A thought about what happened to @ChuckWendig, told through one of the best personal stories I have about him: a story that represents why he’s an excellent ambassador of himself & his employers. Thread ⤵️
A few years ago, a colleague of mine at school wanted to do a “Philosophy, Politics, and Star Wars” seminar (context: public boarding school for gifted kids, with a wide range of racial/ethnic/gender/sexual diversity). We agreed to do it together.
I offered to contact @ChuckWendig to see if he’d Skype with our students for an hour about how the history, politics, and philosophy of our works informed his work in the AFTERMATH books (at the time, EMPIRE’s END was a month from release).
To say I knew Chuck slightly would be an exaggeration, really. We’d met for about ten minutes of chatting at a small con where he’d paneled with my agent the summer before. But I rolled the dice, reached out, and got a positive answer almost literally instantly.
He was amazing. He was the consummate pro. He read through s list of queries from the students in advance (NOT a short list, I might add) and was set up in the Murder Writer Shed right on time, smiling beardily.
He spoke eloquently. Enthusiastically. Thoughtfully. Spoke with knowledge or and reverence for the storytelling structures that created works like ESB and TFA.
He addressed my students by name. He got their pronouns right. He gently deflected questions he couldn’t answer for contract reasons, explaining his professional obligations, and still generously described the process of joining a massive company w/its own history.
So if the concern is that Chuck was a voice unfit to represent @Marvel’s products, then Marvel didn’t do its homework on what his professional face really is, and how hard he works to serve a genuinely devoted audience.
There are plenty of other angles I could use to critique this fiasco, but there are people w/bigger followings and more influence than me doing that already, and better. For myself, I speak for @ChuckWendig as someone who could have gotten away with being less of a pro w/my kids.
But the point is: he didn’t. He was kind, articulate, generous, and wise. He was an asset to Star Wars. He could have been that to Marvel, too, if they weren’t so quick to cave to false hand-wringing.
