Star Wars: Aftermath Writer Chuck Wendig Fired By Marvel Over Offensive Tweets

[kjn]

WTH are you talking about?
THIS is why he got fired, some crazy ideas about what people you don't like are created so you can act like a maniac.
This has been going on for a whole, too. who knows if this was the last strike.

I was referring to Chuck Wendig's tweet itself.

Now it happens that I agree with Chuck Wendig on this: US democracy is threatened and being dismantled, just as it is in Poland or Hungary. I also note that Lucasfilm had earlier approved of the way he had acted online, per his own account, and that he had suffered from online harassment campaigns for daring to include LGBT people in his Star Wars novels. Not as bad as Kelly Marie Tran and other people, but bad enough. That undoubtedly informed his temper here, but he didn't threaten anyone, didn't bully anyone, didn't call out for anyone to be killed, didn't kick at anyone vulnerable.

What THIS you refer to, I have no idea myself.

[Mister Mets]

Firing Wendig was probably a mistake, since his expressed opinions are unrelated to his talent as a writer, and this helps reinforce the idea that stuff that doesn't matter to quality is important. As comic book fans, we should always advocate against policies that will make comics worse.

But there does appear to be a dishonesty in how some sources are reporting his firing, without mentioning the things that he had said. One could get the impression from Wendig's explanation, or from various write-ups that he

His comments "F*** all the GOP" could be seen as including every registered Republican, or every Republican voter. And that he is telling a group of several dozen million people, enough of whom buy comics, that "They can eat s***. All of them. They can eat a boot covered in s***."

I don't like that Marvel fired him. I think anyone who supports firing/ penalizing a writer, artist, etc. for things that are unrelated to the quality of their work is providing intellectual cover for something that is bad for the arts. But we should honest about what exactly was said, and why people might be upset.

[regg215]

If you work in an industry that sells to the general public you can't cuss out 50 plus million potential customers who don't agree with you politically and not expect consequences. Comics is a medium that needs sales desperately and Marvel deciding to remove an author because he cussed out a ton of potential customers isn't exactly shocking, it's not politics it's business. If your name is being used to sell a product an expletive laden political twitter rant aimed at a large portion of the population, will most likely get you fired in almost any industry by almost any company. Personally I think Marvel has very clearly made a stance on where they are politically in recent years and from what I can tell from the content in their books they mostly agree with Wendig. They just manage to do that without telling people to "eat $%*t", and while rhetoric is nasty on both sides of the political spectrum right now using the " the other side said it first" defense doesn't work for most companies. If you work in a service industry that relies on providing products for sale to the general public you can't cuss people out, I mean if a customer cusses out a manager at a restaurant, insurance company, bank etc..the manager can't turn around and cuss the customer out and then expect to keep his job because the customer started it. Sometimes you gotta walk away or find a way to deliver a message without sinking to the level of the people who angered you and wendig failed at that and it cost him this particular job.

[Sighphi]

I was referring to Chuck Wendig's tweet itself.

Now it happens that I agree with Chuck Wendig on this: US democracy is threatened and being dismantled, just as it is in Poland or Hungary. I also note that Lucasfilm had earlier approved of the way he had acted online, per his own account, and that he had suffered from online harassment campaigns for daring to include LGBT people in his Star Wars novels. Not as bad as Kelly Marie Tran and other people, but bad enough. That undoubtedly informed his temper here, but he didn't threaten anyone, didn't bully anyone, didn't call out for anyone to be killed, didn't kick at anyone vulnerable.

What THIS you refer to, I have no idea myself.

THIS is all of THAT that you just wrote.
What does people not liking his book years ago have to do with flipping out because of Kavanaugh?

[Alpha to Omega]

And nothing of value was lost. He was a jerk on twitter, his writing was **** and he didn't respect other writers work so I'm glad to see him go.

[Somecrazyaussie]

What's more interesting is that he came out and said Chelsea Cain was fired in a similar fashion. So that makes two creators sacked over their activities on social media etc.

[Sighphi]

What's more interesting is that he came out and said Chelsea Cain was fired in a similar fashion. So that makes two creators sacked over their activities on social media etc.

What did she do? The only thing we got is the canceled book.

[Somecrazyaussie]

What did she do? The only thing we got is the canceled book.

He said in one of his follow up tweets to the news of his firing that she got fired for "political reasons." She has since come out with a tweet of her own in response to Wendig with the word "union." So they are standing firm together it seems. Not really sure what she did. But he said she received considerable hostility and was the victim of a smear campaign. That is why her Vision book got killed.

When Bleeding Cool ran their reports on it yesterday, Jude noted that the situation with Wendig is eerily similar to Aubrey Sitterson's removal from Scarlett's Strike Force. Who got canned after issue 3. IDW asserted that it was a decision based on sales, but they still had the book open to orders from Diamond. In his case, he made a few tweets that upset alot of people and they tore him to pieces. Just like Wendig.

At least Marvel are being honest with their reasons. IDW, at the time, was not.

[Red Robe Jaldari]

I cannot believe what political mess SW turned into. Before 2012 you could have relaxed interactions with people writing Star Wars on TheForce.net without all this partisan drama minus rare periods of upheaval.

[Somecrazyaussie]

I cannot believe what political mess SW turned into. Before 2012 you could have relaxed interactions with people writing Star Wars on TheForce.net without all this partisan drama minus rare periods of upheaval.

It is the state of the world, sadly.

[motherofpearl1]

Rian Johnson got death threats because some long term fans hated The Last Jedi. I'm a long term fan and it's my favourite SW film. People's opinions differ but some are taking things too far.

I loved X Men, but Joe Quesada ruined them for me. I was shattered because those comics helped me through some bad periods in my life, but I never once sent threatening e mails to JQ.
The way people react these days is frightening.

[SuperiorIronman]

It apparently had something to do with his editor having a stick up his ass about it.

[WebLurker]

I cannot believe what political mess SW turned into. Before 2012 you could have relaxed interactions with people writing Star Wars on TheForce.net without all this partisan drama minus rare periods of upheaval.

You mean back when hating on George Lucas for the Special Editions and the prequels was socially acceptable?

[Jokerz79]

You mean back when hating on George Lucas for the Special Editions and the prequels was socially acceptable?

Exactly Fans can be jerks but this isn't new I mean do anyone else besides George Lucas have a literal film exploring fan disappointment and hated of them?

[The Negative Zone]

This is honestly bizarre. Marvel writers have always talked politics on their social media. It should be expected that people say some bone headed things in political discussions, personally I try not to hold it against anyone.

So is fired from Lucasfilm too? Can other writers follow suit? Does firing writers over social media really affect sales or does Marvel just lose talent?