Rob Callahan

Justin on Panels - Season 2, Episode 01

Justin on Panels - Season 2, Episode 01

Over the last four years, I have been promising to finish cleaning up the audio from the various panels that I have been on and improve the show notes. Now that GraysMatter Podcast is up and running, I have taken the time to also revisit these panels. Please join me in experiencing Justin on Panels.

MarsCon 2018

Creating actual diversity requires a great effort to avoiding unintentionally tokenizing your characters. Tokenism, even when unintentional, is what leads to adding "diversity” for the sake of diversity. How do we engender true diversity in sci fi and comics?

With: Justin Grays, Rob Callahan, S.N. Arly, Tyler Tork, mod.

Content Warning:

  • Mention of the slur for Romani people

  • Transracial/Transcultural adoption

MarsCon 2018 - Day 1

MarsCon 2018 - Day 1

MarsCon is a fan-run science fiction convention for all ages held every March in the Twin Cities area. This year's theme is Robots, Rayguns, & Rockets: The 3 R's of Sci-Fi. Today I was on two panels, "Avoiding the Tokenism in Comics and Sci Fi Cultures," "How to Fail Gracefully," and "Polyamory: Perceptions and Realities." There are audio recordings of all three panels; however, they are still the raw, unedited versions. The normalized, balanced versions will be put up on a later post. I also took some notes for some of the panels - I will include them here so that I can expand on them on a later date. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments about the panels. Enjoy!

CONvergence 2017 - Day 1

CONvergence 2017 - Day 1

CONvergence is an annual convention about Science Fiction and Fantasy, held at the Doubletree Hilton and the Sheraton in Bloomington, Minnesota. This year's theme is To Infinity and Beyond: Epic Tales of Space Opera. Today I was on two panels, "Speculative Fiction Against Colonialism" and "Avoiding Tokenism in Comics & Sci Fi Characters" - in both of the panels, I said that I would gather the books and/or sources that were discussed and put them up on here.