Ron Richards leaves Image

Goodbye Image Comics – http://t.co/p7cTc3ta52

— Ron Richards (@ronxo) April 16, 2015

Looks like something of a shakeup is underway at Image, as Director of Business Development Ron Richards has also departed the company following Jennifer DeGuzman’s exit last week.

Richards—formerly a mainstay at the website/podcast iFanboy and the co-organizer of Morrison Con— wrote about it in a post at Medium:

As anyone who works in the comic book industry will tell you — especially those folks behind the scenes — working in this industry is immensely rewarding but equally frustrating and exhausting. The term, “Seeing how the sausage is made” gets used quite a bit in comics, and with good reason. It’s not an easy industry to work in by any means, given the challenges of the direct market and comic book retailers, working with a single distributor, the “polite” competition between companies, the looming shadow of online retailers, and not to mention the increasing toxic atmosphere in the echo chamber of the comics social media community. All together, it can be quite the challenge and, when you deal with all of those things on a daily basis, can take a lot of out of you. Anyone who knows me knows that I gave the job everything I had to give — every day, night and weekend. But you know what? It was fueled by my passion for comics and I loved nearly every minute of it. I will treasure the experience for the rest of my life.
[snip]
The natural question is “What’s Next?” (and for some of you probably, “Will you return to the iFanboy Pick of the Week Podcast?” or “Will you be doing another con like MorrisonCon?”)

For now I’ll be getting back to some things that are important to me and taking some time for myself (remember that bit above about all that exhaustive work?). But not to worry, everyone knows I won’t stay idle for long, and probably my next chapter will be my greatest adventure yet.

Richards had a hand in many aspects of Image’s explosion over the two years he worked there, including the successful Image Expo events, and getting more social media for Image in general. He’s another guy who’s great to work with, and will no doubt resurface somewhere with great contributions to make. And of course, as a fellow Mets fanatic, I must salute him for his unbreakable resolve in the face of absurdism. Like I said, I’m sure he’ll pop up somewhere in no time and yet another smart guy for some company (DC?????) to snap up.