On Tuesday, ICv2 said that Kevin Hamric, who was Viz Media’s Vice President of Publishing Sales, left the company. Viz got rid of his job. His final day at Viz Media was last Friday.

Hamric started at Viz Media in 2011 as the sales and marketing director. He got promoted to senior director in 2013, and then became vice president in 2020.

Before joining Viz Media, he worked as a vice president at The News Group and Quarto Publishing Group.

Hamric has done lots of interviews with ICv2 over time, talking about how the manga industry is doing in the U.S. and about Viz Media’s business.

The Beat comics blog said, “whenever you needed info about the manga market in the US and Viz’s role in it, Hamric was the person to go to.”

Viz is the top publisher in the US bookstore graphic novel market, so getting rid of any sales role is surprising.