'Star Wars' comic book writer fired by Marvel over 'vulgar tweets' to online trolls
Chuck Wendig, screenwriter, author and writer of comic books for Marvel’s Star Wars series, says he was fired over vulgar tweets that he sent to online trolls.
According to The Wrap, he was removed by the comic book giant from the forthcoming fourth and fifth issues of the Shadow of Vader series after he slammed critics and those trolling his work.
“Today I got the call. I’m fired. Because of the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring,” he told fans (and, presumably, trolls) on his blog.
“Seriously, that’s what Mark [Paniccia], the editor said. It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part.”
However, he added that he was told privately by others at Lucasfilm that they valued that I spoke out both speaking up for myself and for ‘Star Wars’.
He goes on to say that he was the subject of harassment for writing in LGBT characters into the Star Wars comics, and the trolling became a source of ‘major misery’.
“I also started receiving TONS of harassment — 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,” he said.
“Some of it was bot stuff, obviously, or sock puppets, but some of it was pretty creepy, and very personal.“
Though he does not detail the content of his tweets, it’s not the first time that Marvel/Disney has reacted to the actions of its writers online.
Over the summer, it was revealed that James Gunn, writer and director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, was being fired over a cache of deleted tweets he’d sent many years earlier that had been unearthed by right-wing activists.
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