Dave McKean Comments on Former Collaborator Neil Gaiman

"We were good friends for a while and I thought I knew him well."

Neil Gaiman's career has gone up in a poof of smoke over the past year with a string of sexual misconduct allegations stretching back nearly 40 years. Multiple women have accused the writer of a myriad of coerced sexual acts, which he denies. However, while Gaiman hasn't yet been tried in a court for his behavior, the court of public opinion hasn't been kind given the disturbing nature and volume of the claims.

Naturally, the public is curious what former colleagues of Gaiman now think about the writer in light of the accusations, and recently Dave McKean was asked to give a comment on the situation. McKean, whose many collaborations include works like The Sandman, Coraline, and others, was asked about Gaiman during Comicon Napoli 2025 by Fumettologica. Here's what he had to say:

The thing that does affect me about this whole sad story is that… you know, I haven’t spoken to Neil in 10 years. We were good friends for a while and I thought I knew him well. Maybe he’s changed over the years, or maybe I didn’t really know him. That really upset me. I think you can imagine, if you have a friend you think you know well and something, even related to his past, changes the perception you had of him. It is shocking and destabilizing. I have never spoken about it in public because I never talk about anything on social media. And then I knew him when he was still with his first wife, I never met Amanda Palmer. I don’t know the truth, I’m waiting for a court to decide.

McKean goes on to state that he feels sad for the fans, who he believes have been severely let down given the meaning of Gaiman's work to them, assuming the accusations are true. It's unclear if Gaiman will ever recover from this incident—the writer has seen several in-development projects canceled or truncated as a result of these accusations. As has been seen in recent years, many creators who are "canceled" for allegations of this ilk seldom make a comeback, regardless of innocence or guilt. It has not been lost on the public that Gaiman's public persona, where he rallied on the behalf of women in regular screeds, stands in stark contrast with the sort of person he allegedly has been behind the scenes.

Source: The Four Color Media Monitor