Hi, and welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we cover a story from the Current Geek subreddit suggested by Action_Nate, on how the leader of the Comicsgate movement is suing a DC/Marvel writer for defamation and tortious interference with contract following a public feud online.
Richard Meyer is the figurehead for Comicsgate, and he is known for his conservative reactionary views often expressed on YouTube videos. He has provoked harassment campaigns in the past against women and minorities in that industry, and he created his own comic names Jawbreakers about a team of former superheroes who are a response to his perceived progressive bias in the comics of Marvel and DC. If you're unfamiliar with him, you can think of him as an analogue to Alex Jones or Fox News, just in the comic book industry.
Jawbreakers was to be published by a small indie publisher Antarctic Press, but the publisher backed off in response to public pressure from the comic community about Meyer. This pressure came from several major retailers as well as prominent artists and writers in the comic field, including Mark Waid. Waid specifically posted to Facebook that he put a call in Antarctic Press to explain the type of person Meyer is and why he believed they would be making a mistake to put out Jawbreakers.
When Antarctic Press backed off, Meyer turned to Indiegogo to fund his Jawbreakers comic, and then he turned to the court this month to sue Waid for defamation and tortious interference with contract. While Meyer actually benefitted from the controversy in that he drummed up more support for his culture wars comic, as he styles it, he still wants to go after Waid as a representative of what he sees as the establishment in comics, AKA, the folks keeping his views suppressed. But does Meyer have a chance to win here?
Although each state defines defamation a little differently, it generally requires a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to someone's reputation and published with negligence or malice against the subject. The key question here is whether any of Waid's statements about Meyer were false. It seems based on Meyer's reputation and history on YouTube and other social media platforms, it will be difficult to prove any of the published comments to be false, and even if one is false, it is questionable whether they really harmed Meyer's reputation in a meaningful way. It seems defamation will be a hard sell for someone in Meyer's position.
Turning to tortious interference with contract, the elements required include actual interference with a contract by a third party who intends to interfere with the contract, and in an improper manner that causes damage to the plaintiff. While Waid clearly left a voicemail message to Antarctic Press about his concerns with publishing Meyer's work, the publisher is not indicating that made any difference in their decision to back out of the publication. There were a lot of other potential factors and influencers in that decision. That will make it a gray area if this claim can have any traction in court, and the damages caused are unclear even if the claim is successful, in view of the later success of the Indiegogo campaign.
Perhaps the biggest indicator we have is that Waid has hired a well-known powerful lawyer Mark Zaid, who has been very successful in this field on high profile cases like suing Libya over the Pan Am bombing. An imbalance in the sophistication of the counsel in this case makes it even more likely that these claims will be picked apart and likely unsuccessful. But going against the establishment is on brand for Richard Meyer, so maybe this is all part of his plan.
The Bottom Line is, as the political world around us becomes more polarized, these types of legal conflicts will increase where those of minority views or perceived minority views feel suppressed and discriminated against by industry. It's an unfortunate side effect of the world we're in at the moment, but this particular case seems doomed to fail, by this attorney's eyes.
Thanks again to Action Nate for the subreddit suggestion, and also a quick shoutout to Jeff Rose for linking another interesting legal story we didn't cover in which Utah must cover almost half a million in legal fees after losing a lawsuit over a movie theater selling alcohol during a screening of Deadpool two years ago. Ouch to Scott Johnson's home state! Check out the subreddit for more on that, and please continue to send suggestions for the main show and this segment.
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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy
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