This is a super well deserved promotion for Gorinson, who has shown a lot of poise and insight in helping get Valiant books to the next level. He’s very dialed in to the industry on all levels.
Disclosure: Valiant is a Beat advertiser.
Valiant Entertainment today named Hunter Gorinson to the position of Vice President of Marketing & Communications. A member of the management team that relaunched Valiant’s publishing operations to record-setting critical and commercial success, Gorinson joined the company as Marketing & Communications Manager in 2011 and was subsequently promoted to his previous position as Director of Marketing, Communications & Digital Media in 2013.
Gorinson’s new appointment reflects his integral strategic and managerial position within Valiant, where he has a played a key role across all facets of the company’s marketing and public relations in publishing, licensing, digital media, and film since its widely acclaimed return in 2012.
In the years since, Valiant’s publishing roster has continued to grow with repeatedly sold-out and celebrated new titles, including 4001 A.D., BLOODSHOT REBORN, BOOK OF DEATH, DIVINITY, NINJAK, THE VALIANT, and, most recently, FAITH – the latter of which generated worldwide media attention from outlets including The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, The Huffington Post, MTV, The New York Times, NPR, PBS Newshour, People, Today, Vox, The Washington Post, and many dozens more.
Most recently, Valiant has continued to innovate within the comics arena with a multitude of achievements. In 2014, Valiant became the first comics publisher to broadcast live from Twitter headquarters in San Francisco with the inaugural #ValiantSummit event – now a yearly reoccurring feature of the publisher’s marketing operations. Consistently rated year over year as the most acclaimed comic book publisher in the industry today, Valiant has received hundreds of awards, nominations, and critical accolades, culminating in 2016 with a record-setting 50 Harvey Awards nominations – the most ever received by a single publisher in the history of one of the comic book industry’s most prestigious awards.
“Valiant’s reputation for innovative marketing with tremendous reach within the world of comics and to the general public is in no small part due to Hunter’s leadership,” said Valiant CFO & Chief Operating Officer Gavin Cuneo. “His increased responsibility and seniority at Valiant is well deserved.”
Originally founded in 1989, Valiant Entertainment is one of the most successful publishers in the history of the comic book medium with more than 80 million units sold and the third largest library of superhero characters in comics. In 2012, Valiant roared back to the fore with four new titles released under the banner of “The Summer of Valiant” – a relaunch that quickly established itself as the biggest debut of a new comic book publisher in more than a decade. Beginning with X-O MANOWAR #1 by New York Times best-selling writer Robert Venditti and Eisner Award-winning artist Cary Nord, which ranked as the year’s best-selling new series from any independent publisher, Valiant has consistently produced some of the highest selling and most critically accoladed comic titles anywhere in the industry. During the same period, the resurgent Valiant was also awarded a coveted Diamond Gem Award for Publisher of the Year after just seven months of publishing, marking the fastest time that any new publisher had been named to one of comics’ highest honors.
After successfully revitalizing the largest independent superhero universe in comics, Valiant expanded its publishing roster with a successful slate of new titles, characters, and concepts, beginning with 2013’s UNITY #1 by New York Times best-selling writer Matt Kindt and superstar artist Doug Braithwaite – an issue that was recognized as the biggest independent comics launch in more than five years. Also in 2013, Valiant released HARBINGER WARS #1 – the beginning of Valiant’s first inter-title crossover event, which in turn inspired a five-film plan for Valiant’s BLOODSHOT and HARBINGER franchises as feature films at Sony Pictures.
“Valiant has one of the most dedicated, formidable and experienced management teams anywhere in the entertainment industry. Hunter distinguished himself early on as a key member of that team, and his influence and ideas have been integral to the company’s many unprecedented successes over the past five years,” said Valiant CEO & Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani. “As a co-architect of Valiant’s resurgence, there is no better voice to oversee this crucial division as the company prepares to enter a new and expansive period across publishing and all facets of entertainment.”
Gorinson’s experience prior to Valiant includes Marvel Entertainment and Showtime Networks, as well as several years as a reporter and columnist covering entertainment and local politics in Washington, DC. He holds a B.A. from New York University and an M.S. from The New School.
Valiant is a very interesting case. IDW, Dynamite and Boom’s success is built in a big way on licensed properties, which is a perfectly valid publishing business model but limits you as a multi-media company. Valiant has their own intellectual property and their practice of ending titles and then launching new ones, both ongoings and limited series, is clearly working for them. They’ve got a tiny slice of the Direct Market but they’re pretty clearly succeeding beyond that. But it’s really hard to see them growing much from where they are now because it’s hard to increase your audience when your publishing line up changes so drastically and so frequently. To speak corporately, it’s hard to build expand brand awareness and brand loyalty for Shadowman when you go long stretches of time without publishing a Shadowman comic.
Mike
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