Who Your Friends Are

Some thoughts on being unemployed in a Hollywood-adjacent industry

Shortly after Paramount was acquired by Skydance, I was talking to my father-in-law about the deal. Like most Paramount employees, I was rooting for the Skydance deal since some of the other suitors seemed like a terrible fit. Still, I knew that there was a non-zero chance that my employer, ComicBook, would be sold, folded, or merged into some other Paramount or Skydance entity. After having spent almost a third of my life there, I knew there was a chance that I would no longer be working at ComicBook within about a year.

Turns out “a year” was fairly optimistic, and I was laid off within about three months.

Back then, I wondered aloud to my father-in-law: when I finally moved on — whether by layoff or resignation — which of my friends would still be…y’know…my friends?

For more than 13 years, I had been at ComicBook, and for about half of that time, the site enjoyed millions — sometimes tens of millions — of views a month. I wondered how many of my industry friends would vanish once I wasn’t in a place where I could do something for them.

The answer, as it turns out, was that I had mostly lined up with very nice people who didn’t seem to care whether I could help them draw attention to their project or not. Some have vanished, but the list of people who sent me incredibly kind messages in the days and weeks after I was let go is too long to detail exhaustively. That said, some folks stick out as being especially kind, helpful, or insightful.

Jim Viscardi, my longtime boss at ComicBook, has been nothing but supportive, providing me with a steady stream of suggestions — sometimes more than I can act on at one time — for new employment. His endorsement was likely key to getting me my first recurring freelance gig since I lost my job, and his insight into the industry and my place in it has been almost as valuable as his friendship. Almost.

Joe Blackmon, ComicBook’s co-founder and one of the people who hired me way back in 2011, has been on my phone a few times, talking about the state of the industry and bouncing ideas for the future back and forth. Joe changes the game wherever he goes, and I’m almost more excited to see where he lands, than I am to see where I land next.

Brandon Davis, who worked with me for a decade, has been one of my biggest cheerleaders for the last couple of months. I was proud to help him get some of the nuts and bolts pieces of his Phase Hero podcast off the ground, and I can’t wait to see what he and his team do next. Not only is he one of the nicest guys you would ever want to work with, but BD is a consummate professional. I hope to hell I get to work with BD again (and yes, there’s already a pitch I have in mind).

Megan Peters, another CB teammate, sent me an incredibly kind message the day after I was let go. She moved on fairly quickly to a job at Screen Rant, where I’m sure she will improve the place just like she did for us for years. In addition to being one of the smartest and most prolific writers I’ve ever met in entertainment journalism, Megan keeps an eye on the talent around her in a way that served her well as our Anime Lead. I really consider her kind words about myself and Brandon after we were gone to be some of the highest compliments I have received in my professional life.

David Hyde, of Superfan Promotions, is one of the best publicists in and around comics, and is one of a handful of people who immediately moved my CB email off his mailing list, and my personal email onto it, because he was way more confident than I was that I would quickly find work again. Kind words and dark jokes have carried all of our chats since October, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Another incredible publicist — and someone who has had my back every time I have ever needed her to — is Claire Gendel, who has sent me job listings and checked in with me regularly. Of course, maybe she secretly just hopes I’ll bring her back onto a Riverdale podcast…!

Erik Larsen and I have been doing our Savage Dragon interviews for 16 years now, and while I didn’t want to call it quits, I was entirely willing to do so if Erik didn’t want to keep taking the time, once I had no guaranteed platform. Erik, unsurprisingly, wanted to keep it going — because there aren’t many people in comics who love his fans more, and he felt (as I did) that quitting would leave the audience disappointed.

On that note, both Craig Byrne (one of my closest friends in the business) and Alex Zalben (who hardly knows me, but I have a ton of respect for his work) were there to help give some of my “orphaned” stories a place to live on the internet. That’s huge, because when I do an interview, I don’t ever want the subject to feel like they wasted their time. Both Alex’s Comic Book Club and Craig’s KSite are places where I was very proud to find myself with a byline, and even once I’m back to work full time, I’m hoping they will continue to have me visit from time to time.

If you’re looking for moral support in comics, you could do a lot worse than to be friends with guys like Ben and Max Berkowitz. They were the first people to reach out to me besides my ComicBook coworkers and my wife, and have been encouraging, supportive, and always a pleasure to chat with. The same can be said for Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, who has my vote for the one of my friends most likely to change the world with comics.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to acknowledge Zach Roberts. He isn’t just my podcast co-host or even my publishing/producing partner — he’s a dear friend who has spent the last 25 years cheering me on, while I try to do the same for him. He and I are working on some projects together in 2025, and I’m excited to get back on the road with him to do some filming on a documentary project. It’s been far too long since we did something totally ambitious and insane that was just us sitting in a room with a camera and a laptop.

There are a lot more people whose kind words and support have meant the world to me, but frankly if I just start listing off everyone who sent me a nice message, it would sound like I was name-dropping. You don’t need to know every notable name who sent me a kind word.

I’m extremely enthusiastic about what 2025 has in store. There’s some great stuff you already know about, some really cool stuff coming up that I can’t wait to reveal, and a few adventures that have yet to take shape. For the last month and a half, I have been focusing on the future, since the present was uncertain and the past was a little bittersweet. I knew it was time to move on from ComicBook, but that didn’t make the abruptness of it any easier, and it doesn’t change the fact that both that place and those people will mean a lot to me for the rest of my life. Navigating all of that while keeping my spirits high has been made much, much easier by all of the people mentioned above — and, of course, by my wife, Cali. She makes every day better, and I’m very lucky to be hers.

I may have some news fairly soon, and before that happens, I wanted to look back on the people who have been so kind, supportive, and helpful over the last few weeks.

See you soon. Remember to be back here by noon on the fifth day — and always remember to rewind your cassettes.

*Quick note: I see that most of my traffic here came from e-mails. Good to see that my subscribers still care when it’s a “personal stuff” kind of post. Sorry if anyone feels misled by the Superman header graphic that went out with this — it was late at night and they told me that the graphic I had in the post was too small, so I grabbed the first vaguely-appropriate image I had on hand.