Author Neil Gaiman Cleans Out His Junk Drawer, Nets Over $1 Million at Irving Auction

There's no overstating the influence of writer Neil Gaiman. The English author has touched so many corners of pop culture that he's become an instantly recognizable character — a strange status for someone who spends most of his time alone devising fairy tales for all ages.

Having created everything from short stories to screenplays, comic books to novels throughout his 40-year career, Gaiman has built a passionate fan base. Two series based on his work are currently streaming (Good Omens on Amazon Prime and The Sandman on Netflix), and two more (Dead Boy Detectives and Anansi Boys) are in production. 

So, it was especially thrilling for a subsection of local fans to greet Gaiman live in person Thursday ahead of the auction of "The Neil Gaiman Collection" at the Heritage Auction House headquarters in Irving. 

Persudaded by his former bandmate Geoff Notkin to sell some of his collection of treasures, Gaiman realized the value of letting go of years' worth of sentimental memorabilia. 

“Everything is Geoff Notkin's fault," Gaiman said with a laugh about his oldest friend, the star of TV's Meteorite Men, who had two successful sales of his collections of fossils and meteorites at Heritage. "A few years ago, he told me he was doing [an] auction and I said, 'Why? That's heartbreaking; you're selling off the stuff that you love.' He explained he was doing it partly for charity and to raise money for good causes. Because he got really used to these things — he loved them for 20, 40, 50 years, and he wanted to get them out into the world to bring joy to other people, and he said, 'You should do that, too,' and I said, 'Absolutely not!'"
But after Gaiman saw how happy his friend was after the auctions, he was inspired to mount a sale to benefit charities that look after authors and artists — a great way to give something back to talents who created work that has grown in value, if not in residuals.

Consisting of awards, books, original comic art, figurines inspired by his characters and artistic gifts from friends, the 126-item Neil Gaiman Collection went on the block Thursday morning. When deciding what to sell, the writer wanted to include items at multiple price points so fans of all budgets could walk away with a treasure — items ultimately sold from just over a hundred dollars to tens of thousands. Hearing the writer share memories or inspirations about each piece was especially exciting, making them seem even more precious to the auction's winners. 
The big sellers were an original 1956 Charles Addams drawing, "Suburbia," for 42k, an original page from the Watchman comic for 132k, a Moebius painting of Gaiman's character The Sandman for 96k and a cover for Miracleman #16 for 96k. 

Perhaps the most iconic item in the auction for Gaiman and his fans was the lot of two original "actors" from the stop-motion animated classic Coraline. Beginning life in a 2002 novel that the writer penned for his daughters, the character became the star of a 2009 film so successful over the years that, upon its rerelease last summer, it outgrossed both Barbie and Oppenheimer, according to Gaiman. 

Said Gaiman, "As far as I know, Coraline actors do not come up for sale. Sometimes, we'll have them show up in museums or traveling collections. They gave me this one as a thank-you for my part in making the Coraline movie. … She has been in my bedroom in a glass case since 2009. Probably, I had more qualms about lettering her go than I did anything else in the entire auction. She's there, she smiles at me, and it's special and a connection. She was, for me, the biggest one where I went, 'If I'm going to do this charity auction, much like the Watchman piece, I need some things that would draw attention and get eyes on it and ask people to care. For me, she is unique in every way…she is astonishing." 
So astonishing, she (and her accompanying posable cat figure) went to a lucky bidder for 72k.

With proceeds going to The Hero Initiative benefiting comic creators in need and the Authors League Fund, the auction allowed Gaiman to pay it forward to fellow artists who weren't as financially fortunate as he is. And the grand total of $1,029,392 will go a long way to doing just that. For collectors, owning an iconic piece of comic or literature history was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.   

Said Gaiman at the auction’s conclusion, “I’m so thrilled. It was more marvelous than I could possibly hope. It does so good for so many people and thank you [to] Heritage for making something like this happen…. I’m incredibly grateful.”