman had learned how to spin it to his advantage.

As I read the article (aloud, to my husband, who sat with an expression that darkened with every sentence), I felt many things: disgust, anger, sorrow, even pain at certain points, but the one thing I never felt was disbelief. Reflecting on this, I realize that had there been any doubt in my mind that these events happened the way they were recounted, I would have felt some disbelief. But there was something about him that communicated this darkness, something that your gut knows even if it doesn't let your brain in on the secret. It's the same instinct that finds faces in the shadows and tunes in to small sounds in the woods. It's the most basic instinct that searches for predators in our peripheries.

I feel a part of me wasn't surprised because I had learned that a love and talent for art, philosophy, and beautiful words did not make one an angel. The devil has been known to wield these well in stories told since mankind's beginning. I thought of The Judge from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Though Gaiman is no murderer, I felt a connection between the two entities: predators that felt they were gods walking amongst men, felt that their talents had earned them power and that power granted them the right to any fleeting desire. The Judge has beautiful monologues in the book; he is an educated man, the owner of a tongue not of silver but of gold. Yet he is Pennywise in a book filled with Henry Bowerses. He is the thing all things were born to watch the shadows for, the ultimate monster.

For what worse monster is there than one that speaks like an angel?

These past two days, I've caught glimpses of his name on my shelves and felt a horrible, sinking feeling in my stomach. I kept flashing back to the things I had read, kept hearing that voice say, "I'm a very wealthy man, and I'm used to getting what I want." I went out to our living room, where our bookcases with some of my favorite books were out in the gleaming mid-morning light, and I pulled one after the other off the shelf. He had been sharing one with Terry Pratchett and Brandon Sanderson. I left three books: a beautiful hardcover of American Gods, a Barnes & Noble Classics hardcover print of Anansi Boys, and the box set of The Sandman. These things I left because all were gifts, and all three are beautiful to display. I could at least treasure the love they had been given with and the joy I had gotten reading them. The others were brought to shelves at the back of the house, wedged out of immediate sight. Still, they seemed to leer at me throughout the day.

The question before me now is: where do I go from here? The answer: anywhere. I am freed of any admiration or obligation I once felt to an author I would have died to get to pay my work a compliment. I now shift into a phase that has been long coming: one where my work seeks no validation. One where my work is a joy to create and brings satisfaction solely through existing. I wish that the death of an idol had not been necessary, but I see now as Harry Potter once had that once this entity had fallen, he was just a man (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 744).

I'll quote here some words from Kieran Healy, who posted on Threads under @kieran_edits_stuff:

"Regarding Neil Gaiman, I recently read 'Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma' by Claire Dederer, and the question posed by that book essentially is "Is it okay to consume the art of a monster? Is there a line?" It's a difficult question...

Am I complicit in their depravity? Does their work retroactively suffer? Dederer called it "the stain."

[...]

Personally, I think the answer is mostly "no." Will I buy another Neil Gaiman book? Probably not. But it doesn't mean that "The Sandman" wasn't revelatory and an awakening for me... I'm still going to love "The Ocean at the End of the Lane..." and I'm going to hope every artist I love who turns out to be a fucker gets caught and (threadacted)."

This may not be the approach for everyone. Some may feel that I am not doing enough, that I am not taking enough of a stand against a monster who stands to profit from the content I consume. To that I say: the books are bought. I do not plan to buy more. The good and true things he has written up until now are still good and true, even having come from him. Despite the evil that he has put out into the world, he has rippled out good as well. He has inspired us to be brave, has encouraged us to seek magic, and has told us that we deserve love. Though it seems he has believed none of these things and certainly has practiced none of them, he has affected us all the same. These stories have made us better than he could ever dream to be, and that hoard of gold he sits upon now will do nothing to scrub his soul.

I will pass on the good and true things to my children, remind them that monstrous men will say things they don't believe and yet they will speak truth in spite of themselves. I will remind them that the art they consume can inspire good while not being made by people who practice it. Gaiman was only discovered after decades of this behavior. There are many whose work we love who may do evil that we will never uncover. But we can fight back. We can be the good they could only dream to be.

[scavengertier]

I've seen a lot of bad takes on here (this site is basically the bad takes hall of fame tbh) but something that's particularly interesting to me is people that preach critical consumption of media until the creator of said media is actually a bad person, then you're in extreme danger of ingraining their bad sentiments and becoming Bad by virtue

[the-uncanny-dag]

[justlisalisa]

I'm honestly torn about listening to T*ylor Sw*fts music. How far can sepparating the art from the artist go? How much am I supporting her terrible behavior by listening to one of her albums?

I'd never go see a show of hers, for multiple reasons, but man - I can't make up my mind. The way she's just like any other billionaire just gives me a foul aftterimage whenever I hear her music.

[canisalbus]

✦ Freshly ordained ✦

[evenlyevi]

By the lake

[meo-eiru]

I CAN DRAW AGAIN🥹🥹🥹

I've been constantly thinking about this guy lately so I decided to draw him

[spilladabalia]

Separating Art From The Artist (Is It Even Possible ? )

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[demadogs]

just wanna say that ive lost all respect for noah schnapp weeks ago and i continue to every time he does something more stupid than the last. free palestine.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[eggdrawsthings]

The Graveyard Book [2024 thesis project]

Part 1 - The Characters

Part 2 - Cinematic Moments, Color Scripts, and Sets + Props design.

[zipsunz]

state champs 🏀🏆

more omori OCs!! they were originally created for LM but have since wiggled their way into everything else. i want to make proper refs, but it's been… nearly a year now… so take these for now 🤲 a bunch of puppy jocks affectionately referred to as "the dog pack" as a whole 🐶

[mooniety]

"Don't let her frilly appearance fool you! She's more than wiling to dirty her dress for the sake of invention!"

see cut for reference sheets & alt design:

i still can't believe all of this started because i was watching a friend play fortnite & making popcat jokes on discord vc, i literally can't make this shit up.