They shared characteristics which set them far apart from their contemporaries in literature. Like Moore, all were insatiable autodidacts, not university-educated. Some had their imagination sparked by comics as children. The Hampshire-born Gaiman was soon joined by Glasgow's Grant Morrison, Belfast's Garth Ennis and London's Peter Milligan. All have created work of cultural relevance to contemporary Britain.
None has much time for the Booker-winning elite.
And television drama's been pretty much emasculated. Comics is one place where no one's looking. And you get this work out, which would once have been some bizarre film by Lindsay Anderson, but now there'd be no possible way of getting that funded. Comics' marginalisation allows you to do a lot that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Of this secret pantheon, Neil Gaiman was the first to gain notice.