Valiant Comics has visibly lost its publishing director Fred Pierce and senior editor Lysa Hawkins
Curious situation at the publisher of the third largest shared universe of heroes, Valiant Comics. In recent days, and despite a total lack of communication from the publisher, it seems that the editorial structure has lost some people who were in fairly important positions. If it is not necessarily a question of sounding the alarm bell, it is clear that the situation is quite worrying for observers in the field.
Three fewer people (at least) at Valiant
Thus, it is often by observing the social networks of people working in the industry that one can follow the comings and goings in the publishing houses. In the last few days, we can therefore see that senior editor Lysa Hawkins left in July, which has just ended, her position at Valiant Comics, which she had held since July 2018, a good four years. We could see his work with Heather Antos on some recent titles (published in VF by Bliss Editions such as Punk Mambo, Rai, Doctor Mirage or the Bloodshot series by Tim Seeley). She has been operating since last summer alongside Rob Levinexecutive editor in charge of leading the “Valiant Uprising” boat, with in particular three titles to quality creative teams.
Another important departure mentioned by the concerned on his social networks, that of Fred Pierce, who was director of publication (publisher) at Valiant Comics since 2009, thirteen years on the clock. Finally, Cody White, who had been sales and communications coordinator since April 2022, also mentions his employment at Valiant in the past tense. In total, a departure of three people (the nature being to be clarified: is it a question of resignation or dismissal?), including two in high-ranking positions, while the publishing house is crossed by incessant movements musical chairs since the 2020 pandemic, from which it seems to have never fully recovered (with an average of only two single issues published monthly). Rob Levin is a priori still in officeaccording to our informants.
One would even be surprised at the relatively relative silence on these departures, while specialist commentators in the field, in particular Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool or Heidi MacDonald of The Beat have not yet written on the subject. From the discussions we were able to have with two other specialists in the field, it appears that the departures at Valiant Comics would be even more important (one of our sources speaks of a team “very reduced to release the advertised material“), and which would have been decided to reduce a team which was too large in relation to the publisher’s volume of publications. It is clear that since the complete takeover of the publishing house by the Chinese group DMG ( which was intended to exploit the Valiant catalog to produce films and a shared universe which has not yet seen the light of day) and the departures of Warren Simons and Dinesh Shamdansani, the structure seems to be sailing on sight. , we will have to wait for news from the United States to judge the “seriousness” of the situation, which calls into question in view of the recent departures which have affected another independent publisher recently, Oni Press. Case to follow, therefore, and closely.
