Tosche Station Radio #75: Fan Culture

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Kicking off the show, the hosts highlight what’s New on the Blog. The Hondo Caravan is out of the station! In the past two weeks Bria watched The Clone Wars feature film and learned that yes, Jar Jar does play a role in The Clone Wars. Bria also gave her Expanded Universe wish list for 2014. Brian wrote about Brian Wood and Changing Harassment Culture. More on that later in the show.

In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci’s been busy with NaNoWriMo. Both the hosts bid a fond farewell to the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. They also saw Thor: The Dark World, and naturally that means a spoiler-filled discussion ensues. Brian’s been busy playing FIFA 2014 and Tiny Death Star.

Deak’s Dirt starts with Brian freaking out over the The Night of the Doctor mini-episode. In Marvel news, Four live-action Marvel shows are coming to Netflix! There’s a new cover for Honor Among Thieves. Mark your calendars! Episode VII will be hitting theaters December 18, 2015. There’s even a confirmation! Artoo will be in the film, and it’s going to be fan-made. Turns out the other two individuals in that photo Bad Robot tweeted were Lee Towersey and Oliver Steeples of the R2 Builders Club.

This week’s Camie’s Concerns tackles a tough topic. With the Brian Wood news as a springboard, the hosts discuss harassment in fandom culture and what our obligation as fans are to change things for the better.

Wrapping up the show, the hosts field a question in Ask Us Anything. 

Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of Majestic Giraffe Productions. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by Her Universe and Audible.com.

On Brian Wood and Changing Harassment Culture

Brian Wood, writer for one of Marvel’s X-Men runs and Dark Horse’s ‘Star Wars’ series, has been accused of harassing female convention goers. The Mary Sue reported it here and Beccatoria has a detailed and very insightful rundown here. Read these posts for more information if you’re not up to speed, particularly Beccatoria’s. Additionally, please read Dunc’s latest post on harassment.

It goes without saying that this is going to be a post that will probably elicit some very charged reactions. So before going too much further, three points I want to make clear.

First: I’m not going to call for Brian Wood to be fired strictly for what he confessed to in the links above.

Second: If the additional allegations beyond what he confessed to turn out to be true or if more individuals come forward with accusations of misconduct by Wood, I believe Marvel/DH/LFL should re-evaluate their working relationship with him.

Third: This issue goes beyond infidelity between Wood and his wife. There are much broader fandom and societal issues this brings up that should be discussed.

To the jump.

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Compare and Contrast: Leia in 2013

comics_star_wars2013 was a big year for Leia in the Expanded Universe. First up, we got the Brian Wood written Star Wars comic, which Bria and myself were less than impressed by. Today we got Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells, which we were significantly happier with. Why the difference in reactions? Simply put, it boiled down to how Leia was used and characterized. To see what we mean, head below the cut.

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Cover for Star Wars Issue 2 features X-Wings and Leia

I meant to post this a few days ago, but with the whole Episode VII-becoming-reality-thing, it got lost in the drafts. In any case, artist Alex Ross has released the cover for issue two of the new Star Wars comic:

We’ve got some X-Wings, the Falcon, Slave I, Luke, Wedge, and Leia. Well this should be fun!