Steven Moffat on a panel at SDCC 2013. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Yesterday we reported on the Who Against Guns campaign, which organizers hope will “encourage Doctor Who fans to take action against gun violence.” Inspired by the growing culture of gun violence in the United States and the Stoneman Douglas shooting in Florida, a group of over 40 fans, including professional Doctor Who artists, writers, and podcasters have teamed to produce an exclusive commentary series on the 1969 Classic Who serial “The War Games.”

The series will only be available for download to fans who donate $10 or more to a charity aiming to prevent gun violence.

It’s been announced today that former Doctor Who showrunner and writer Steven Moffat is joining the effort–but only if fans donate a total of $7000 by March 12. If that total is reached in time, Moffat will provide a special commentary on episode 10 of “The War Games.”

As of press time, the campaign has raised over $3400 dollars.

He joins a growing roster of professional Doctor Who scribes that have signed on to Who Against Guns, lending their thoughts to a commentary which includes Paul Cornell (“Human Nature”, “Family of Blood”) Jamie Mathieson (“Oxygen”, “Flatline”), Andrew Smith (“Full Circle”), and Peter Harness (“The Zygon Invasion”, “Kill The Moon”).

Comic professionals have also lent their efforts to the campaign. Titan Comic artists  Rachael Stott (Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor), and Simon Fraser (Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor) are among those commentating, as are a number of Doctor Who podcasters.

Graeme Burk, whose Reality Bomb podcast is among those contributors, had this to say about Moffat’s involvement:

When we told Steven Moffat about Who Against Guns and the massive response we’ve had from a grassroots social media fundraising effort,” said Burk, “there was no hesitation. He responded immediately and enthusiastically. Because this campaign is special. Doctor Who fans are doing what they can with what they have to help make an important change. And that’s really humbling and incredible.”

Who Against Guns suggests that fans consider the following gun violence prevention charities for their donation of $10 or more: March For Our Lives, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Moms Demand Action. They need only forward a copy of their donation receipt to Who Against Guns to receive access to the exclusive podcast when it’s released on March 12.


More information on the Who Against Guns campaign can be found here, and you can follow the group on Twitter at #whoagainstguns as well. This article’s author is among those providing commentary to the podcast.

13 COMMENTS

  1. There was a double episode of Stephen Moffat’s YA tv series Press Gang which dealt with a siege in the newsroom by a young man with a gun. Absolutely compelling writing, and over the entire series. Eps remain entirely memorable to me at least 25+ years after; it’s how it’s done

  2. I’m an Australian, and it’s been impressive watching the students in your country lead. I can’t believe that your NRA still has rallied and averted uour discourse, but it looks that way from here.

    I maintain that comics inherently are a progressive medium, and you are ahead of the curve in that department if you are reading them (and despite your politics). Just a thought

  3. “I maintain that comics inherently are a progressive medium …”

    Except for the comics that depict violence as hip, fun and cool, many of them by writers from the U.K. (who are themselves regarded as hip and cool by drooling fanboys).

  4. @Bob2: There was also a war to end the Confederacy in this country. But even though they lost, seems like a whole lotta folks keep holdin’ on to that one.

  5. “But even though they lost, seems like a whole lotta folks keep holdin’ on to that one.”

    Just like the Vietnam veterans who are still whining about not getting a homecoming parade 45 years ago. Hint: parades are given for soldiers who fought in WINNING wars: WWI, WWII, Gulf War. (The Korea vets didn’t get a parade either, but they didn’t spend decades griping about it.)

  6. Hi George, I appreciate your comment. I disagree, though. Guess I see that the broadest possible good is achieved through a spectrum of discourse created by the art/comic/whatever. So, even if ultra-right wing haters that do worship ultraviolence, as you said, did exclusively read those comics, at least they’re engaging in the discourse. That’s better than not.

    Personally though, I don’t think there are that many haters reading comics. And those of right wing persuasion (and left wing as well) just by exposure and engagement with the ideas inherent in superheroes and other comics, must contend and reconcile. Further, you can’t take responsibilty for someone else or blame comics for someone’s personality.

    I think Garth Ennis’ Punisher is bloody brilliant, and it’s one of my favourites. Probably other ultra-violent comics too that I could mention, but there are probably other books that are lacking or that I are obscene for obscenity’s sake, and actually are without redemption. Ales Kot’s Zero, or the degrading violence that I remember in Hickman’s Secret, might be too obscene for some; not me though.

    These are all fairly adult reads. My progressiveness can take it, though, and I don’t become a fascist, mysoginist or racist because I read books with violence, etc. As I said before, I think there’s a whole lot about comics that challenges us, even in mild ways e.g. the good that superheroes fight for.

    I still think comics are progressive even if you can find haters as readers. In a general sense, if only, if you like, and in a very inexpensive to produce, liberal medium like comics

  7. ” … there are probably other books that are lacking or that I are obscene for obscenity’s sake, and actually are without redemption.”

    Such as the collected works of Mark Millar, which frequently depict rape in a drooling way intended to be a turn-on. And which depict shooting someone in the head as the coolest thing imaginable.

    Millar defends his rape obsession as a plot device, intended to get the male hero angry enough to kick some serious butt. But that’s a tired old argument. His female characters are also plot devices; they’re there to get raped by the bad guy, so the hero can go on a rampage of revenge. It’s a teenage boy’s idea of storytelling.

  8. I wonder if these Brits will demand that James Bond (Her Majesty’s Service Service agent) stop using a gun and renounce his license to kill.

  9. I agree with you about Millar, George. Too often I think his character work can feel cardboard and fail to achieve life/interiority. They do get involved in the situations you describe, as the those cardboard character’s actions on that way are somehow important to his overall concept for the series.
    There might be some runs on books that I do like (Kick-Ass, Authority, Wolverine) but Reborn was awful, and Jupiter’s Legacy is no Watchmen.

  10. My solution: slap an R rating on every movie that shows someone being shot. And force directors to make shooting deaths as bloody, painful and horrifying as they were in, say, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN — not to mention real life.

    I guarantee there would be much less glorification of gun violence in movies.

  11. Appalling that two uses of the “F” word, or showing a nude body, results in an R rating — but movies can show people being slaughtered in huge numbers and still get a PG-13.

  12. “I’m an Australian, and it’s been impressive watching the students in your country lead.”

    Sorry, but those students aren’t leading anything. They’re nothing but uninformed pawns.

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