SF/F Being Awesome: Lar DeSouza and Sailor Bacon
I met Lar DeSouza when he was artist guest of honor at ICON in Iowa, back in 2014. Later that weekend, I met him again as Sailor Bacon.
You see, back in 2013, Lar was fundraising for Multiple Sclerosis research, and promised his fans that he’d dress up in the cosplay of their choosing if they raised at least $10,000.
Which they did.
He’s continued to raise money for MS research — and to dress up as Sailor Bacon — ever since. He’s also offered incentives like custom artwork and dyeing his beard an additional color for every extra $1000 raised.
If my math is right, Lar and his fans have raised around $40,000 in total to fight MS.
There’s even a new Sailor Bacon plush, with a portion of the proceeds going to MS research.
Fighting MS by con light,
Winning breakfast by daylight,
Rainbow beard that is so bright!
It is the one named Sailor Bacon!
The MS Walk was May 1 this year, but it looks like you can still donate.
I love that geeks and fandom not only work so hard to do so much for good, worthwhile causes, but that we find weird and random and fun ways to do it.
D. D. Webb
May 12, 2016 @ 10:19 pm
I’ve been enjoying this young series; I think it’s great to highlight the good done by and within the genre.
There’s one thing about this I feel it’s worthwhile to mention, and please understand I don’t mean it as a criticism of you, your blog, or this article series; I’m bringing it up because, based on my reading of this blog over the last several years, you seem to care very much about the issues surrounding the speculative fiction community and the importance of making note of questionable behavior and content, and holding creators accountable.
Lar DeSouza is known primarily for his work on the webcomic Least I Could Do by Ryan Sohmer, which is, in all frankness, pervasively misogynistic. Not as toxic as a lot of material out there, not apparently deliberate, and arguably it’s a mild form of misogyny, but it’s unmistakably there. The Bad Webcomics Wiki has an article on LICD, and while the BWW is a generally hostile and histrionic source that I don’t recommend people read, this particular entry is significant in that it hosts a comment directed there, specifically, from Trevor Adams, the first artist of LICD, confirming that the reason he left the comic was, at least in part, its attitude toward women.
I’ll leave it up to you whether any of this is significant; considering your well-established convictions and the integrity with which you’ve always adhered to them, Mr. Hines (which I have long admired), I thought you’d want to know. My apologies if I overstep, and again, I am most definitely not trying to rain on the SF/F being awesome series. I look forward to seeing more of it in the future.
Jim C. Hines
May 13, 2016 @ 11:42 am
D.D. – The BWW article seems mostly focused on Ryan Sohmer, the writer, as opposed to the artists. But I can see where this would be troubling.
I confess, I haven’t followed Least I Could Do, so I wasn’t aware of this. From glancing at the archives, the recent strips don’t seem to be as bad as the early ones, but I haven’t gone through the entire archive.
I think it’s good to be aware of and talk about, but it also doesn’t change the good work Lar has done for MS research.
D. D. Webb
May 13, 2016 @ 11:49 am
Agreed, the BWW is a shrill haven of complainers, mostly; I only linked to that because Adams directed his observation there specifically, and it was the only place I could find a record of it.
I hadn’t been aware of DeSouza’s work for charity, and was very pleased to learn of it. I’m glad you posted this; simply wanted to bring up a point I thought you might find significant.
Thanks and keep up the great work!