Chuck Wendig Fired from Star Wars Books/Comics Because He Was Too "Uncivil" About Politics

We've skipped brave new world and gone straight to a cowardly old one.

This is awful, and infuriating for all the reasons, I just wish it was surprising. For the rest of us, who aren't straight white men, or Chuck Wendig, it's terrifying.

I do wish him well, appreciate his tweeting the specifics and hope it results in a huge, profitable contract from another house, one that understands what art, words, and stories are for.

I saw this, and I've no idea what to say. It's awful and unnerving on so many levels.

I've seen lots of people on Twitter buying his books as a show of support. Dunno if that helps, but it's all a consumer can realistically do, if the Powers That Be have decided who they will and won't listen to already... money always talks.

I am very sorry to read this. I do enjoy his tweets--I haven't read his books, but I appreciate him taking the stands that he does. I just tweeted a message of support to him. If nothing else, he will at least know he was on the right side of history. That might not feel so important right at this very moment, but that is the kind of thing that really matters in the scheme of things.

One day, we will all look back at the stands we took, what we allowed to happen at this moment in history, and we will, hopefully, not have regrets for actions not taken.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Holy smokes, Chuck Wendig?

Godsdammit, he's one of the good guys.

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I understand Marvel's CEO is quite conservative.

I think it's also worth noting (as Chuck has himself) that this is a white man who's had multiple books on the NYT bestseller list - a proven financial track record. If he can be targeted for his politics, anyone can.

Damn. Reactionary fanboys ruin everything (including fandoms). I wish I still saw Disney movies and read Marvel so I could stop, but capitulation to this element is a large part of what drove me away from entertainment like this in the first place. At least I still have video games...oh, wait...

This was honestly terrifying to hear.

I had to quit hanging around fandoms a few years ago because the sheer toxicity, intolerance and entitlement was an anathema to me in communities that, in my experience until that point, had always been full of marginalized folks. I'm not sure what happened, but it certainly seems to have happened concurrently with the wider socio-political landscape in recent years.

This does not look good for Marvel and Disney.

It's very disappointing.

I'm painfully aware that comics are not always been written with people like me (ie, people who aren't straight, white, cis men) in mind as valued audience members. I feel torn at times because, on the one hand, I want to support the writers and titles I like and support efforts at greater inclusion. But when stuff like this happens, I feel conflicted about continuing to support Marvel at all.

Kinda glad here, with my lack of desire to consume any Marvel product ever again. Makes the necessary boycott easier.

Also growing ever more convinced that social media engagement, and trying to be a public figure as well as a creator, is just way more trouble than it's worth.

Albedo said:

Also growing ever more convinced that social media engagement, and trying to be a public figure as well as a creator, is just way more trouble than it's worth.

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Tru dat, though it seems to be getting harder to disentangle these roles. Plus, I suspect people like Wendig feel some degree of responsibility in being extremely online, and Twitter is the forum on which hearts and minds are won.

Kjbartolotta said:

Tru dat, though it seems to be getting harder to disentangle these roles. Plus, I suspect people like Wendig feel some degree of responsibility in being extremely online, and Twitter is the forum on which hearts and minds are won.

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If I ever get extremely online, please stage an intervention for me. I'm just hoping that in the future there'll be some cachet in NOT being online like that. Before our Black Mirroresque overlords make Twitter compulsory, I mean.

(Also, all these stories about people being hounded off Twitter? TBH getting hounded off Twitter sounds more and more like sweet, joyful relief, at this point.)

I'm very disappointed in Marvel and Disney, and scared about what this means for authors in general.

As a teacher, I'm used to having to be careful about airing strong or specific views related to my work and of using my classes as a platform for pushing my own sociopolitical views. However, it's harder and harder to know where the line is in this time when when discussing scientific evidence for things, and when even treating all people with kindness and respect, is taken as a political statement.

And writing is inherently political and opinion driven in nature. The stories one chooses to tell and the way one chooses to tell them will always be driven by one's values (and politics are part of values). Again, we live in times when everything, from the ratio of female to male characters in a story, to the way one portrays consequences of various actions, is highly politicized.

Wendig has always been someone whose prose drips with voice and attitude, but I don't think any writer is immune from this kind of thing anymore. He'll likely be all right, because he's written bestsellers and is a well-established author (and also has experience and traction self publishing too). The people who are in most danger are the younger authors or the ones who have been plugging away for years as mid listers. They will likely be scared to tweet about anything more controversial than their house pets (or to only use social media as a platform for promoting books and their publishers' upcoming titles, which I find frankly dull)

John Scalzi reported he's received gleeful threats that he's next. Scalzi being Scalzi laughed this off. His business is nothing like Wendig's, something which those threatening him do not seem to comprehend. The spite still makes me mad.

Roxxsmom said:

Wendig has always been someone whose prose drips with voice and attitude, but I don't think any writer is immune from this kind of thing anymore. He'll likely be all right, because he's written bestsellers and is a well-established author (and also has experience and traction self publishing too). The people who are in most danger are the younger authors or the ones who have been plugging away for years as mid listers. They will likely be scared to tweet about anything more controversial than their house pets (or to only use social media as a platform for promoting books and their publishers' upcoming titles, which I find frankly dull)

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With Wendig, it's more than just "Twitter," which makes it even more scary for the younger/lower-selling authors. Inclusion in his character choices is what got him in the Twitter mob crosshairs to begin with.

Marvel/Disney caving to this is an incredibly chilling statement about catering to the fragile white male, and nothing else.

ElaineA said:

With Wendig, it's more than just "Twitter," which makes it even more scary for the younger/lower-selling authors. Inclusion in his character choices is what got him in the Twitter mob crosshairs to begin with.

Marvel/Disney caving to this is an incredibly chilling statement about catering to the fragile white male, and nothing else.

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Yep, that's what first put him in the crosshairs. Or, as Wendig put it on Twitter, that's what "started the harassment train a-chugging from the get-go":

Oh! One more thing too -- I do see some folks who have lost the narrative saying they fired me because I included LGBT characters, which is not at all true far as I know it. I only noted that because it's what started the harassment train a-chugging from the get-go.

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He says he's gonna be okay, that the Marvel work provided only a "pittance" but he enjoyed it so, yeah, it's a blow. (Actually, it blows.) His concern is for more vulnerable authors 'cause if it can happen to a straight, white, male bestselling author, it can happen to anyone. And it IS chilling that this is the world we now inhabit.

So, I have a couple of thoughts for y'all wrt social media:

• Do not depend on Twitter, FB, and the like for your online presence. First of all, you don't own your content. Second, you're at their mercy when it comes to suspension, how they enforce/DON'T enforce their TOS, etc.
• Get your own domain and author site (WordPress is a good choice). Just don't have your domain and site hosted at the same place. Monitor the comments and delete harassment to keep it from going viral on social media. (I'm pretty sure Scalzi has spam prevention installed, but still monitors comments.)

There are other things you can do, of course, but those two were at the top of my brain pan.

ElaineA said:

With Wendig, it's more than just "Twitter," which makes it even more scary for the younger/lower-selling authors. Inclusion in his character choices is what got him in the Twitter mob crosshairs to begin with.

Marvel/Disney caving to this is an incredibly chilling statement about catering to the fragile white male, and nothing else.

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But hasn't Disney been pretty open to LGBT rights for a while now? Not only did they provide same-gender-partner benefits before it was the law of the land, one of the characters in the latest Star Wars series is gay.

Marvel is another story. If the owner is conservative, then I assume he is homophobic. That seems to be required of conservatives these days, though why it has to be that way is another question.

We've already seen people who are less established than Wendig has been, many of whom are women or PoC or LGBTQ themselves, harassed and insulted on social media. It's harder to tell how this impacts their sales and future contracts.

We are getting a lot of mixed messages from the publishing industry these days. For a while agents and editors were saying they are looking for underrepresented voices and books with more diversity in characters and experiences from all writers. But in practice, it appears that things work very differently. For all that conservative authors have whined about being "silenced" and "censured" in this "current climate of political correctness," it appears the opposite is as much of an issue.

I think the hard part about new authors avoiding twitter etc. for an online presence is that blogs and web sites will generally get far less exposure. Sure, Scalzi's blog is still chugging (though he did mention hits are down from its heyday, partially because so many people interact with authors on Twitter now), but he got on the blog wagon early, when blogs were new and shiny and there wasn't so much competition. I only have so much time to check or follow author blogs, and I think most readers are similarly saturated. The allure of social media was it allowed us to see what most of our favorite authors were doing and saying in one feed.

I've also noticed that many female authors who sometimes air controversial views (like Kameron Hurley) have comments disabled entirely in their blogs. This is different from Wendig, Scalzi, Hines etc. I suspect it's because the women get comments that cross the line from simple trolling into threats and creepy cyber stalking. This makes the blogs less appealing to me, because if I have a question about something or want to post something supportive, let alone engage in spirited discussion, I can't do it there. All communication on their blogs and websites is one way.

I stopped visiting Twitter with any regularity, though, when their feed stopped being chronological. It was too challenging to figure out which issues were still being discussed or were seen as germane by everyone else.

Ari is spot-on.

Absolutely direct all traffic to your own Website.

Don't use the same company to register your domain and host your content.

AW Admin said:

Ari is spot-on.

Absolutely direct all traffic to your own Website.

Don't use the same company to register your domain and host your content.

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How does one separate the two? If your blog is through, say, word press, how do you have the content within the blog be hosted elsewhere?

Roxxsmom said:

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I stopped visiting Twitter with any regularity, though, when their feed stopped being chronological. It was too challenging to figure out which issues were still being discussed or were seen as germane by everyone else.

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Just a note: Twitter did restore the ability to see tweets chronologically, although it's still not perfect. Click on your small avatar between the twitter search box and the blue tweet button on the upper right of the screen. You'll see three categories: Account, Security, and Content. Scroll down until you see "Timeline" under Content. Make sure the box "Show the best Tweets first" is unchecked.


Special Note: Prior to Twitter restoring the ability to see tweets chronologically, I was using this filter to see tweets chronologically: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=filter:follows -filter:replies&src=typd and it still works better 'cause it's a truer chronological timeline "pull" of the tweets for the people you follow and doesn't pick up all the chaff. just sayin'.

Roxxsmom said:

How does one separate the two? If your blog is through, say, word press, how do you have the content within the blog be hosted elsewhere?

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No. Keep your domain name with GoDaddy or whoever but have your blog hosted on WordPress, Blogger, or your own website host using your domain name; iow, don't have GoDaddy also host your site.

What I'm trying to figure out is why its it such a surprise to them that he was so mouthy. It's not like a switched flipped and Chuck all of a sudden became this irreverent, over-the-top opinionated personality.

They had to have known that going in.

So that means they bowed to some outside pressure. Which isn't a good look for them because Chuck is one of the best. He's my avatar.