Comics and the culture of free speech: the case of Neil Gaiman

Abstract

ABSTRACT Comics have been especially vulnerable to censorship. A history of repression has been well documented in the scholarship and is part of fan lore and culture – so much so, in fact, that the topic risks becoming calcified. This paper argues for a broader examination of free speech and comics, the better to understand how the creation and circulation of texts shapes the medium. Here, Neil Gaiman serves as a valuable case study, a creator who not only advocates for free speech but whose intellectual formation depended upon it. Attending to the liberalising forces of mid-Twentieth Century, the paper illustrates how the availability of texts was essential to the formation of Gaiman’s distinct comics aesthetic. Moreover, as Gaiman’s case suggests, comics depends on free speech not only to protect creators, but to guarantee access to the materials out of which traditions can be built.