Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack

Richard C. Meyer , better known online as Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack (formerly known as Diversity & Comics from 2017-2019) is an American commentary YouTuber focused primarily on the comic book industry.
==Content==
Ya Boi Zack often focuses on his perceptions of far left politicization of Marvel Comics (dubbed "SJW Marvel") and other companies like DC and Image. Additionally, he covers the history of comics, pop culture, reviews, and reports from anonymous insiders.
Meyer believes that comic books, and entertainment as a whole, should be a meritocracy as opposed to being based on political beliefs and identity. Furthermore, he says that comics are a visual medium that emphasizes aesthetics such as strong men, beautiful women, well drawn action and use of visual storytelling. He often criticizes the "Tumblr art" used by many of today's artists.
Videos often share Meyer's opinions on the behavior of comic book creators on social media such as Twitter, perceived lies and corruption of comics media websites like CBR, Newsarama, and Bleeding Cool, and allegations of collusion with each other to gatekeep comics. He covers most new developments in the comic book world, and also explores the past, often comparing the former to the latter unfavorably.
His stated goal is to help save American comics, and "restore the industry to what it had been before the mid-'10s, so that it can thrive once again".
Meyer is known for his very candid style, with no script and very rarely any editing, and Meyer calling what he sees. Meyer is known to bring up events in his life, both as analogy for the topic at hand, and sometimes just drifting off-topic, which has become a "signature" for him. The most common topics he brings up is his life in the military (either out in Iraq or Afghanistan, being stationed in Germany or San Diego, or his misadventures in the base with his teammates), yard work and gardening, fast food, and his life growing up in the '80s and '90s as a comic fan, contrasting it with modern culture today. He also coughs a lot in his videos as a reflex (which he says doesn't happen any other time), which has also become a joke among himself and the fans.
Since starting in 2017, Meyer has become a controversial figure among the comic book writers and media websites, notably Mark Waid (who he has sued for defamation and tortious interference), Gail Simone, Heather Antos, and more within the current industry.
Some comic book professionals have supported him, such as Ethan Van Sciver, Jon Malin, Mitch Breitweiser, Mike S. Miller, Doug TenNapel, Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan, Shane Davis, Mike Baron, Kenneth Rocafort, Kelsey Shannon, Dan Fraga, Art Thibert, and Kyle Ritter, among others, as well as many who have since started making comics following the Comicsgate movement he spawned.
==About==
Richard Meyer was born and raised in rural Nebraska, and has lived in New York City (on three separate occasions, first moving there in 1991), the San Francisco Bay Area, Germany, and Texas (first in Austin and then McAllen, where he currently resides). He is a former member of the United States Marines, Army and National Guard, and has fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a point he often mentions in his videos. He has three children, two daughters and a son; one Afghan Muslim daughter, and two Hispanic children (one Jewish and the other Christian). He owns a dog, a female boxer named Luna, who is a fan-favorite and considered by some to be the unofficial mascot of the channel.
Politically, Meyer considers himself to be a center-right Republican, not being heavily invested in politics as a whole but having values more right-leaning in general.
His favorite comic book creators include Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Larry Hama, Frank Miller, Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Ann Nocenti, Christopher Priest (formerly known as Jim Owsley), Fabian Nicieza, and Rob Liefeld. Although not a major fan of manga, he admires how it runs as a complete meritocracy and cites that industry as the perfect example of what American comics should be. He does enjoy some Japanese works, notably Berzerk, Ghost in the Shell (with Masamune Shirow being his favorite mangaka), and One-Punch Man.
Meyer believes that the core reason why the comic pros reacted so harshly to his criticisms was due to the fact that all comic book websites had answered to them for a long time, thus no one ever criticized them, and they had gone over five years without any harsh criticisms of any kind by the time Meyer first appeared in 2017. He believes that his opinions aren't actually controversial, but match what longtime fans of the medium have long been thinking.
The Marvel Universe and its characters and stories is Meyer's all-time favorite franchise. He describes seeing Marvel's downfall in the present as "heartbreaking" to watch, which is why he started the channel to begin with. His favorite run is Fabian Nicieza's 25-issue New Warriors series, with Night Thrasher being his all-time favorite superhero.
===Meyer vs. Waid (2018-2020)===
In 2018, Meyer got a publishing deal with indie company Antarctic Press for his crowdfunded book Jawbreakers: Lost Souls (which would've been for the Jawbreakers series, plus additional books he would make, most likely including Iron Sights and Impossible Stars). The idea was to give comic book stores products they could actually sell, and give customers good comics directly outside the crowdfunding space.
However, comic book creator Mark Waid, who had been an enemy of Meyer since he started, and holding many connections in the industry itself, called Antarctic Press to have them cancel the book. He threatened to get AP blacklisted from the industry, which would extend to all associated creators like Fred Perry and Rob Espinosa, if they didn't comply. Antarctic Press, facing enormous pressure, cancelled the book and Meyer's deal.
Jawbreakers: Lost Souls would go on to make more then $400,000 on Indiegogo, and launch Meyer's career as a comic book creator. Later that year, Meyer sued Waid for tortious interference and defamation. Originally, he wasn't planning to because he knew a lawsuit would be a long, painful and expensive endeavor, but ultimately decided to go through with it. He felt he needed to prevent this from happening again.
Since then, Mark Waid has done everything he could to postpone and drag the lawsuit in order to mentally and financially exhaust Meyer into conceding and settling out of court, but Meyer determined that he had to win the lawsuit itself to end cancel culture, and thus refused to concede. The lawsuit was officially slated to begin in Texas sometime in 2021.
Other Youtubers have weighed in on this and analyzed the prospects of who will likely win, notably Literature Devil in his video How Screwed is Mark Waid?.
On December 23, 2020, Meyer dropped the lawsuit against Waid, with the two releasing a joint statement that neither party viewed the fight as worth it after two years of stress and exorbitant expenses and the COVID-19 pandemic changing the landscape. Both have signed an NDA, where neither party can officially talk about the case in any way.
Other YouTubers like Just Some Guy have spoken on this, arguing that this has benefited Meyer; Waid can't speak about the case publicly, bully others, or interfere with other creators, after spending two years in an expensive and stressful lawsuit (whereas Waid hoped the case would've been dropped long before); Meyer has both built a successful comic career out of the situation and is in a better position to operate freely going forward without said interference;,
==Comic Book Career==
Since 2018, Meyer has been a comic book writer and uses the crowdfunding site Indiegogo as his main platform, and has created his own publishing company called Splatto Comics. Thus far, he has raised $1.8 million in total despite no coverage from the mainstream press and has been considered the father of a controversial yet popular movement called Comicsgate.
Meyer founded Splatto Comics as his own publishing label to distribute his own books after his deal with Antarctic Press got terminated. He initially described it as a vanity label that was unlikely to expand to other creators, but has since opened to the idea of founding an indie label after his career in comics took off and spoke about the prospects of making an Image-style company out of it.
===Bibliography===
*Jawbreakers: Lost Souls
*Iron Sights
*Jawbreakers: GØD-K1NG
*Iron Sights: 2 Psychos
*The Expendables Go to Hell
*Jawbreakers: Grand Bizarre
*PANdemIC
*Do As You're Told: The Ballad of No
*Impossible Stars
*499
*Rock 'n Roll Ninja
*Knife-Hand: Blindspot
*Jawbreakers Forever
*Capture or Kill
*Iron Sights 3
*Impossible Stars 2: Escape Pod
==Trivia==
* The channel was originally named Diversity & Comics from the beginning in April 2017, to early 2019, when it was changed under the current title. The name was meant to have a double meaning: The first, and most obvious being about the use of woke and forced diversity in the comic book industry, but also meant to represent genuine diversity (such as diversity of thought and natural representation) which he strives for. However, he changed it to Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack because he wanted to focus on why comic books and stories are important, less focused on diversity itself.
* Zack used to hold livestreams on his channel, which he used to roast books and promote his material while engaging with fans. This ended by 2019 mainly because Zack doesn't like streaming that much and thought it was a chore. Still, he has on rare occasions streamed with other YouTubers since then, such as with ComicArtistPro Secrets, HeelvsBabyface and Nerdrotic (appearing on an episode of Friday Night Tights).
* Of his three children, only the oldest is known by name (Diana) and is mentioned to still live in New York City. The others aren't named, with his son being referred to by the nickname "Zackson".
* Despite being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia and being a bigot in general, he has described the people in his life as "comically diverse". He lived in a gay neighborhood in New York (despite being straight), has three non-white children (an Afghan Muslim, and two Hispanic children with one Jewish and the other Christian; he's white and Catholic), has a Latino roommate and lives in McAllen, Texas which is over 80% Hispanic and right on the Mexican border. On top of that, he's employed many different creators of nationalities and races based solely on merit for Splatto Comics.
*Meyer believes that industry pros and the media didn't start paying attention to him until he reached over 40,000 subscribers. He believes that really freaked many of them out, since he now had more of an audience than any of them.
* When he first started in 2017, Meyer was a lot more savage with his insults and more direct in general with black comedy used as humor, compared to his later years where he's more calm and mellow. However, on occasion, this still comes up, particularly when angered and annoyed at something, and fans refer to this as "2017 Zack".
* In October 2021, Zack came down with a major illness and it was hard for him to even talk for several days, and thus he couldn't make his normal videos. During this time, he uploaded two videos on the 27th and 28th using a text to speech app that had a robotic voice with an upper class British accent. Fans affectionately called this "Robo Zack", and made all kinds of jokes about it such as him being a cyborg or becoming an AI. They also noted that both videos were much more succinct and to the point, removing the ramblings and side stories that Ya Boi Zack videos usually have, and showing how long his videos would be without them. Both videos were less than five minutes long, compared to most videos often being ten to twenty minutes or more on average.
* Zack's favorite Marvel superheroes are Night Thrasher, Northstar, Cable, Forge, Daredevil, Gambit, Spider-Man and Wolverine. As a general rule, he tends to favor more street level type heroes, and says that's what Marvel is best at.
==Quotes==
*They decided that Carol Danvers was gonna be Captain Marvel again, and she wasn't just gonna Captain Marvel; she was effectively gonna be the flagship character for Marvel. She's everywhere... she's everywhere except the top of the sales charts. She's the lead of Civil War II coordinated with the Civil War movie. She's so popular, she gets five series because the first four keep getting cancelled for low sales, but they just keep bringing her back. She gets mentioned in everything, she's on every poster, she's right there in our face. And that's both the problem with her, but that's also the problem with modern Marvel: She is being forced upon the reader.
*This is how Marvel for the first fifty plus years of its existence pushed everything forward: they said "Hey, we got this crazy idea, we really hope you like it and if you don't like it, we'll change it back." They did it kind of tongue-and-cheek and umpteen variations of that, but they did that. New Marvel, SJW Marvel, the Bad Marvel that has average sales of 20-25,000 per issue, their new thing is "We are doing something whether you like it or not, we would really almost prefer if you didn't like it because we absolutely hate you fans, and by the way if you don't buy the book we're just going to keep relaunching it. We might switch out the writer, we might switch out the artist, but you're just going to keep getting it."
*The funny thing is that Marvel is congratulated for stuff that they did 40 years ago. So they're like "Oh, we got female heroes!". Well, Captain Marvel, who is Ms. Marvel, she had her own series in the 1970s and it was very much presented as "Hey, we got a female hero" and that's a big deal.
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:Book-narrating YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2017