Originally posted Thursday, October 31, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Michael DeVault suddenly quit Thursday evening as interim CEO of "The Walking Dead" convention company Walker Stalker LLC one week after taking on the task and making a very public effort to calm fears that the future of all Walker Stalker conventions was in doubt.
“Dear friends,” he wrote on his personal Facebook page.“Effective at 6:21 p.m. tonight, I resigned as interim CEO of Walker Stalker Convention LLC and all the subsidiary properties. I will be taking a few days off from social media and will be not accepting phone calls or texts. If you need me, you may leave me a message or send me an email.”
“I have no further comment at this time,” he wrote me tonight after the resignation.
DeVault, who described himself to me last week as a talent representative without citing any actual clients, said last Thursday during a Facebook "ask me anything" video, he had come in to try to save the conventions, to help people who were owed money get back their money. He also said he had total control of the finances and original founder James Frazier did not.
Frazier still owns the entire company and in an interview last week said he was seeking a particular unnamed investor to either buy part of it or all of it. He had called upon DeVault to take Frazier out of the picture in part because he felt he couldn't effectively run the operation anymore.
DeVault last week put tickets on sale for the 2020 Atlanta Walker Stalker convention set to happen in a year’s time. There were also tickets on sale for other conventions in London, Chicago and Nashville.
But on Monday, actor Khary Payton (who plays Ezekiel on "The Walking Dead") repeated on Twitter he wasn't coming to any future convention while owed money. He also said fellow actors Cooper Andrews (Jerry), Danai Gurira (Michonne), Melissa McBride (Carol) and Norman Reedus (Daryl) had told them they weren't going either. (Gurira, McBride and Reedus have been silent on the subject this week, neither confirming nor denying Payton's claims. Andrews stated he was with Payton on this boycott.)
On Monday night, DeVault temporarily halted sales on all the conventions "in order to give myself and our management team the time we need to answer several pressing questions and to plot our path forward."
When informed of DeVault’s sudden resignation Thursday night, Frazier said he needed to collect more information about the situation before he would speak to me Friday.
UPDATE: On Saturday, he said he was still collecting info about what happened during the week while he was out of the loop and will get back to me Monday.
Also, Mo Collins from "Fear the Walking Dead" was given a check for her appearance at Atlanta Walker Stalker but...
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