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Roughly one year after a company-wide "reset" at IDW Publishing, there's more changing in the company structure - and even ownership. This comes as the company reports some of its highest pre-orders for a comic in years with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles revamp, Tubi ordering a sequel to IDW Entertainment's Syfy show Wynonna Earp but as a movie, and IDW renewing its non-exclusive licensing deal with Paramount to publish TMNT, Star Trek, and other franchises as comics.

Changes in IDW Publishing's editorial leadership

Popverse can confirm that the company's editor-in-chief Jamie S. Rich has left the role after just 12 months for a job with another company, with long-time colleague, former DC cohort, and IDW's co-publisher Mark Doyle stepping in to fill the position in his absence. Doyle isn't officially taking on the IDW editor-in-chief role, however; according to a company spokesperson, IDW plans to make an announcement soon about their editorial leadership in the long-term.

This is the second major change in editorial leadership in the past few months. In April 2024, IDW laid off five individuals including group editor Kristen Simon and the company's chief people officer/chief operating officer Amber Huerta.

"The Company has elected to take these actions based upon organization optimization and needs, skill set match, work product, performance, and reduction of costs," reads a statement from IDW regarding the April 2024 layoffs.

That same month, 16-year IDW veteran Scott Dunbier, who was the company's special projects editor, left the organization. He has since announced the formation of his own company, Act 4 Publishing, to be officially unveiled during San Diego Comic-Con.

Changes in IDW Publishing's upper management

Around the same time as the editorial changes were taking place, the IDW publisher's office changed - and removed a chair. Popverse has learned that, in April, IDW co-publisher Tara McCrillis was shifted away from that role to become president of publishing operations at the company. With that move, Mark Doyle became IDW's sole publisher - in addition to filling in for the aforementioned editor-in-chief duties until a replacement there is found.

Also in April, IDW's head of accounting Andrew DeBaker was promoted to become the company's new chief financial officer. That role has been vacant for 14 months after his predecessor, Brooke Feinstein, was laid off.

So what's going on at IDW?

All of this happens after IDW CEO Davidi Jonas has taken over majority control of the company from his father, Howard Jonas - who became majority owner in 2007. In March 2024, the younger Jonas acquired IDW shares that represent 59.4% of the voting rights for the company - shares that were previously owned directly by Howard Jonas, or placed by the elder Jonas in trusts for his children. Howard Jonas remains the company's chairman of the board.

Following this, IDW has gone public with ambitions to raise $2.3m by what's called a 'private placement offering' in order to obtain money in order to continue the comapny's "licensing activities, to maintain reserves and enable the Company to act opportunistically and for working capital and general corporate purposes."

According to an IDW spokesperson however, these staff changes and new round of layoffs are unrelated to the company seeking to raise capital, saying this "the fundraising has been planned for about a year by the IDW Media Holdings board, which is long before any recent changes in company structure and titles."

"I was very clear from the outset that what’s most important is to have the right organizational structure to be able to execute on our strategy," Davidi Jonas told Popverse in mid-2023, as news of the company's "reset" first broke. "It really has to be as much as possible trying to act in the best interest of the company and the shareholders."

The TMNT comic revamp by Paramount & IDW is doing double Last Ronin's numbers, leading to calls for pizza parties.