Truthiness
I'm showing you this screen shot of the contract for the graphic novel Chivalry for two reasons. Note the original date on the contract is September 2019.
This is to illustrate just how long it takes to produce an original graphic novel, as this book wouldn't be released until spring 2022, and it was only 64 pages. It took me that long to adapt the story and to paint the work and for the book to be printed.
By contrast, Good Omens is 200 pages and will have taken almost the same amount of time from contract to completion to final publication.
And I didn't have cancer or go blind during production of Chivalry.
So yeah.
Also, someone I do not know is lying about being a friend of mine, and the claim has spread I did something fairly nefarious to secure this contract based on private tweet messages she sent me in summer 2020.
However, this contract is dated the year before.
I have never met this woman, have shared no emails or phone calls with her, and outside of a tenuous parasocial relationship based primarily on this scant PM series of messages - another reason I no longer answer PM's from people I don't know - I don't know them at all.
They're making shit up to fit a narrative.
Please be cautious about believing everything you read online.
And some people should be especially cautious if they think I deleted those messages about how they "...saw and felt his kindness" which is not what they're claiming now.
What saddens me about this, aside from you having to endure such things yet again, is what it says about fandom. Decades ago, Harlan Ellison wrote a scathing essay titled You Don’t Know Me, I Don’t Want to Know You. It documented similar patterns of behavior among SF fans.
What is it about the things they love that makes some fans behave abominably towards creators of those things?
I’m always eager to meet creators whose work moves me. But some years ago I realized what a short conversation that can be.
“I love your work!”
“Thank you.”
After that realization, I thought about what, if anything, I really had to say to that creator as a person. When there was something to say beyond admiration, I was privileged to be part of some wonderful conversations, and in a couple very special instances, I made a good friend.
If someone really loves your work, they owe you respect as a person.
Actually, everyone owes everyone else respect as a starting point. That’s a myopic ideal, but I try to live by it.
That sounds grim, I am so sorry that you are having to deal with this nonsense.