{"id":33118,"date":"2018-10-12T17:17:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T21:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=33118"},"modified":"2022-01-08T14:00:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T19:00:38","slug":"in-which-i-am-fired-from-marvel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2018\/10\/12\/in-which-i-am-fired-from-marvel\/","title":{"rendered":"In Which I Am Fired From Marvel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello! I was fired from Marvel — from two Star Wars projects. The detail from the tweets I tweeted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s a thing that has happened \u2013 I just got fired from Marvel. Taken off issues 4 and 5 of SHADOW OF VADER, and taken off an as-yet-unannounced SW book. This might be a long thread, so apologies in advance. (I hesitate to talk about this, because honestly, it gives the Worst Possible People a win, something they\u2019ve wanted for a while. But I also feel like I\u2019ve long held to honesty and forthrightness, and I don\u2019t feel like lying when people realize I\u2019m not on these books anymore.)<\/em><\/p>\n

To rewind a little bit, when SW: AFTERMATH came out, I assume most know but maybe you don\u2019t, I put some ahh, elements in there (LGBT characters) that were not received well by a certain subset of fandom. That resulted in both a negative review campaign, found across various FB groups and other Worst Places on the Internet, that began mounting the very minute the book dropped online. I was literally at a midnight release of the book, and when I got done, there were already a pile of one-star reviews piling up \u2013 which seemed strange, obviously. And scary, too. I didn\u2019t understand what was happening at the time. (And as a caveat, obviously I recognize that yes, some people just don\u2019t like the book for the Usual Reasons, and people who hold those reasons are not to be lumped in with the more septic side of fandom. Tl;dr see also TLJ reviews.)<\/em><\/p>\n

I also started receiving TONS of harassment \u2013 harassment that has gone on for years, harassment that has required me to contact local police and warn them of SWATting attempts, harassment across all corners of the Internet, here, FB, Reddit, YouTube. Some of it was bot stuff, obviously, or sock puppets, but some of it was pretty creepy, and very personal. I didn\u2019t call a lot of it out or even highlight, but it was there, a sort of… constant background noise. (Christ, for an extra special treat go search for my name and check out the YouTube videos if you want an eye-opening glimpse.)<\/em><\/p>\n

And I was worried of course because, jeez, I thought I had screwed up. I wondered for a time if the book was bad. But then it hit list and stayed on list for four weeks \u2013 and the next two books hit list, too, and EMPIRE\u2019S END landed even higher on the list than the first book. And privately, I was told by folks inside LFL that there was no worry here, that they valued that I spoke out both speaking up for myself and for STAR WARS, which has always honestly been a progressive brand and company. And it made me very proud to work for them, too, not just because \u2014 holy hell, basking in the glow of STAR WARS, but because the people were great, and they totally got it. (Hell, a lot of the people inside LFL have experience considerable harassment. I mean, that\u2019s not news, but Kelly Marie-Tran? Bueller? Bueller?)<\/em><\/p>\n

After I did HYPERION with Marvel, they hired me then to write the TFA adaptation, which meant I got to work with some wonderful folks \u2013 @hantos and @cracksh0t \u2013 on a project that was tricky, because it ended up being more a translation of the movie than an adaptation. (I know Heather received some of the worst harassment in the entire industry \u2013 I can\u2019t speak to how well Marvel did or did not protect her from it, but I know she was at the bottom of a major misery funnel from Comicsgate and their ilk. Far worse than I suffered.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Still, I thought things were good, and I hoped to do more work with Marvel or SW or a combo of the two someday \u2013 comics isn\u2019t really my \u201cthing,\u201d per se, but I felt like I was getting a handle on it. Of course, the harassment continued \u2013 and it got worse again when TLJ came out. Which I\u2019m sure is no surprise to anyone who has ever tweeted, \u201cHey, I really liked THE LAST JEDI!\u201d That\u2019s really when I started to see lots of YouTube videos and stuff about me and it was\u2026 Well, it was creepy. And I\u2019d seen other signs of people being\u2026 fired for political reasons, or folks like @ChelseaCain who was yanked around and was also the subject of considerable nastiness.<\/em><\/p>\n

And then we announced SHADOW OF VADER juuuuust last weekend, and people were excited, and I thought everything was good. I was not made aware of any issues, and my online self has always been my online self, so. Except, yeah, no. Today I got the call. I\u2019m fired. Because of the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring. Seriously, that\u2019s what Mark, the editor said. It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part.<\/em><\/p>\n

Basically, because I was not civil.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which, of course, is their decision to make. I\u2019m not their boss. (And, turns out, they\u2019re not the boss of me, either. Har har.) (I joke because otherwise, I cry.)<\/em><\/p>\n

My understanding over this call was that this was a Marvel decision, not an LFL decision, but I can\u2019t really confirm that. The editor said he had made the call. He seemed genuinely upset at my tweets and profanity, so maybe that\u2019s accurate. And again, that\u2019s his right to do so. If they honestly feel that my presence will damage the book, I don\u2019t want that. I want the book to shine, and artists like Juanan Ramirez and Greg Smallwood to do their amazing thing. Artists like that are gods in my mind, so I\u2019m happy to not distract from their literal magic.<\/em><\/p>\n

But it does set a troubling precedent. One we\u2019ve seen already \u2013 James Gunn, Jessica White, and so on \u2013 of folks fired because they riled up the wasp\u2019s nest of asterisk-gate. And it seems odd to be mad that I\u2019m mad about politics when \u2013 well, look around. Climate change, kids in cages, sexual harassers at the topmost tiers of power, and so on. A call for civility as the PA GOP candidate threatens Tom Wolf with a golf cleat stomping. I dunno, man.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know it hands Comicsgate a big win. It will embolden them. But they won \u2014 I\u2019m out of Marvel and, I guess for now, at least, out of any kind of Star Wars. Do your victory lap, I guess. (Just please leave me out of it.) (All that being said, a lot of wonderful people still work inside those institutions and storyworlds, and I hope you\u2019ll continue to support them and the stories they\u2019re telling.) To conclude: this is really quite chilling. And it breaks my heart. I am very sad, and worried for the country I live in, and the world, and for creative people all around. Courage to you all. I have a dire fear this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.<\/em><\/p>\n

P.S. Vote in November like your life depends on it. Because it just might.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello! I was fired from Marvel — from two Star Wars projects. The detail from the tweets I tweeted: So, here\u2019s a thing that has happened \u2013 I just got fired from Marvel. Taken off issues 4 and 5 of SHADOW OF VADER, and taken off an as-yet-unannounced SW book. This might be a long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-theramble","9":"has-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/vader-banner.jpg?fit=1800%2C569&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-8Ca","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33118"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33139,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33118\/revisions\/33139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}