Neil Gaiman
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50 free Neil Gaiman trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few fantasy writers have worked in as many forms as Neil Gaiman. The Sandman ran for 75 issues and changed what a monthly comic could be. The novels that followed, among them American Gods, Coraline, Stardust, Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book, found readers of every age, and most have since been adapted for film, television, radio or the stage. This quiz covers the whole shelf. Expect questions on the Endless and the gods of the American road, on an angel and a demon who would rather the world did not end, on stop-motion films and guest scripts for famous television series, and on the collaborators, prizes and odd early jobs behind the books. It is written for readers who know the stories and for viewers who met them on screen first. The opening questions are the most approachable, and later ones reward people who have read the comics and the short fiction. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave with a few facts worth repeating.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which chart-topping 1980s pop band was the subject of Neil Gaiman's very first book, a biography?
Duran Duran
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.
Q 02Which English comic-fantasy novelist co-wrote the end-of-the-world novel Good Omens with Neil Gaiman?
Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett is honoured in the television adaptation, where his trademark hat and scarf appear in the angel's bookshop.
Q 03In Neil Gaiman's Coraline, what does the sinister Other Mother have where her eyes should be?
Black buttons
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.
Q 04At Neil Gaiman's request, artists on The Sandman first modelled Lucifer on which British rock star?
David Bowie
David Bowie's music later turned up in the television series Lucifer, which stars a version of the same character.
Q 05In which animated sitcom did Neil Gaiman voice himself in the heist-spoof episode The Book Job?
The Simpsons
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.
Q 06Which Norse god is the con man Mr. Wednesday revealed to be in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?
Odin
Odin, posing as a grifter, spends the novel recruiting fading Old Gods for a battle against New Gods of technology and media.
Q 07Beneath which capital city does Richard Mayhew find a hidden magical realm in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere?
London
London Below makes familiar place names literal: Knightsbridge becomes Night's Bridge, and the Angel, Islington is an actual angel.
Q 08Which Rudyard Kipling classic did Neil Gaiman rework as a tale of an orphan raised by ghosts in a cemetery?
The Jungle Book
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.
Q 09In Good Omens, every tape played in the demon's Bentley turns into the music of which rock band?
Queen
Queen duly fill the soundtrack of the television adaptation, which includes a brass band arrangement of Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon.
Q 10In Neil Gaiman's Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife, which of the Doctor's belongings briefly becomes a woman?
The TARDIS
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.
Q 11Which demon in Good Omens, played on television by David Tennant, began as the serpent who tempted Eve?
Crowley
Crowley was originally called Crawly, and has stayed on Earth ever since the dawn of creation.
Q 12Which angel in Good Omens, played by Michael Sheen, owns an antiquarian bookshop and loves fine food?
Aziraphale
Aziraphale once guarded Eden's east gate with a flaming sword, then gave it to Adam and Eve out of concern for them.
Q 13Which star of the 1996 film Fargo narrates the first series of Good Omens as the voice of God?
Frances McDormand
Frances McDormand is heard but never seen, in a cast that also has Benedict Cumberbatch voicing a computer-generated Satan.
Q 21In The Sandman, which of the Endless is Dream's older sister, drawn as a pale goth wearing a silver ankh?
Death
Death arrived in the eighth issue and became as popular as the title character, later starring in a spin-off series of her own.
Q 22Which literary prize did a Sandman issue based on A Midsummer Night's Dream win, a first for a comic book?
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Award for short fiction went to issue 19 in 1991, and it is the only comic book to have won one.
Q 23Which English actor plays Dream, also called Morpheus, in Netflix's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman?
Tom Sturridge
Tom Sturridge also voices a feline version of his character in the animated episode Dream of a Thousand Cats.
Q 14Good Omens is subtitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of which 17th-century witch?
Agnes Nutter
Agnes Nutter owes her surname to Alice Nutter, one of the victims of the 1612 Pendle witch trials.
Q 15Which director of The Nightmare Before Christmas made the stop-motion film of Neil Gaiman's Coraline?
Henry Selick
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.
Q 16Which animation studio, backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, made Coraline as its first feature film?
Laika
Laika earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature with it, then made ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings.
Q 17Which Desperate Housewives star voices both the heroine's mother and the Other Mother in the film Coraline?
Teri Hatcher
Teri Hatcher plays the busy real parent, Mel Jones, and her too-attentive double, whose true form is known as the Beldam.
Q 18The epigraph of Neil Gaiman's Coraline says fairy tales are more than true because they show what can be beaten?
Dragons
Dragons can be beaten, runs the line, which Gaiman credited to G. K. Chesterton before admitting years later that the wording was his own.
Q 19Which ex-convict takes a job as bodyguard to the mysterious Mr. Wednesday in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?
Shadow Moon
Shadow Moon is released from prison early because his wife Laura has been killed in a car accident, leaving him with nowhere to go.
Q 20Which Deadwood star plays Mr. Wednesday in the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods?
Ian McShane
Ian McShane had already lent his voice to another Gaiman adaptation, the stop-motion film of Coraline.
Q 24In The Sandman, which rogue nightmare hides rows of small teeth behind sunglasses where his eyes should be?
The Corinthian
The Corinthian went absent as a serial killer, so Dream unmade his own creation and later rebuilt him with some changes.
Q 25Which artist created the covers of The Sandman and illustrated Neil Gaiman's Coraline and The Graveyard Book?
Dave McKean
Dave McKean made his comics debut with Violent Cases, a short graphic novel written by Gaiman and first published in 1987.
Q 26In The Sandman's first story arc, Dream sets out to recover a pouch of sand, a helm and which gemstone?
A ruby
A ruby completes his three totems of power, which were scattered after the magician Roderick Burgess captured him in 1916.
Q 27Which real roadside attraction, home to a giant indoor carousel, is a key setting in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?
House on the Rock
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.
Q 28Which West African trickster god appears as the sharp-tongued Mr. Nancy in Neil Gaiman's American Gods?
Anansi
Anansi, a spider god, returned in a 2005 novel that follows his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unassuming bookkeeper.
Q 29In American Gods, what kind of creature does the towering, hard-drinking Mad Sweeney call himself?
A leprechaun
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.
Q 30A layover in which country's airport set Neil Gaiman wondering whether settlers had carried their gods to America?
Iceland
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.