A number of Gaiman's fans now find themselves in the unfortunate position of trying to separate their previous enjoyment of his work from these vile actions. Personally, I've enjoyed the works of his I have read -- I can definitely see in them a mastery of craft -- but I woudn't go so far as to say I was a fan. The general consensus in these types of situations is that, if you learn a creator's actions are horrible, you stop buying their work and supporting them. Where things get uncomfortable for a lot of people is how they now relate to the works that they've already purchased. Is it okay to still enjoy them? Is it okay to even keep them? I think that's something every individual has to work out for themselves. I have a tendency to hold on to the physical work (after the initial purchase, it no longer benefits them regardless, and I might want to refer to it later in a more academic manner) but I will definitely emotionally re-evaluate how much I enjoy it. I won't beat myself up over having enjoyed it in the first place (if I did, indeed, enjoy it) but I don't hold any sentimentality towards the creator. At most, I might recognize the positive emotions I had associated with the work previously and appreciate that the work brought that out of me.
But, as I said, that's just me. If you feel betrayed and have the need to create a bonfire with all of the material, I've got no problem with that. You do what you need to do to exorcise any of those negative feelings. I'm not going to judge; it's no different than ripping up a photo of your ex.
Sadly, this isn't an uncommon story. Not necessarily any of the particulars but the general idea of a creator being well loved for some body of work that many people felt a deep connection with but then being discovered to be horrible in one way or another. J.K. Rowling has been the resident poster child here for several years; her Harry Potter books were very popular but she's become very vocal in her outright hatred of the trans community. But Rowling is hardly unique. Orson Scott Card, despite writing the critically acclaimed Ender's Game series, has been openly against homosexuality. On a much smaller scale, the popular Rat Queens series took a severe hit after artist Roc Upchurch was arrested for beating his wife. Where exactly you personally land in any of these types things depends on how egregious the creator's actions are/were and how exactly you emotionally related to their work. Again, do what you need to do to deal with any of this.
But here's the thing that's not sitting well with me on the Gaiman situation. (I mean, beyond what he did, obviously.) The comics press is, by and large, not discussing this in any way. The Comics Journal has thrown a sentence or two it buried in and among their weekly link roundup when someone else's article dropped. Bleeding Cool obliquely references it but only in their production updates for Good Omens that spend more time focusing on whether or not David Tenant is still on set. CBR, to their credit, does have several pieces reporting on various updates, but they're all under their TV or Movie sections, and don't show up at all if you only look at their Comics news. As far as I can tell, The Beat hasn't mentioned Gaiman literally at all since the charges first came to light. The only comics site I can find actually discussing it is Graphic Policy, which posted this piece about the latest discoveries on Monday.
I could maybe understand if Gaiman hadn't produced any comics work for several years, and was focusing on TV and film. You know, if he was not really a comics type person any more. Except he's been working on a comics adaptation Anansi Boys, which has been coming out monthly since last summer. He won an Eisner Award with Colleen Doran for Chivalry in 2023. Doran's working on a graphic novel of Good Omens with him literally right now. Gaiman is still very much a part of the comics industry. These sexual assualt charges are against someone whose work in comics has been lauded for literally decades and ignoring this as a news items makes journalists complicit in white-washing his behavior. Would this even be reported on at all if Gaiman hadn't branched out into television and film? I very much suspect not.
A few months ago, I complained about how comics journalism wasn't reporting on a lot of the things I was interested in, mostly because of capitalism. But if a news story about one of the most prominent comic writers in the past several decades sexually abusing multiple women isn't headline worthy at every comics news outlet, do we have comics journalism at all?
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