Posted in: Comics, IDW | Tagged: idw, Jud Meyers

Report Claims IDW Has Fired New Publisher Jud Meyers

Published Fri, 07 Aug 2020 21:48:56 -0500

Last updated Fri, 07 Aug 2020 22:51:32 -0500

Just days after he was placed on administrative leave, which happened just days after he was promoted to new publisher of IDW, Jud Meyers has reportedly been terminated. George R. R. Marston had the scoop over at GamesRadar, along with an official statement from IDW: "IDW Publishing has parted ways with Jud Meyers and would like to thank everyone for their discretion."

The logo for IDW Publishing (despite all appearances, not a trash can on fire)

Bleeding Cool broke the story on July 22nd that Meyers would be IDW's new publisher. However, Meyers was shortly placed on administrative leave. Rich Johnston explained why, starting with events that transpired after Meyers left Earth 2 Comics and founded Blastoff Comics.

It then transpired that Earth-2 Comics sued Meyers and Blastoff. In the suit, Earth-2 Comics claimed that Meyers had sold product from Earth-2 to Lone Star Comics and kept the proceeds off books, in his wife's name, ahead of setting up Blastoff as a rival store, for which Earth-2 also claims Meyer also took the Earth-2 customer list. Overall, Earth-2 claimed damages of in excess of $120,000. The complaint was eventually settled, but one of the witnesses against Meyers was Chris Powell, now at Diamond Comic Distributors.

Meyers was also named Director of Sales and Marketing at Humanoids. Which I am told, became a problem for Humanoids, as Chris Powell at Diamond, declined to work with him. Also, Humanoids appearance at retailer events and conventions would attract the attention of aggrieved retailers over Meyers' presence.

Then the final Blastoff Comics store closed last year and I understand the chain went out of business, still owing Diamond Comic Distributors around $35,000. There were then allegations that stock that had been consigned by collectors to Blastiff sell, and then placed in storage, managed to make it to the marketplace without money – or stock – being returned yet to those dealers.

The situation resulted in tension between retailers and Diamond, and thus Diamond and IDW. We'll continue to update this story as we learn more.

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