Queering Space in Neil Gaiman’s Illustrated Works

This chapter investigates the queering of space in Neil Gaiman's illustrated works, and the recurrent centrality of the liminal nature of places in these works. Liminal spaces are symbolic of two or more conflicting categories at the same time, and they may offer possibilities for subversion of imposed binarisms. In Gaiman's work these spaces are most often contiguous, sharing a permeable border. These spaces offer opportunities to examine asymmetrical relationships and structures of power.In order to explore such liminal spaces in Gaiman's works and how those spaces may, or may not, queer binary categories, we shall borrow from Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia. As the analyses throughout this chapter will try to demonstrate, heterotopic spaces in Gaiman's works are represented as sites that are rife with the potential for queering binarisms.