50 Fun Facts About Neil Gaiman

Which chart-topping 1980s pop band was the subject of Neil Gaiman's very first book, a biography?

Duran Duran gave him his first book credit in 1984, and its first edition sold out quickly even though Gaiman thought he had done a terrible job.

Which English comic-fantasy novelist co-wrote the end-of-the-world novel Good Omens with Neil Gaiman?

Terry Pratchett is honoured in the television adaptation, where his trademark hat and scarf appear in the angel's bookshop.

In Neil Gaiman's Coraline, what does the sinister Other Mother have where her eyes should be?

Black buttons are also her price: Coraline may stay in the Other World forever if she lets a pair be sewn over her own eyes.

At Neil Gaiman's request, artists on The Sandman first modelled Lucifer on which British rock star?

David Bowie's music later turned up in the television series Lucifer, which stars a version of the same character.

In which animated sitcom did Neil Gaiman voice himself in the heist-spoof episode The Book Job?

The Simpsons has him fetch food for Homer's team of writers, then reveals that he is the one listed as author of their finished novel.

Which Norse god is the con man Mr. Wednesday revealed to be in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?

Odin, posing as a grifter, spends the novel recruiting fading Old Gods for a battle against New Gods of technology and media.

Beneath which capital city does Richard Mayhew find a hidden magical realm in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere?

London Below makes familiar place names literal: Knightsbridge becomes Night's Bridge, and the Angel, Islington is an actual angel.

Which Rudyard Kipling classic did Neil Gaiman rework as a tale of an orphan raised by ghosts in a cemetery?

The Jungle Book came to mind as Gaiman watched his two-year-old son pedal a tricycle around a graveyard, and the idea became The Graveyard Book.

In Good Omens, every tape played in the demon's Bentley turns into the music of which rock band?

Queen duly fill the soundtrack of the television adaptation, which includes a brass band arrangement of Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon.

In Neil Gaiman's Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife, which of the Doctor's belongings briefly becomes a woman?

The TARDIS, speaking through a woman named Idris, tells the Doctor that she stole him rather than the other way round. The episode won a 2012 Hugo Award.

Which demon in Good Omens, played on television by David Tennant, began as the serpent who tempted Eve?

Crowley was originally called Crawly, and has stayed on Earth ever since the dawn of creation.

Which angel in Good Omens, played by Michael Sheen, owns an antiquarian bookshop and loves fine food?

Aziraphale once guarded Eden's east gate with a flaming sword, then gave it to Adam and Eve out of concern for them.

Which star of the 1996 film Fargo narrates the first series of Good Omens as the voice of God?

Frances McDormand is heard but never seen, in a cast that also has Benedict Cumberbatch voicing a computer-generated Satan.

Good Omens is subtitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of which 17th-century witch?

Agnes Nutter owes her surname to Alice Nutter, one of the victims of the 1612 Pendle witch trials.

Which director of The Nightmare Before Christmas made the stop-motion film of Neil Gaiman's Coraline?

Henry Selick was invited to adapt the story by Gaiman himself, a fan of his earlier stop-motion films who was still finishing the novella.

Which animation studio, backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, made Coraline as its first feature film?

Laika earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature with it, then made ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings.

Which Desperate Housewives star voices both the heroine's mother and the Other Mother in the film Coraline?

Teri Hatcher plays the busy real parent, Mel Jones, and her too-attentive double, whose true form is known as the Beldam.

The epigraph of Neil Gaiman's Coraline says fairy tales are more than true because they show what can be beaten?

Dragons can be beaten, runs the line, which Gaiman credited to G. K. Chesterton before admitting years later that the wording was his own.

Which ex-convict takes a job as bodyguard to the mysterious Mr. Wednesday in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?

Shadow Moon is released from prison early because his wife Laura has been killed in a car accident, leaving him with nowhere to go.

Which Deadwood star plays Mr. Wednesday in the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods?

Ian McShane had already lent his voice to another Gaiman adaptation, the stop-motion film of Coraline.

In The Sandman, which of the Endless is Dream's older sister, drawn as a pale goth wearing a silver ankh?

Death arrived in the eighth issue and became as popular as the title character, later starring in a spin-off series of her own.

Which literary prize did a Sandman issue based on A Midsummer Night's Dream win, a first for a comic book?

The World Fantasy Award for short fiction went to issue 19 in 1991, and it is the only comic book to have won one.

Which English actor plays Dream, also called Morpheus, in Netflix's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman?

Tom Sturridge also voices a feline version of his character in the animated episode Dream of a Thousand Cats.

In The Sandman, which rogue nightmare hides rows of small teeth behind sunglasses where his eyes should be?

The Corinthian went absent as a serial killer, so Dream unmade his own creation and later rebuilt him with some changes.

Which artist created the covers of The Sandman and illustrated Neil Gaiman's Coraline and The Graveyard Book?

Dave McKean made his comics debut with Violent Cases, a short graphic novel written by Gaiman and first published in 1987.

In The Sandman's first story arc, Dream sets out to recover a pouch of sand, a helm and which gemstone?

A ruby completes his three totems of power, which were scattered after the magician Roderick Burgess captured him in 1916.

Which real roadside attraction, home to a giant indoor carousel, is a key setting in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?

House on the Rock bills its carousel as the world's largest, yet it has no horses and visitors are not allowed to ride it.

Which West African trickster god appears as the sharp-tongued Mr. Nancy in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?

Anansi, a spider god, returned in a 2005 novel that follows his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unassuming bookkeeper.

In American Gods, what kind of creature does the towering, hard-drinking Mad Sweeney call himself?

A leprechaun is his own label despite his being nearly seven feet tall; the character draws on Suibhne, a king from an old Irish story.

A layover in which country's airport set Neil Gaiman wondering whether settlers had carried their gods to America?

Iceland supplied the spark in 1998, during a stop in Reykjavik, and the novel that grew from it, American Gods, closes with a scene set there.

Which Goodfellas star plays the sky pirate Captain Shakespeare in the film of Neil Gaiman's Stardust?

Robert De Niro's part barely exists in the book: the film built it up from Captain Alberic, who is only briefly mentioned in the novel.

Which American fantasy artist illustrated Neil Gaiman's Stardust, first conceived as a story book with pictures?

Charles Vess first heard the plot when Gaiman dragged him out of a party to outline it, and agreed on the spot to do the illustrations.

Which British comedian devised the TV serial Neverwhere with Neil Gaiman after suggesting a tale of homeless tribes?

Lenny Henry raised the idea in a conversation with Gaiman about a possible series, and Gaiman went on to write the companion novelisation.

Which injured young noblewoman does Richard Mayhew stop to help at the start of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere?

Door can open anything, a gift shared by her murdered family, and helping her makes Richard cease to exist for the everyday city above.

Which future star of Doctor Who played the angel Islington in the 1996 BBC serial of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere?

Peter Capaldi played the sewer-dwelling angel long before he took over as the Twelfth Doctor in 2013.

Which first name do members of the murderous secret society share in Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book?

Jack is the name: the killer of Bod's family is called the man Jack, later unmasked as Jack Frost of the Jacks of All Trades.

Which American children's prize did Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book win before also taking Britain's Carnegie?

The Newbery Medal and the Carnegie had never before gone to the same book, which made Gaiman the first author to win both for one work.

Which comic writer is the subject of Neil Gaiman's early companion book Don't Panic?

Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are covered in what Gaiman calls a classic English humour style, and the book has been updated in several later editions.

In a famous Neil Gaiman line, Google brings back a hundred thousand answers, but who brings back the right one?

A librarian was his answer in 2010, when he spoke in Indianapolis as honorary chair of National Library Week.

Which three-word instruction titles Neil Gaiman's 2012 commencement speech to arts graduates in Philadelphia?

Make Good Art went from a May 2012 graduation address to an 80-page book of its text, published the following year.

In which sitcom did Neil Gaiman appear as himself, his tweet about a fictional comic book store driving the plot?

The Big Bang Theory built its April 2018 episode The Comet Polarization around that single tweet.

Which Robert Zemeckis motion-capture film, starring Ray Winstone, did Neil Gaiman co-write?

Beowulf was first scripted by Gaiman and Roger Avary in May 1997, a full decade before the finished film reached cinemas.

For which Studio Ghibli film did Neil Gaiman write the English-language script for its American release?

Princess Mononoke came his way, by Gaiman's own account, after the job was first offered to Quentin Tarantino, who recommended him instead.

Which Jim Henson Company fantasy film did Neil Gaiman write about Helena, a girl from a family circus?

MirrorMask was commissioned as a new title in the spirit of the studio's earlier cult favourites, which were still selling strongly on DVD.

Which science-fiction series named an alien race the Gaim after Neil Gaiman, who wrote one episode?

Babylon 5 let only one outside writer into its last three seasons, and Gaiman used the slot for the fifth-season episode Day of the Dead.

Neil Gaiman's story A Study in Emerald drops a Sherlock Holmes mystery into which horror writer's universe?

H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos is the setting, and Gaiman himself describes the story as Lovecraft/Holmes fan fiction.

Which warrior did Neil Gaiman create for the comic Spawn before a rights dispute took her to Marvel?

Angela debuted in Spawn issue 9, and after Gaiman sold his rights to Marvel she was rewritten as the sister of the superhero Thor.

Which bespectacled English boy wizard with a pet owl did Neil Gaiman create for DC Comics in 1990?

Tim Hunter arrived years before Harry Potter, and Gaiman has dismissed talk of copying, saying he and J. K. Rowling were drinking from the same well.

Which Richmal Crompton schoolboy series did Neil Gaiman set out to parody in the draft that grew into Good Omens?

Just William supplied the template: Gaiman's working title was William the Antichrist, before the story outgrew the original idea.

In which county on England's south coast was Neil Gaiman born, in the town of Portchester?

Hampshire was home only briefly: the family moved in 1965 to East Grinstead in West Sussex, where he lived until 1980.