The Four Color Media Monitor

The Minnesota Star Tribune spoke with the management of some local bookstores who removed books by the disgraced Neil Gaiman from their shelves, but, most unfortunately, is blurring the differences between him and J.K. Rowling at the same time:

If you’re looking for a copy of a Neil Gaiman novel, don’t bother checking at Avant Garden Books & Coffee in Anoka. The store has removed Gaiman from its shelves.

Gaiman is one of several authors who have been in the news recently for reasons other than their writing. Last month, lawsuits were filed against Gaiman in three jurisdictions, including Wisconsin (where he once lived), accusing the horror/fantasy writer of human trafficking, which he denies. When seven more women accused him of sexual misconduct in a story in New York magazine, he denied those allegations, too.

Last year, Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro’s daughter Andrea Skinner wrote a newspaper story that said she had been sexually assaulted by Munro’s second husband and that her late mother did nothing to stop it. And J.K. Rowling, whose “Harry Potter” novels remain wildly popular, has made anti-trans statements that cost her some of her audience.

These and other cases can create a dilemma for readers and booksellers: What to do about art we admire that is created by people we don’t?

I just don't see what's to admire in the "art" of stories that could be metaphors for leftism. Munro was supposedly a feminist, and Gaiman himself supposedly an ally to the same, and his stories contained several allusions to said political leanings, which is why I suspect the real reason some of these "auteurs" got as far as they did was because their standings were pretty evenly matched with the establishments they sought to pander to. But, what's appalling about this article, and dampens the impact, is when Rowling is put in the same boat as Gaiman and Munro for far less. Making matters worse, many of Rowling's detractors throughly obscure her past experience with sexual assault when she was in her 20s, and clearly refuse to recognize that said experience gives her moral authority to address these serious issues.

About a dozen Gaiman titles remain at DreamHaven, although his presence isn’t as big as it once was. That’s largely because Gaiman has been more involved in filmmaking than novel writing in recent years (after the allegations became public, a planned Disney movie of “The Graveyard Book” was put on hold, although several completed film and TV shows are expected to be released eventually. He’s also been dropped by a U.K. publisher and a “Coraline” musical has been scrapped).

“We had a huge section for Neil Gaiman for years but it had been slowing down, so we were just moving things around when everything came out in the news,” said Ketter, who published some of Gaiman’s early work. “We are still selling some of his books and things. We just leave it up to people. If they keep buying books, we keep them on the shelves.”

The attitude is different at Avant Garden, “an unapologetically feminist and LGBTQIA-inclusive” business, according to owner Jenni Hill. Because it was created as a welcoming space for all kinds of people, Hill said, “We strive to carry books in-store that reflect our values.”

That means Avant Garden, which opened about four years ago, has never stocked Rowling titles, which Hill worries might trigger trans customers and their allies: “I don’t want anyone to feel I would advocate for a writer who has been hurtful to our community.”

That’s also why Avant Garden stopped carrying Gaiman titles as soon as the allegations came out.

“I texted Emily, our employee, ‘Let’s remove his books.' That was literally the whole discussion,” said Hill. “It just doesn’t feel right to profit from those books. And I’d already bought the books, so I will lose money on those. But I won’t restock them for sure.”

But are they profiting from GNs like "Gender Queer" and keeping them in stock? Because stories with crass dialogue, sexual or otherwise, is a very repellent way to make profit, yet such concerns don't seem high on the radar of these politicized businesses. It's annoying how these leftist ideologues won't differentiate between feminism and LGBT ideology, even though neither one is positive. Again, Rowling has valid points to make, and her experiences with sexual abuse give her moral authority to speak on these issues. So, a shame a specific business is sweeping it all under the rug, much like a number of other news sources. At the article's end:

All the booksellers say their decisions are made by listening to customers. Maybe those customers are already speaking. At Valley Bookseller, for instance, West said they have one Gaiman book, a copy of his popular “American Gods.” It’s been on the shelf since December. So far, no takers.

Can books like these be returned to the publishers and distributors? If they can, they should be. This shouldn't have to be any different a situation from comicdom proper, where, as I'd read in the past, there's various comics publishers who refuse to take back unsold copies of their pamphlets. That's a serious problem that needs to be smoothed over, even if comics weren't to switch to paperback/hardcover format. I don't know if Gaiman's GNs are/were sold at these particular bookstores along with the novels, but if they are, I'm sure sales plummeted pretty quickly.

And the bookstore managers in Minnesota would do well to consider that Rowling's book sales remain strong, because unlike Gaiman, she's making valid arguments, and unlike Gaiman, Rowling's the victim, in sharp contrast to Gaiman being the aggressor. When will the leftists railing against Rowling consider?

Labels: censorship issues, golden calf of LGBT, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, sales, violence