Richard Meyer, the man behind the Diversity & Comics YouTube page, released a damning video exposing Marvel Comics writer Mark Waid defamed him at a convention.
In the newly released audio, Waid claims Diversity & Comics is promoting “white supremacy.”
Waid makes the claim around the 11:20 mark:
Diversity & Comics pointed out just how ridiculous of an assertion this is by stating he’s the father of three mixed race children.
Mark Waid is going to comic conventions such as Houston’s @Comicpalooza and attempting to destroy my reputation by saying that I, the father of three mixed race children, am working toward “white supremacy.”
— Diversity & Comics (@DiversityAndCmx) June 20, 2018
Mark Waid has basically gone black on social media, after he found himself embroiled in what looked like an attempt to prevent Diversity & Comics’ Jawbreakers – Lost Souls graphic novel from being published by Antarctic Press.
However, Waid decided to discuss the situation with a fan at Houston’s Comicpalozza 2018 back in May. In an attempt to explain why he interfered with Antarctic Press, Waid gives his side of the story.
“In the world right now, you’ve got male heavy movements of guys who are trying to move things back towards white supremacy. Back towards in which women knew their place. That kind of nonsense. They are the Proud Boys. Or they are this group or that group. Comics has a group or two like that too. It’s a shame.”
Ironically, The Proud Boys are a group founded by Vice founder Gavin McInnes, who stand for individualism and western values. They also happen to be multi-ethnic and in no way promote white supremacy as Mark Waid intimates.
He added:
“I’m trying to say without inflaming anything. Recently, one of these groups kickstarted a comic. Great, awesome. They are going to do their own graphic novel because they are hyper-conservative guys. And the myth was, the rap was that comics is not interested in conservative creators or that we’re throwing conservative creators out. That’s not the case at all. There are a lot of conservative creators in comics. We’re throwing assholes out. That’s what we’re doing. And for every conservative asshole we don’t work with in comics, there’s ten liberal assholes we don’t work with in comics. There’s no political yardstick here.”
However conservative creators have lost their jobs for their beliefs. Will Caligan lost his job for his conservative beliefs. Bane co-creator and former Punisher writer Chuck Dixon has also been blacklisted from Marvel Comics. And we saw concerted campaigns against former DC Comics artist Ethan Van Sciver to run him out of the industry. Also Jon Malin, the artist on Jawbreakers – Lost Souls, told us he voted for Barack Obama. I’m not sure how you can describe someone who voted for Obama as hyper-conservative. And if Waid is telling the truth, he admits he’s actively worked to throw people out of the comic book industry. Interestingly enough people like Mags Visaggio who has threatened to beat cis people over the head with a bat is still gainfully employed for both Marvel and DC Comics. Waid himself likened Republicans to pedophiles.
He continued:
“These guys created their comic. Great. Awesome. There was a bunch of stores that decided they weren’t going to carry the comic. These guys made a list of those stores and their phone numbers and the names first and last of all their employees. And with the idea, ‘No don’t call them and harass them, but here’s the phone number and their first and last names of all their employees.’ Well come on.”
Those stores actually colluded against Diversity & Comics and the Jawbreakers – Lost Souls team of Jon Malin and Brett Smith to not only carry the book, but some of them even stated they would refuse to purchase the book even if a customer requested it.
He then began discussing Antarctic Press:
“There was a publisher here in Texas that was going to publish their comic. There was a huge amount of hatred toward that publisher at the moment. Most people in comics, most fan of comics were looking at this as ‘What are you doing? These are indefensible human beings.’ They harass women. They harass minorities. They harass LGBTQ people. They are full of hate. What are you doing? My feeling is let the baby have his bottle. I don’t care who publishes a comic. I don’t care whether you publish his comic or not. I don’t care. But I knew the publisher and I don’t think he was aware why all of a sudden there was this gigantic groundswell of hate towards him. So I said, ‘Before we burn his place to the ground let me call him and find out what’s going’…I know the guy and want to make sure he knows why the hordes of hell are descending upon him.”
For the full video exchange check it out below:
Are you surprised by Mark’s “version’ of events? And how do you think this will effect the industry as a whole?