My theory on why he dropped the lawsuit is that he had reached a point where he saw little chance of getting enough money to make continuing worth it. His GFM brought in much more than Waids' and Waid would be dipping into his own funds well before YBZ did. The rumors were that Waid was trying to get Ethan to convince YBZ to drop it because he realized how badly he had screwed himself, and his only hope was to drag things along and make it along process as "painful" as possible. The sad thing is that this is pretty much what happened.
The GFM also expired and could no longer receive donations a number of months before the settlement. The creation of it was what Dan Shahin called the worst thing EVS had done, during their first livestream. By the time of that livestream, the GFM had expired just shortly before, and Ethan said he'd pull it since it was no longer usable..
Dan Shahin's condemnation of my setting up that GoFundMe struck me as incredibly weird and unrelatable to me. It was obviously the right thing to do, even in hindsight, and completely morally justifiable.
Trying to put myself in Shahin's headspace, however, I think he must have meant that it was unforgiveable in terms of the unspoken pact that Comic Pros have, that brand of professional courtesy that mostly means not expressing a negative opinion of another's work publicly. From that perspective, and without empathizing with what prompted my break from that unspoken pact, it must have seemed like cannibalism to them. Erik Larsen, just before blocking me on Twitter, warned me not to turn on my fellow professionals. That was the final taboo. I knew what I was doing and I knew there was no going back.
Right is right and wrong is wrong.
Money issues may have played a part in Zack's decision. He never said so, not to me. In fact, when I asked him if he needed more money, he told me he didn't. But as the case closed, Zack refunded only a little more than $8000 to charity, so his war chest had been greatly reduced. And yes, the original GoFundMe had to close, as I think they can only collect for a maximum of two years.
But I could have, and was considering, opening a new one and starting again. I wasn't sure that I could generate the enthusiasm for dumping more money into fighting a greatly diminished Mark Waid to punish him for childish, cruel idiocy that wound up energizing ComicsGate, and putting a great big spotlight on Richard C. Meyer's JAWBREAKERS campaign. On the one hand, a message needed to be sent that Tortious Interference by SJWs would be costly for them. On the other hand, your average ComicsGater, two years later, would have seen a donation to another GoFundMe as unfair. "Zack is rich now. We made him rich, why can't he pay for it himself?"
It didn't seem like a great idea to try to raise more money for the case, but I would have done it. I just didn't understand where Zack was in his thinking, and how much this whole thing had exhausted him. Lawsuits are burdensome drains of life.
As for Waid trying to get me to convince YBZ of anything, I don't even speak to Mark Waid. I haven't since 2017 and the "FUCKING FIX THIS NOW" episode. Not a word.
I will say that a few industry professionals did try to reason with me over it. Were they Agents of Waid? Maybe. He has a lot of friends in comics. But it wasn't anything to report. Just, "Hey, you really think your friend Meyer is doing the right thing here in suing Waid?"
Yes.
www.gofundme.com
www.gofundme.com
