Oni Press Layoffs

[Hypo]

Segura, Barajas, Amiri and Meadows laid off at Oni; SDCC panels cancelled

The purge at Oni Lion Forge Publishing Group continues. Confirmed by Graeme McMillan at Popverse and via Twitter, Oni has laid off some of the most prominent members of its staff, including senior VP of sales and marketing Alex Segura, sales manager Henry Barajas, and senior editor Amanda Meadows. Editor Jasmine Amiri was also laid off, as confirmed on Twitter.

It’s unknown if there are more layoffs or who is running the company since the top two figures at Oni, James Lucas Jones and Charlie Chu, were laid off two weeks ago.

It’s the biggest public bloodbath in comics since DC Comics’ layoffs last year.

Per the SDCC website, Oni’s two planned panels have been cancelled.

https://twitter.com/OniPress/status/1547739804099497994

[HsssH]

What is the source for these problems at Oni Press?

[Anthony W]

What is the source for these problems at Oni Press?

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that their comics are awful. It's okay if they go under, the North American comics industry has never been better.

[skyvolt2000]

What is the source for these problems at Oni Press?

This is what happens when 2 companies that mainly have POC and Queer employees merge. The company is now owned by a black man.

If you were diverse from day one and then merge-guess what when you layoff folks this is how it looks.

It becomes a bigger issue when the titles you make are diverse.

What is going to get them is all those folks you tossed-who are going to replace them as many in the industry are bashing the company?

ALTERNA COMICS learned that the hard way too. They are around but who orders their books? Previewworld doesn't list them at times.

[shooshoomanjoe]

This is what happens when 2 companies that mainly have POC and Queer employees merge. The company is now owned by a black man.

If you were diverse from day one and then merge-guess what when you layoff folks this is how it looks.

It becomes a bigger issue when the titles you make are diverse.

What is going to get them is all those folks you tossed-who are going to replace them as many in the industry are bashing the company?

ALTERNA COMICS learned that the hard way too. They are around but who orders their books? Previewworld doesn't list them at times.

Jesus Christ guy. How come toxic fans never post their sources?

[Hypo]

What is the source for these problems at Oni Press?

Most of the chatter from the industry types is that they're looking to cut costs ahead of selling the company.

This is what happens when 2 companies that mainly have POC and Queer employees merge. The company is now owned by a black man.

If you were diverse from day one and then merge-guess what when you layoff folks this is how it looks.

It becomes a bigger issue when the titles you make are diverse.

What is going to get them is all those folks you tossed-who are going to replace them as many in the industry are bashing the company?

ALTERNA COMICS learned that the hard way too. They are around but who orders their books? Previewworld doesn't list them at times.

Oni has essentially been publishing the same kind of books for the last two decades - there was no shift to "wokeness".

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

This legitimately makes no sense, Oni has essentially been publishing the same kind of books for the last two decades - there was no shift to "wokeness".

Yeah, I'm not sure where he's coming to that conclusion.

Coincidentally, I've bought 3 Oni books in the past couple months (Long Road to Liquor City from 2019, Odessa from 2020, and Petrograd from 2022), and 2 of those have white guys on the cover. And Oni's biggest cash cow is Rick & Morty I presume. So...yeah, seems like Oni is fine publishing plenty of "white guy" comics. Not that any of that should matter, b/c characters are characters and if written well, shouldn't be unrelatable just b/c of their sex, skin color, etc. But whatevs.