Comic book writer and producer Marc Bernardin has posted on Blue Sky about the future of the comic book adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. Bernadin adapted the series from Neil Gaiman’s original novel, drawn by Shaun Martinborough, and published by Dark Horse Comics. It is one of a number of such titles from the publisher that have adapted some of Neil Gaiman’s adult fantasy works, including American Gods and Norse Mythology.
The last page of Anansi Boys #7 advertised a new issue #8 for February, but this will no longer be published. In recent months, Tortoise Media, NY Magazine, and Vulture have reported detailed allegations of abuse by a number of women against Gaiman. Gaiman has denied anything non-consensual.
Bernadin wrote with the accompanying visual from above, “Last week, Anansi Boys 7 hit stands. It will be the last issue. Dark Horse will not release a trade. I am incredibly proud of the work we did on the book. @smartinbrough.bsky.social 's lines were fantastic, @sotocolor.bsky.social 's hues were extraordinary, @david-mack.bsky.social slayed the covers. But all of that pales. Anansi Boys is about two brothers, twins. One is meek, timid, like a flopsy, set-upon puppy. The other brother is narcissistic, hedonistic, governed by nothing other than his own pursuit of sensation and pleasure. They seem so different, but they are very much flip sides of the same coin. Literally. I never gave too much thought about that. Until now. My heart breaks for the survivors and any pain seeing these books on the shelves might have caused.”
Feel bad for the folks who adapted it and are now getting screwed cuz of Gaiman.
Hopefully they will still get paid as per their contracts. It is a union show.
No residuals. Very hard to sell a comic that’s only half finished as part of a collection.
Residuals are bupkis anyway, despite the SAG strike, unless you’re very big name. And if you’re crew, you get no residuals at all.
Does the Screen Actor’s Guild have some relevance to this conversation about a comic book adaptation of a novel?
Considering UnderpantsWeevil and I were talking about the American Gods TV series and not the novel, that was not this conversation.
Is this a weird fediverse instance thing? Like I’m not seeing some comments? Cause this thread is about the comic adaptation of a novel which was cut short. OP was saying it’s a shame for comic writer who got screwed and is quoted in the body of this post.
Are you having that conversation in a different thread?
Goddammit, I gotta try and cancel my Kickstarter pledge for the Good Omens graphic novel
There’s £2.5m invested in that and cancelling isn’t an option and is going to harm Colleen Doran and the Pratchett estate.
However, people have been backing out and there have been no quibbles about it.
Pratchett wasnt an asshole too was he? Ive tried discworld but havent managed to get into it but i still want too.
Every new thing I hear about pratchett is how great of a person he was. Literally never heard anything negative about him.
When he heard that trans people were identifying with the dwarves in his novels, he was like “that wasn’t the intent but I’m happy all kinds of people are finding themselves in my characters”, so just generally great.
To put on one of his plays, you don’t pay his estate, you give a donation to a urangutan preservation society.
'To put on one of his plays, you don’t pay his estate, you give a donation to a urangutan preservation society. ’
I didn’t know that, and now I love the man even more.
Pratchett wasnt an asshole too was he?
Not as far as I’m aware. They wrote a book together in the late eighties and stayed in touch but Gaiman lived the rock and roll lifestyle while Pratchett lived in the countryside with his wife and daughter. Even people closer to Gaiman didn’t know, so it seems likely Sir Terry was completely unaware of what he was really like. The sad part is, Gaiman was a huge fan and drew on Pratchett’s work a lot, but he may have also cultivated the friendship and deployed it on every possible occasion as a kind of shield. So it would be tough on the Pratchett Estate to cancel this entirely. If Gaiman had any love for his mentor then he’d back away from this project too and do something like donate any money coming his way to charity.
And if you look up Colleen Doran’s history, she’s suffered sexual harassment and assaults in her time in the comic industry and has been vocal in calling this out. Yet she has worked with Gaiman for decades. If she has seen anything iffy she would have spoken up. She’s made a statement about the allegations on her Patreon, although she hasn’t gone into detail about the graphic novel because things are still up in the air. She has used some of the money from this for her cancer treatment.
Ive tried discworld but havent managed to get into it but i still want too.
I love them, snatched them up as they came out. Definitely give them a chance, they’re brilliant.
The nature of the accusations means only his partners at the time would have known unless they told someone else.
Deliberately violating consent during rough sex, etc, not sleezing around young fans or using power against subordinates.
Some of it was partly using power against subordinates, but they wouldn’t tell either.
I wont comment on Pratchett since i dont really know much about him. But i do seriously want to get into discworld, ive only read the first guards guards book and i liked most of the characters. But the story seemed to bounce around and just came off as nonsensical. By the end i found i liked parts of the book but coulent feel connected nor cared about the story. Did i pick the wrong storyline to start with? I read guards guards was one of the better storylines
Small gods is a good book, and fully self contained.
Pratchett sometimes struggles to tie things up nicely at the end, but you read his novels for the journey, not the destination.
Monstrous Regiment shows how DEI friendly he was.
Weird way to put it but I guess
I don’t understand what was weird about what I wrote. Is this a blind spot I should be concerned about?
I would advise not starting with the early books. Going Postal may be a good place to start.
Yeah, I’d just start with The Colour of Magic, which is where I started because it was the only one. There are Reading guides and Terry Pratchett suggests starting on Sourcery but I’d just blast through The Colour of Magic -> The Light Fantastic -> Sourcery and if it still isn’t working for you, move on to something else.
The nice thing about discworld is it evolves and spans so much that there’s dozens of genres in there to try
(Start with reaper man)
Pratchett was one of the incredible good people IMO.
The first few Discworld books were pretty rough.
After a couple he stops killing off half the characters every novel and it falls into a rhythm.
I literally don’t care if he was, he created something amazing. I’m sure he was an arsehole to somebody at some point during his life?
Undoubtedly, but probably not while wearing his author’s hat.
By that logic, many of Gaiman’s works are ok as well since by all accounts, he didn’t turn into a predator until later in his career after many of his most popular works were already finished. It sounds a lot like fame unlocked something dark in him.
I think the works and author are separate. However, borrowing from library or buying any Gaiman books will benefit the author, so the whole literature becomes tainted, including Gaimans books with coauthors.
deleted by creator
The literal hat? I’m not sure he ever took that off.
Damn, he really thought of everything.
That’s a weird link, it just takes me to their YouTube channel.
This cancelling of people, i can understand. The cancelling of art made by those people is beyond me. Will we destroy the Mona Lisa if we should find evidence that Leonardo was a sexual predator?
Canceling future stuff and destroying existing stuff are not the same, you can tell because they use different words.
I mean, if the story has a planned ending and you’ve destroyed any chance of that planned ending ever happening - you’ve effectively destroyed the existing media. I don’t really see the difference between the two in this instance.
So, are all the shows that are canceled without an ending also destroyed? Cuz I mean most of those aren’t even canceled for a reason, like this is (other than money).
Sure, they aren’t story-complete, but they aren’t gone, they are still available to consume, as are the first 7 releases of this series.
Just treat it like a cliffhanger. Lots of stories end that way on purpose.
Broadly speaking, the difference is that the artists around the project are going to move on to different projects while Gaiman is frozen out of anything new.
It’s an adaptation of an existing novel. Your analogy falls apart under the most minute of scrutiny
Difference between art which already exists and art which is being created. No one is saying to destroy what Gaiman has already made. They simply said they aren’t supporting his creation of more art on account of him being an asshole.
Of course you can decide not to buy/use/watch it. Thats up to you
Which is what Dark Horse just did.
Is he involved in it? Like Dead boy detectives is he involved? I guess at the very least he is getting money for it.
Bingo. Starve the beast.
The beast at this point has enough money to comfortably live 10 lifetimes without earning any additional income. I don’t think it matters one single shit whether we try to “starve” it or not. He’ll be long dead before it affects him in any way.
Still: art in itself is just art. Either good or bad. Thats not depending on the morals of the maker
Yes and gaiman can still make art, even if nobody buys it. Not supporting problematic artists is not the same as cancelling their art.
Are you suggesting Dark Horse should be forced to publish Gaiman’s book?
also in addition too the other comments: Davinci had no publisher like dark horse. The artist is free to continue creating art (no idea about the copyright situation about this series but in general).
Uh, no. Artists had sponsors. Wealthy nobles.
some did. davinci didnt. and since this is the example you came up with, i feel my point stands.
Your claim that Davinci had no sponsor runs contrary to what I’m reading. Do you have a citation to back that claim up?
did you read that? Because to me it really reads like it talks about davincis comissions. Which are not a publishing/patreoning deal. It even talks about his focus on his personal work outside those comissions. just because the word patreon is used in the article makes it support your point…
But for you i did another quick read of his wikipedia article (do you need a link to that or can you find that on your own?) and read that in the last 7years of his life he had the vatican as a patreon for his art. Before he had two other patreon for shorter times mostly for his engeneering, cartographing and organizing talent.
and to finish this petty argument of: even when all you claim is true. artist are still able to produce art without a publisher. which was my first point. heck even you can shoot him a donation so they are not as dependent on a publisher deal, if you feel that person deserves more funds. My original point was that a publisher breaking a deal, does not prevent the art from beeing made in principle. and this point stands imo, as i didnt see any conter argument against it yet.
A tiny minority did! And do, today.
We wouldn’t destroy it, but things with reproductions of it would probably stop selling so well and companies wouldn’t want to invest in them anymore. Which is exactly what is happening with Gaiman’s stuff.
I have to imagine Gaiman an benefits from sales of these books.
Yah I don’t get it either.
