Comicsgate leader is suing a Marvel/DC writer for defamation

This content has been archived. It may no longer be accurate or relevant.

From The Daily Dot:

Comicsgate figurehead Richard C. Meyer is taking DC/Marvel writer Mark Waid to court, suing him for “tortious interference with contract and defamation.” Meyer accuses Waid of ruining his career in comics; a bold move considering the reputation Meyer already created for himself.

Gaining notoriety as a conservative reactionary YouTuber, Meyer is best known for provoking harassment campaigns against women, people of color, and trans people in the comics industry. He’s the comics publishing equivalent of Milo Yiannopoulos, and his behavior is widely documented on social media and in mainstream outlets like the Guardian and Washington Post.

. . . .

The lawsuit relates to Jawbreakers, a comic written by Meyer and drawn by Jon Malin and Brett R. Smith. Jawbreakers is an action comic about a team of former superheroes, marketed as an “apolitical” response to a perceived progressive bias at Marvel and DC. It was initially meant to be published by Antarctic Press (a small indie publisher), but they dropped it following backlash from the comics community. Several retailers promised to boycott the comic if it came out, while prominent writers and artists criticized Antarctic Press for giving Comicsgate a platform.

. . . .

By this point, in May 2018, Meyer and Comicsgate were already infamous for stirring up trouble. Waid was one of the most high-profile people to speak out against Jawbreakers, posting on Facebook to say he’d personally informed Antarctic Press of Meyer’s behavior:

“I have a call in to Antarctic Press. Until I hear back, I’m (hesitantly) willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they don’t really understand who or what they’re getting into business with, which – though it would seem a stretch – is a possibility. If I do hear back, I’ll report in. Curious as to how they feel about publishing creators whose marketing strategy is to allegedly (*koff*) encourage their fans to threaten the employees of stores, and/or harass and one-star-review-bob stores, that don’t order their product.”

Soon after, Antarctic dropped Jawbreakers. Meyer decided to self-publish on Indiegogo instead, successfully marketing the comic as a battlefield in the culture wars. Basically, he used this controversy to gin up further support—and characterize himself as an underdog rebel while Waid represented the comics establishment.

. . . .

Meyer’s lawsuit frames Waid as his nemesis, saying that he personally defamed Meyer’s character and irreperably damaged his career. It describes Antarctic Press as “frightened for its very survival by Waid’s threats,” with Waid as the sole reason Jawbreakers got cancelled – ignoring the widespread public outcry from numerous other creators and comic stores. Meyer also says that Waid falsely accused him of sharing a list of comic store owners (i.e. doxing them), and defamed Meyer by characterizing him as “racist, serial harasser of minorities, and as affiliated with white supremacists.” He demands a jury trial and $75,000 in damages.

Link to the rest at The Daily Dot

PG suspects he’s not alone in wondering why some people have the idea that litigation can effectively settle what amount to glorified cat fights.

He has no knowledge of the subject of this disagreement or the identity of the parties involved, but “mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, or petty oppressions” are not a basis for suing for emotional distress (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 cmt. d. (1965)), which is the gravamen of most of these types of disputes

 

16 thoughts on “Comicsgate leader is suing a Marvel/DC writer for defamation”

  1. I think Judge Judy would laugh him out of her TV courtroom – though he might be doing all this just to try to be noticed.

  2. He isn’t asking for much. After legal fees and taxes he might have two nickels to rub together. Most such suits aim a bit higher.

  3. Long ago, a professional organization I was involved with contained a couple of people involved in one of these catfights. And soon enough cat A decided to sue cat B for defamation of character, etc., etc.

    But before suing, the wounded innocent vented to a philosopher (who had joined the organization in order to study the catfights). The philosopher, a frivolous person, convinced cat A that any suit would fail on the grounds that to be insulted by cat B could only enhance one’s reputation.

    I think about this so often nowadays. It seems to have a new application every morning.

  4. I don’t even know why they call him a leader of the movement, that honour should rightfully go to Vox day.

  5. “Meyer is best known for provoking harassment campaigns against women, people of color, and trans people in the comics industry. He’s the comics publishing equivalent of Milo Yiannopoulos,”

    Oh, is that what Milo does? Speaking out against liberal politics is the same thing as provoking harassment campaigns against women, people of color, and trans people?

    • Yeah, if anything, they should accuse him of encouraging harassment against little boys, that would be more accurate at least.
      But they dare not, for fear of being called homophobic.

      • Only conservative straight white males must follow the laws of this country – for everyone else it’s The Purge 24×7.

  6. FWIW, these two attorneys with YouTube channels went through the complaint. Both seem to think it has at least some merit as to the tortious interference, if not to the defamation.

    Rekieta Law – Diversity & Comics SUES MARK WAID

    JAWBREAKERS Lawsuit: Blocked Comic Artist Richard Meyer SUES Mark Waid

    I offer those up in full expectation nobody will watch them, since in total they run to about an hour, and who wants to invest the time unless you’ve got an interest. But there’s more to this than the Daily Dot piece is suggesting. I’m confident of at least that much.

    Who wins, who loses and who ultimately has the right of the matter is anyone’s guess, but what we have here is kind of a glorious race to the bottom, pitting Waid’s documented history of erratic behavior and threats of violence vs. Meyer’s YouTube channel of unmitigated snark.

  7. Hardly any of this is accurate. Meyers is hated by the lefties in the comics industry because he is outspoken about their crap writing and characters of the last few years. He isn’t against women or people of color, just bad writers and artist. It just so happens that Marvel Comics (Until recently) was pushing their political agenda and doing it at the expense of established characters and good writing. The fact that Meyers didn’t like their progressive characters (considering almost all of them flopped and had their books cancelled, it seems no one like them) and called Marvel on their BS earned him the “racist” badge. Nevermind the fact that he hasn’t done any of the things he’s been accused of. They did wreck his comic though and he has evidence to that effect. It’s far beyond just a “cat fight. There are people, like Waid, calling for violence against Meyers… Personally, considering all the slander and libel that has been thrown his way I’m surprised he’s taken this long to sue.

  8. One can’t trust anything that anyone writes about anymore. The author of this tripe takes one side of the argument about 3x per paragraph. Often upfront, but other times with the use of air quotes. What a poor effort at ‘journalism’, but quite common these days.

  9. The traditional comics industry owns incredibly valuable IP, but has circulation rates that are less than 1% of what they used to be, only ten years ago. (Less than .01% of what they were back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.)

    Meyer is a normal guy and army veteran who had done a few indie comics, and who started reviewing comics on YouTube, objecting to stupid stuff and showing what was still good. This quickly got him a lot of venom from trad comics writers and artists, but also a lot of fans. He did several comics kickstarters that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, and started making lots of bucks on direct sales. But like most indies, he also wanted to support local comics shops and small comics companies by selling through them.

    Waid and other trad comics people organized a campaign to tell comics shops not to carry Meyer’s comics, which was their right. However, the way Waid specifically went about his dealings with the small publisher Antarctic Comics was very legally fishy; and he bragged about it online. (Later he deleted his postings, but screenshots are forever.)

    Meyer’s comics career did not need a comics company or comics shops, and it’s almost ridiculous how much more money he’s making by only going direct. But being forced to go direct by one’s competition in the field doing their best to restrain his trade? Oh, yeah, there’s lots of legal fun there.

    Meanwhile, Meyer’s “#MovetheNeedle” campaign continues to encourage his fans to go to comics shops, buy individually good issues of comics, and recommend them to others, even if (or especially if) their writers and artists are open opponents of Meyer. This is meant to show the comics industry (through sales figures) that comics fans just want some good comics to read, and to reward them when they give the customers what they want.

    Because that’s what you do if you’re evil and bigoted, right?

    • Well, maybe not “hundreds” of thousands of dollars… but his Indiegogo did go over 100K, and it’s not the only big one.

      Also under legal fun, another traditional comics guy posted screenshots from a Kickstarter employee, allegedly revealing private business communications between Meyer and Kickstarter.

      The screenshot supposedly supports Kickstarter’s decision, but really it doesn’t make Kickstarter look good….

      • Actually, it turns out that I was being accurate in my initial recollection! The Jawbreakers: Lost Souls campaign on Indiegogo raised 399K. The Iron Sights campaign raised 119K. He also did a fast comics-for-charity campaign that raised 15K for the charity in question.

Comments are closed.