About
BOOM! Studios was founded by Ross Richie in 2005 with the singular focus of creating world-class comic book and graphic novel storytelling for all audiences. Through four distinct imprints—BOOM! Studios, BOOM! Box, KaBOOM!, and Archaia—the company has produced bestselling, award-winning original work, including Keanu Reeves’ BRZRKR, Something is Killing the Children, and Lumberjanes, while also breaking new ground with established licenses such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Dune, Magic: The Gathering, The Expanse, and The Jim Henson Company properties. BOOM! brings their original series to life through a first-look relationship with Netflix including the animated series Mech Cadets, available now worldwide.
MEET THE TEAM
Jen Harned
Chief Financial Officer
Jennifer Harned is a C-suite global operations and finance executive with extensive leadership experience in consumer products. She brings both large and small scale experience to the role, which enables her to contribute an entrepreneurial mindset and vision to establishing foundations for exponential, sustainable growth. In 2019, Jennifer was President and General Manager for the Bell, Giro, Blackburn, Raskullz, Krash, and Copilot businesses, a subsidiary of Vista Outdoor, where she ran global sales. Prior to Vista Outdoor, she was COO and CFO at Action Sports for BRG Sports, Inc., a leading designer, developer and marketer of branded athletic equipment. In her time as an executive, Jennifer completed seven domestic and international acquisitions/divestitures, representing over $750M in value to multiple organizations, and is recognized for her vision in creating enterprise value through portfolio optimization, revenue growth, risk mitigation, and calculated new business opportunity assessment. Most recently, Jennifer has acted in an executive or advisory role for a variety of early stage environments in the beauty, consumer electronics, sporting goods, tech, and apparel industries. Jennifer has an MBA, Honor Society from the University of California Los Angeles, and she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accountancy & Computer Applications, with a concentration in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics, cum laude from the University of Notre Dame.
Matt Gagnon
Editor-in-Chief
As Editor-in-Chief of BOOM! Studios, Matt Gagnon is head of creative at the publisher, overseeing the Editorial and Production/Design departments. Matt joined BOOM! Studios in 2008 and–aside from the company’s founder–is the longest serving employee of the company. Since his promotion from Managing Editor to Editor-in-Chief in 2010, the publishing house has grown exponentially and earned numerous Eisner Awards, Harvey Awards, GLAAD awards, and Diamond Best Publisher awards. BOOM!’s titles have also earned multiple New York Times Best Seller designations.
Throughout Matt’s tenure overseeing content creation at BOOM! the publisher has amassed the largest independently-controlled comic book and graphic novel library in the industry; in 2017 20th Century Fox invested in BOOM! as a strategic partnership to fuel the company’s generation of more original content.
Previous to BOOM!, Matt was the GM/Buyer of the legendary Meltdown Comics on Sunset Blvd when it was one of the nation’s preeminent comic book shops. In this role Matt was a local tastemaker during the comics-to-Film/TV boom of the early aughts, coordinated events for the likes of Disney and MTV, and raised money for the CBLDF by throwing “Y the Last Party,” the red carpet finale party for Y: The Last Man.
As a writer, Matt created the comic book series FREELANCERS and created the comic book series DAY MEN, which is currently in development for TV.
STEPHEN CHRISTY
President of Development
Stephen Christy came to BOOM! through the company’s acquisition of Archaia Entertainment, where Stephen served as Editor-in-Chief and oversaw the company’s film/tv operations. At Archaia he became the only editor in the industry to win back-to-back Eisner Awards for Best Original Graphic Album two years in a row, for Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand and Return of the Dapper Men. When BOOM! acquired Archaia, Stephen was put in charge of the company’s film and TV division, and was instrumental in brokering the company’s first look film deal with 20th Century Fox and first look TV deal with 20th Television. He currently oversees BOOM!’s entire multimedia development slate and is based out of BOOM!’s satellite office on the Fox lot. He is a graduate of Emerson College.
Adam Yoelin
Senior Vice President, Film
Adam Yoelin is an experienced executive in the film industry who began his career at one of the leading talent agencies and quickly forged a path into producing. Over the course of his career as a development and production executive, he’s collaborated with top talent and shepherded a vast number of projects for various production companies, studios and financiers. Upon joining BOOM! in 2014, Yoelin has headed up the film division under the company’s first-look deal at 20th Century Fox, where he’s helped assemble an extensive slate of projects and produced the upcoming adaptation of the BOOM! graphic novel, The Empty Man.
Bryce Carlson
Vice President of Editorial & Creative Strategy
As Vice President of Editorial & Creative Strategy, Bryce Carlson oversees the day-to-day operations of the BOOM! Studios Editorial department across all imprints with a focus on curating content, developing creative publishing strategies, and leading innovative release and sales initiatives.
After graduating from Chapman University, Carlson joined BOOM! Studios in 2008 as a temp in the mailroom. He was quickly hired as the Executive Assistant and in 2009, he transitioned to the role of Editor. From 2010 to 2018, Carlson served as Managing Editor where he helped shape and grow the Editorial department while overseeing the development of large scale publishing programs for properties such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and editing select projects, including the graphic novelization of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Roger Langridge’s Snarked, which was the first original series from BOOM! Studios to win an Eisner Award (Best Publication for Kids, 2012).
Since his promotion to Vice President of Editorial & Creative Strategy in 2018, Carlson has taken a larger role in managing key partnerships and high-level creative relationships, such as acquiring world rights to R.L. Stine’s Just Beyond graphic novel series. Carlson is also the writer and co-creator of the critically acclaimed Hit comic book series with Vanesa R. Del Rey.
Josh Hayes
Vice President of Sales
Josh Hayes joins BOOM! Studios after a combined 15+ years at Diamond Comics, during which he led the Diamond Book Distributors business segment managing sales to book market and specialty customers all around the world. During that time Josh worked on the sales efforts for such book market hits as The Walking Dead, The Boys, Saga, Critical Role, and Pathfinder/Starfinder.