Richard Meyer v. Mark Waid (2018)

[Mola Ram]

Punitive damages are pretty likely and are generally calculated based on your ability to pay them and so that they're actually punitive, i.e. they punish you. So a court looking at that kind of behavior is just going to say okay and triple the judgment.

In this case one might even prefer the term exemplary damages, because the jackbooted fuckers who are funding this monster surely need an example.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Punitive damages are pretty likely and are generally calculated based on your ability to pay them and so that they're actually punitive, i.e. they punish you. So a court looking at that kind of behavior is just going to say okay and triple the judgment.

Except you wait for the final number to be given and then basically go to your friends and have them basically give you the money under the table, or as Al Sharpton did in the Tawanna Brown rape hoax, literally had a friend write the check for the amount he ordered to pay, in court, the day he found out how much he was going to have to pay the cops he falsely accused of gang raping Tawanna Brown.

Sharpton didn't even go through the process of trying to appeal the punitive damage; just had a rich friend pay the amount for him so that Sharpton wouldn't be financially ruined by it.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Nick Rekeita is finishing up going through the filing tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTysOMa5PSo

Listening to Nick going through the Waid depo transcripts, and he's reached the point was claiming victimhood. "Oh noes all da Death Threats!". At which point he's asked to produce them, and "oh noes I deleted them!" Wow. Did Waid just commit perjury? I mean it's easy enough to subpoena Waid's twitter and ask for deleted items. They know the dates. If no death threats are there?

 

[Pedro Sanchez]

Nick Rekeita is finiahing up going through the filing tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTysOMa5PSo

Waid certainly sucks at being deposition going off the script he's reading.

 

[Stoneheart]

Waid is so toast...

 

[Urbanmech]

To be fair, after the fail and AIDS that was "The Kingdom", DC and Alex Ross basically have stated up front that Waid was actually only on Kingdom Come to write dialogue based off of Ross' detailed script outline that Ross and Ross alone had written, along with a couple of super minor things (Waid threw a huge temper tantrum to force Ross to include Martian Manhunter into the plot, as Ross hates Martian Manhunter due to him being excluded from the Super Friends franchise and as such, "not a real JLA member" in Ross's eyes) and coming up with the compromise of using Alan Scott after Ross nearly ragequit the project when DC told him he either had to use Kyle Raynor or not be allowed to use ANY Green Lanterns in Kingdom Come.

Hell, they even had to pre-emptively shit Waid up, when Ross teamed up with Johns do to his own personal sequel to Kingdom Come in JSA; basically when the arc started, DC outright did a press release all but saying Kingdom Come was 100% Ross's baby and as such, he had every write to do his OWN sequel, as opposed to letting the much reviled "The Kingdom" by Waid stand as the only official sequel to the story.



Someone mentioned this earlier IIRC.

Waid's first attempt to kill the suit was to try and say Richard can't sue in Texas via jurisdictional issues (most likely because Waid realized he would be fucked in the Texas court system). But to do so, he had to delay filing his anti-SLAPP suit since you can't countersue until you found out where the case jurisdiction is.

But in filing for a change of venue, Waid was forced to submit to discovery as far as proving why the jurisdiction needs to change. Which gave Meyers and his lawyers the means to get a TON of material from Waid that basically makes it next to impossible for him to file an Anti-SLAPP lawsuit.



He was able to raise a lot of money, his BFF Grant Morrison added to that by giving him a do-nothing office job at the company that publishes Heavy Metal (which Grant now runs as EiC) to give him an extra stream of income (to live off of or to go directly to his defense fund), and a lot of pros were bragging about how they would gladly give him money under the table (there was talk, possibly Tom Taylor, bragging about getting a lot of the Marvel writers all to volunteer to donate the money they make from their books for a single month, to Waid and his defense fund on top of what they were donating via Go Fund Me).

He most likely think he can probably outspend Richard or win by legal trickery to keep it from ever seeing the light of day in court. Fuck, even if Waid DOES lose, he probably would just have Neil Gaiman (who has been white knighting Waid hard on Twitter and shilling lie-filled articles denouncing Comicsgate and claiming that anyone calling his "sources" fake news are liars and blocking them, cut a check to pay Richard Meyers off on Waid's behalf. Or just crowdsource the settlement, as far as pulling an Al Sharpton Rape Hoax move to ensure that someone else literally takes the financial hit so Waid doesn't have to face any financial consequences.

Yea I am curious if his lawyers knew about the DM's and just putting all their eggs into this jurisdiction motion or if they had no idea and Waid made a big oopsie for his lawyers.

 

[RodgerDodger]

To be fair, after the fail and AIDS that was "The Kingdom", DC and Alex Ross basically have stated up front that Waid was actually only on Kingdom Come to write dialogue based off of Ross' detailed script outline that Ross and Ross alone had written,
Someone mentioned this earlier IIRC.

Waid's first attempt to kill the suit was to try and say Richard can't sue in Texas via jurisdictional issues (most likely because Waid realized he would be fucked in the Texas court system). But to do so, he had to delay filing his anti-SLAPP suit since you can't countersue until you found out where the case jurisdiction is.

But in filing for a change of venue, Waid was forced to submit to discovery as far as proving why the jurisdiction needs to change. Which gave Meyers and his lawyers the means to get a TON of material from Waid that basically makes it next to impossible for him to file an Anti-SLAPP lawsuit.

The added kicker is even the Jurisdictional challenge would not have put him into early discovery, BUT Waid perjured himself in his initial filing. He claimed he did no business in Texas and had no ties to Texas. This was immediately challenged as Waid has extensive business ties to Texas, does business routinely in Texas and performed the primary public defamation of Meyer while in Texas. So the Plaintiff asked for discovery to find out what Waid's ties and actions in fact were.

 

[Jub-Jub]

Listening to Nick going through the Waid depo transcripts, and he's reached the point was claiming victimhood. "Oh noes all da Death Threats!". At which point he's asked to produce them, and "oh noes I deleted them!" Wow. Did Waid just commit perjury? I mean it's easy enough to subpoena Waid's twitter and ask for deleted items. They know the dates. If no death threats are there?

He also says a specific time, within 5-6 hours of the AP announcement of dropping the book. Might he have limited his options? Lets say he gets an actual threat 24h after the announcement, won't that weigh against his victim narrative?

 

[verissimus]

How is this Waid still employed? FFS.

 

[linchan]

Those are some of the saddest string of text's I've seen

 

[Pedro Sanchez]

How is this Waid still employed? FFS.

He knows a lot of high profile people in the industry. Gaiman, Morrison, numerous Marvel people. He has the right connections.

 

[RodgerDodger]

He knows a lot of high profile people in the industry. Gaiman, Morrison, numerous Marvel people. He has the right connections.

It's more he is the last of the old guard, and as such likely works cheap and doesn't have the temperament to really do well with his creator owned stuff. I don't really understand how and why DC or Marvel put up with his insanity for decades? Beyond he works cheap fast and with a high level of output, in spite of the rampant lunacy.

 

[linchan]

Can i get a webm of that shut up you stupid ugly pimple line?

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

It's more he is the last of the old guard, and as such likely works cheap and doesn't have the temperament to really do well with his creator owned stuff. I don't really understand how and why DC or Marvel put up with his insanity for decades? Beyond he works cheap fast and with a high level of output, in spite of the rampant lunacy.

See also: Chuck Wendig. They're like pulp authors from ye oldene dayes, except those guys could sell books.

 

[AnOminous]

See also: Chuck Wendig. They're like pulp authors from ye oldene dayes, except those guys could sell books.

Even L. Ron Hubbard could write in complete sentences when he wrote pulp trash.

Also re people whining that Meyer said Mark Waid looks like a pedophile: he does.

Put it in a rogue's gallery with a bunch of other sex offenders and he looks perfectly at home.

 

[DragoonSierra]

Waid was teleconferencing in and because he's a massive idiot who thought he just got off the hook for the lawsuit.

What would even give him that indication?

 

[TheSoutherStar]

It's more he is the last of the old guard, and as such likely works cheap and doesn't have the temperament to really do well with his creator owned stuff. I don't really understand how and why DC or Marvel put up with his insanity for decades? Beyond he works cheap fast and with a high level of output, in spite of the rampant lunacy.

He tends to create the most palatable junk and was always a consistently "safe"/"vanilla" writer.

You'd notice that by the time he started virtue signaling in his work, his writing also suffered; because he was never a high-level storyteller in the first place and was exposed.

 

[AnOminous]

He tends to create the most palatable junk and was always a consistently "safe"/"vanilla" writer.

You'd notice that by the time he started virtue signaling in his work, his writing also suffered; because he was never a high-level storyteller in the first place and was exposed.

He always acted like a screaming, crying baby, though. The firsthand tale of Gary Groth about him screaming and crying and smashing a phone on the floor every morning to the point people just ignored his tantrums like they weren't happening would have dated to the mid to late '80s I think.

 

[Urbanmech]

What would even give him that indication?

his ego?

 

[Comicsgeist]

Except you wait for the final number to be given and then basically go to your friends and have them basically give you the money under the table, or as Al Sharpton did in the Tawanna Brown rape hoax, literally had a friend write the check for the amount he ordered to pay, in court, the day he found out how much he was going to have to pay the cops he falsely accused of gang raping Tawanna Brown.

Sharpton didn't even go through the process of trying to appeal the punitive damage; just had a rich friend pay the amount for him so that Sharpton wouldn't be financially ruined by it.

Yeah.. that's not going to happen for Waid.

Sharpton's friends have deep corporate pockets, Waid's friends (if he has any) are struggling comics pro's. We've seen the power of their ability to crowd fund and it's not that impressive.
Waid is currently at $80,869 of $75,000 goal on Gofundme for his ‘fightin’ dem Nazi’s fund’
Richard C. Meyer is at $113,596 of $100,000 goal on Gofundme, and there's been suggestions from Meyer that a further round of funding may be needed from backers if a settlement isn’t agreed, which tells you just how expensive this suit is and it gives you an indicator of just how far Waid's money is likely to stretch also.

Waid may have raised enough cash to cover his legal fees, provided that the case doesn't drag on, but not nearly enough to cover a judgement against him. Furthermore, the funds he managed to raise came after a huge push by industry pro’s and industry media to back his defence fund (combined with the implicit threat from the whisper-networks that those not contributing or at the very least promoting Waid’s campaign would be noted ...and might find their names on the list of 'possible comicsgate sympathizers’ to be scrutinized carefully).

If Waid loses, I really can’t see those same people having a whip-around just to put money directly into Ya Boi’s pocket. There’s no good fight to be fought for the reighteous in that, ony paying out reperations for a defeat.
Add to that the fact that Waid is more feared than liked in the industry, which means that the stench of failure is likely to cause many of his fair-weather supporters to melt away.
Ethan said on a stream a few months ago that an industry third party (un-named) had approached him to act as an intermediary in the hope of getting Zack to drop the case. He suggested that Waid would donate his gofundme money to a charity of Zack's choice as a goodwill gesture and asked if it everybody could just back down, he was told to get fucked. So clearly there's not a lot of faith that Waid will win coming from the anti side of things, which will make them even more reluctant to back a looser.

I expect Waid is likely to declare bankruptcy shortly after a judgement. The judgement will be that big.
Jawbreakers raised $404,913 (Iron Sights raised a further $119,424).
Doubtless when arguing for compensation, Zack’s lawyers will use those numbers as an indicator of what he could have raised in the direct market had he not been locked out of it by Waid’s tortious interference. Add to that any damages for future earning and you could easily be looking a cool half a million judgement, minimum.
There’s no way anybody is crowdfunding that kind of cash for Waid. It’s game over for him and a salutary lesson for the rest of the industry spergs attacking comicsgate.