NS: Chuck Wendig Gets Axed From Marvel

[cygnia]

I initially became aware of this from the Absolute Write forums.

In Which I Am Fired From Marvel

"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’m fired. Because of the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring. Seriously, that’s what Mark, the editor said. It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part.
Basically, because I was not civil.
Which, of course, is their decision to make. I’m not their boss. (And, turns out, they’re not the boss of me, either. Har har.) (I joke because otherwise, I cry.)
My understanding over this call was that this was a Marvel decision, not an LFL decision, but I can’t really confirm that. The editor said he had made the call. He seemed genuinely upset at my tweets and profanity, so maybe that’s accurate. And again, that’s his right to do so. If they honestly feel that my presence will damage the book, I don’t 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’m happy to not distract from their literal magic.
But it does set a troubling precedent. One we’ve seen already – James Gunn, Jessica White, and so on – of folks fired because they riled up the wasp’s nest of asterisk-gate. And it seems odd to be mad that I’m mad about politics when – 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."

Comments

[laughing_tree]

I don't think we're talking about the same kind of thing. Yeah, books get shortened. But they're still going to publish what's already in the can. Aborting even the stuff that's ready to go *after it's already solicited* is passing strange.

[zachbeacon]

I guess I don't quite get your criteria. Devils Due killed their superhero line before most of the minis wrapped up but the final comics had ads for future issues. These were some fairly big names like Marv Wolfman, Joe Casey and Chuck Dixon*. I still don't know what caused it but it soured me on the company.

*Obviously his own politics are a major point of discussion NOW but early 2000s Dixon is very different to me than 2018 Dixon.

[laughing_tree]

Yeah, to be fair, I wasn't really considering publishing patterns outside the Big Two. You're right that there's all sorts of dropped stuff when you get further into the industry margins.

But it is really strange for *Marvel* to abort a series they've solicited, much less already have several issues in the can of.