Following the latest developments in the lawsuit between Richard C. Meyer and Mark Waid, both parties have independently and personally responded to reports regarding said developments by various news comic book sites.
On April 25th, Meyer posted a video response to the publication of Joeming Dunn’s deposition and a motion to dismiss the case by Waid’s legal team on his YouTube channel, Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack. In his video, Meyer discusses various aspects of the ongoing legal process while providing further context around the newly released legal documents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtSrjMWPuYg&feature=youtu.be
According to Meyer, one of his main points of contention with recent reporting has been a focus on the term ‘prevent’ over the term ‘interfere’ and the subsequent declarations of victories which interchange the two words:
“The thing is, the stuff they released wasn’t really that impressive either way. Until, like clockwork, 24 hours later, two shill sites Newsarama and Bleeding Cool did articles where they were like ‘Oh, everything’s done! Oh, they’ve proven under oath blahblahblah.’ But it revolved around this stupid word game where they’re acting like ‘prevent’ and ‘interfere’ were the same word. And they’re like ‘Oh, this proves Mark Waid didn’t prevent the book from being published!’ It’s not tortious prevention. It’s tortious INTERFERENCE.”
“The only way he could prevent it is if he literally bought the company made himself the publisher and squashed the book. This is just a silly lawyer trick, because, you know, prevent and interfere, for the average busy person, they don’t mean the same thing but they’re pretty close. But legally, they are -vastly- different. Mark Waid never had a single right to interfere. Not one single right. He didn’t know the Dunns, he wasn’t in the book, he didn’t work for the company, he’s never worked for the company, he had no plans to work for the company, he was a third party, and that’s where the interference comes from.”
Meyers notes that he believes the ‘friends who worked at Marvel’ that the Dunns feared for after Waid’s phone call were members of the art team Guru-eFX, which has provided numerous pieces for Marvel over the years, including work on titles such as Deadpool vol. 4, Gravity, and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man:
“I’m still checking on this, but basically there’s Antarctic and then there’s something called Guru-eFx, and it looks like they have some kind of deal to, “we’ll let you have free you know, space in our space in exchange for, you guys are really good colorists, and if we need some coloring or letting, for a cut price or free in exchange for your cut price or free rent of the facility, we’ll do some horse trading.” So that gets really, really complicated, because then we have Mark Waid, working for Marvel, them knowing he works for Marvel, Mark Waid calling them out of nowhere, interfering, no business, this is an A and B conversation and he is personality C.”
Meyer also sets to correct a point in Bounding Into Comics’ own report on the matter, stating that he believes Ben Dunn was not Editor-in-Chief at the time Jawbreakers – Lost Souls was dropped by Antarctic Press. Bounding Into Comics stated Dunn was Editor-in-Chief due to his admission in the leaked private messages and his Linkedin profile listing his most recent tenure as Editor-in-Chief as beginning in March 2018. Though Meyers states that the “actual Editor-in-Chief” is “the guy in charge of Guru-eFx” (it is unknown if Meyers is referring to Joe Weltjens or Lee Duhig), this has yet to be confirmed by evidence or outside sources.
Conversely, Waid’s response was posted in a singular comment on Bleeding Cool’s report on the newly released legal documents. In response to another user linking to Bounding Into Comics’ coverage and asking if Joeming Dunn could be charged with perjury, Waid stated:
“Pay attention, class. The above is a prime example of the sort of straw-grasping, taking-their-time-away-from-creating-sockpuppet-accounts gaslighting that’s a part of the CG Playbook. When you see CGers pull shit like this, I encourage you to shut them down with facts rather than let them keep getting away with their nonsense. So:
Nice try, but as regards any comments from Joe Dunn’s brother, Ben, whether posted by the troll above or anywhere else: Ben Dunn, who as attested had no role in the decision made by the Publisher, testified under oath (see Ben’s deposition, pp 33-34) that his brother Joe did not talk to him at all about his call. Anything and everything Ben may have to say about any communication between Joe and I is pure speculation. Or, as Ben Dunn himself put it:
Q: And–but [your theory as to why Joe made his decision]–that’s not based on anything Joe said to you; correct?
A: That’s correct.
Q: This–this is your–your speculation as to what occurred; correct?
A: That’s correct.
There are *several* other spots in Ben’s deposition where he states *to his own lawyer* that Joe told him absolutely nothing about our call and he didn’t ask. At no time, under oath, did Ben change his story and say that he had ever been made privy to anything at all said in my conversation with Joe. Ben’s free to speculate all he wants about what was said–it’s a free country–but to the best of my knowledge, speculation from a third party who admits he was witness to nothing is not considered evidence.”
What do you make of Meyer and Waid’s responses?