Basement X

Over the past several weeks/months Brian Wood was outed as having allegedly sexually harassed a female cartoonist named Tess Fowler nearly a decade ago at SDCC 02 or 04. Initially when Fowler wrote about her experience, she did not name the writer but after she wrote about her experience publicly, several other women contacted her and claimed Wood had sexually harnessed them as well. After those women stepped forward, Fowler called Wood out on twitter for what he did.

Her tweets are below and it's pretty powerful stuff.

http://bentcorner.com/tess-fowler-brian-wood/

The gist of it is, Wood feigned interest in her work to get in her pants and offered her work in exchange for sex. When she didn't accept his offer, he made a scene in front of his colleagues at her expense.

Wood has since denied offering her sex in exchange for work but does admit to making a pass at her. His response is linked below

http://comicsalliance.com/brian-wood-te ... statement/

So all this went down during the fall and I'm just learning about it. Apologies for being slow on the uptake if you already knew about this.

Thoughts?

I remember when it broke yeah. I was pretty disappointed to hear this, especially as I'm really beginning to get into more of Wood's work.

However, I'm glad female creators are speaking out about these things. I believe there was a somewhat similar situation with a creator and Scott Lobdell that came to light around the same time as this one. I'm glad these are bring brought out and showing the treatment female creators are given and how a lot needs to change. It's never good when this happens, but as more are revealed the possibility for something to be done to prevent these from happening in the future can become more likely, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, it's disappointing. But this was years ago. Now the guy has 2 kids and I want to believe he has changed his ways. So I'll keep buying his stuff.

I agree, I'd like to think he has changed. It hasn't stopped me from buying his books at all, but it was a bit of a disappointment.


I'm just glad they're being brought to light, even if they happened years ago.

This definitely changes how I perceive Wood especially given that he's allegedly harassed other women. There's also a lot of "he said/she said" at this point. I'm not calling them liars, but theres more to this story than we know. I also realize why the sensitive nature harassment would prevent women from stepping forward. Right now I'm willing to give Wood the benefit of the doubt because he seems repentant but we'll see.

The thing with Scott Lobdell was that some time ago he was on a panel and one of the women on the panel was a bisexual woman. Throughout the panel Lobdell made lewd and inappropriate innuendos towards her (all the while ignorant of how he was coming off). The creator wrote about this later but didn't name Lobdell. When Lobdell realized it was himself she was speaking about, he came out and accepted full responsibility for his behavior & apologized for it. I'm glad Lobdell eventually realized how inappropriate his behavior was.

We can only take them at their word, if they apologise though. Who's to say they don't simply realise it would be bad PR at this point not to apologise and limit the fallout of damage to their income.

Now when I read Wood's work I'l always have this on the back of my mind. No matter how good the piece might be, I'll be thinking, "oh yeah, he's that douchebag isn't he".

I know Cam reads Orson Scott Card. Anyone else? How do you feel when you read his work knowing his controversial views on homosexuality and global warming? Nothing will change whether you feel the prose and narrative are enjoyable, but there will be this taint all over it.

Stocky Boy wrote:Now when I read Wood's work I'l always have this on the back of my mind. No matter how good the piece might be, I'll be thinking, "oh yeah, he's that douchebag isn't he".


Nothing will change whether you feel the prose and narrative are enjoyable, but there will be this taint all over it.

Pretty much this. I still enjoy Wood's work, but yeah, this sums it up. I'm not going to stop buying his books, but I have to say I've lost a bit of respect and it'll be there for some time.


As for OSC, I'd never read any of his work, but I will say that because of the recent open stances and discussions that came about, I don't really want to.

This modern, easy access to information and the now almost direct communication we have with creators has definitely changed things. Before all you know was "so-and-so is writing this book I like, and I really dig it," and rarely did you know much about their personal lives or beliefs. Now, with things like blogs, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and all the rest, we learn more and more about the creators we like, and I hate to say it but sometimes, I start to like them less and less based on what I learn (these examples being the most extreme, obviously). It's the downside to being able to "follow" your favorite actors, writers, artists, musicians, etc. so closely- You learn they're not exactly the perfect people you want them to be and it most likely changes how you view their work.

I don't read Orson Scott Card but I feel similarly about Frank Miller. Dark Knight Returns is one of my top 2 favorite stories of all time (Ancient History by Ennis & Dillon being the second because i know you all were wondering what my second favorite was) ever since he went on that rant about liberals/progressives being parasites and spineless and calling people who are not conservative all manner of names, it's ruined my view of him.

Miller's politics don't bother me but his personal attacks against people he doesn't agree with makes me roll my eyes.

I continue to read the old stuff and try to ignore Miller's wild eyed crazy man politikin'