Posted in: Comics | Tagged: action lab, Comics

Action Lab Creators Start Getting Publishing Dates – Or Rights Back

A week ago, I interviewed Action Lab Comics President Bryan Seaton about comic book creators' concerns regarding his comic book publisher, who have cited a lack of communication, payment, or publication regarding their comic books from the publisher. I was only able to publish the interview five days ago, but between the interview and publication, Action Lab did contact some of the creators I had spoken to and brought up to him. And it seems that comics that have only been published digitally, Seaton and Action Lab seem to have been handing publishing rights back. He told Bleeding Cool that "all of our contracts automatically release the work if not published by ALE within one year of final file submission," which was news to some creators, but creators have been receiving apologies for lack of communication from Action Lab as well. Even those that haven't been with Action Lab a year are seeing rights released. But it gets trickier if the comic book has been printed and is currently sitting in a warehouse ready to be distributed – even if that distribution is months late and the creators were never told what was happening. Creators who want those rights back are being asked to pay Action Lab's costs.

Last week we emailed a number of creator's issues to Action Lab, and we wanted to follow up on them to see what, if anything, Action Lab was doing and how satisfied creators were with the results. Bryan Seaton told us, "I have nothing to add on the record to each creator's take on things. I don't believe in getting into a; you are wrong or right situation with creators.  Action Lab's issues are communication issues, and we are working hard to correct them. All creators have been paid any money they are owed as per the sales reports and contracts. We are living up to our contracts and expect our creators to do the same. We have never tried to mislead anyone with our contract, and we gave each creator a 35-page creator handbook when they were given our contract to review before they signed; this handbook explained what Action Lab will do for the book and what we expect from them. We are doing our best to address each creator's concerns and are happy to hear from them; thanks for helping us reach them again."

Here's what creators have been saying and telling Bleeding Cool. Leap M and Ghosts Of The Carousel co-creator Matt Battaglia told us before the interview, "For my book "Leap M," it was released digitally, they were obligated to report sales to us and maintain a ledger of costs, which they are to provide upon request. Since our book was released, no one has responded to a single email. It's been over a year. So we have a book in the digital graveyard that we can't do anything with. They as a publisher have effectively ghosted everyone, and there's no line of communication available, so we can't even negotiate anything." While Doug Wood told us, "Last January we signed a terrible contract with Action Labs to publish our comic Leap M. The first time we noticed something was amiss was during the COVID shut down. The editors never reached out to us creators to let us know if things were on pause. We lucked into knowing only because our letterer found out from a mutual. I saw on Twitter a big-name creator calling out Action Labs for terrible practices. We had our book finished, but we no longer wanted the book release there. I emailed my editor, and immediately there was silence. The editor would only respond to emails from the artist. Quickly they took our book dumped it on Comixology, so they owned the rights for as long as it's on Comixology. Not once have we seen the sales figures which breach their awful contract. No chance of the promised print run. No word in over a year as of August 26, 2021" After the interview, Doug Wood tweeted, "HAPPY NEWS: Action Labs have terminated @mattjbatt and my contract for Leap M! As far as I know, we are the only one. I only hope that others will get their due as well. Big thank you to @jarredlujan for speaking up! Bless you. I hope to get a print run through Kickstarter!" And Matt told us, "Bryan has responded to emails today and has given us the rights back to our book and terminated the contract. Which is a step – it's still baffling that they ghosted everyone yet still released books and had editors doing the releasing for a couple of years now without any communication or seemingly any concern that this would blow up at some point."

And they were not the only ones. Darryl Knickrehm told us before the interview, "Mark Bertolini (the writer) and I were asked to up the page count for The Argus from 24 pages an issue to 30 in order to do the print edition of The Argus (that's 24 extra pages, a whole issue worth). But even after we got 1500 preorders for issue 1, the rest of the print issues were cancelled (coronavirus is cited as the issue). Since then, we've received little to no contact (I've received no replies to my inquires). We've not received a single record of sales, which we are supposed to receive per contract. There's actually no place to contact since their staff left/changed. We have also not been paid (which breaks the TERM part of the contract and their right to publish The Argus). They slated a trade paperback for a print release in August, but it didn't appear in stores. We heard from a shop it was pushed back to Sept 1, and the shop said it wasn't delivered." Darryl Knickrehm told us this morning, "It appears we got the rights back to The Argus. I'll have more details soon."

Chad Perkins told us, "My spreadsheets for sales have not been updated since December 2019, and my "digital-first" status has hurt my sales with people interested as they want a physical copy and not a digital. When asked if my book would receive a print release, I was met with Crickets. I then found out that Bryan had semi-retired and  Lizzy had taken over. After that, it has been like pulling teeth trying to know the status of Action Lab and our titles. Finally, some shred of knowledge came up and was informed that on a case by case basis, the books would be returned to us if we bought the stock in the warehouses (which they backpedaled on), but that also left no room for digital-first people. I attempted to ask for the rights back for Blu and was met with a "No, Sorry." from Lizzy, and that was the end of that conversation. I want to make it clear that I haven't seen a penny of sales from Action Lab. I did ask a lawyer regarding the contract, and he informed me that it's so vague that there isn't a decent way to go about this. After the interview, Chad P told us, "Myself and Doug Wood just got our contacts terminated," and he tweeted out, "Welcome home, Winter and Blu…I have terminated my contract with Action Lab as of today; thank you, everyone, for your support and efforts. It's been one hell of a few days, and I need a drink."

Daniel Gordon told us before the interview, "Long story short, early in 2020 (pre-pandemic), I signed a digital-only contract with Action Lab. I knew the terms were not favorable, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to at the least get my foot in the door. Once we got the green light, I went ahead and financed the artist for all 4 issues of the mini because I know nothing can kill a book like delays. Once the art for the first issue was done, we were given an estimated release date of April. Then communication starts to get spotty. The next thing I know, issue 1 has been dropped on ComiXology with no releases or notice of any kind. Then people start giving us notice that they are leaving the company. Fast forward to today, emails haven't been answered for months, and I've got 3 issues that have been completed for over a year sitting on a server, with no way to make my money back. I know there have been extenuating circumstances, and people have gone through hell in the past two years, but all I want is to take my book somewhere else where I can try to recover some of that investment. (As a caveat, everyone I personally dealt with at Action Lab, which would be Nicole D'Andrea, Shawn Gabborin, and Jason Martin, were fantastic to work with and professional to the end)." He has now told Bleeding Cool, "Yes, they've given the rights back, and since it was digital-only, I don't have to pay them anything. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!"

But not all have had such a welcome response. Chris Panda told us before the interview, "In 2019, me (the artist) and Samuel George London (the writer) signed a contract for a limited 4 issue comic book named "The S Factor." Work to be completed by mid-2020. Once the work was completed, it was decided by AL to first release the book digitally through ComiXology before a physical release later in 2021. From here, the problems start, the communication with AL start to be difficult (editor changing and staff leaving). The contract signed with AL stipulated that they have to promote, market, and publicize the book (that means even for digital release), the only thing they made was retweeting 3 posts from our writer on the Action Lab Danger Zone twitter (nothing on social media from them and after nearly 1 year out we aren't even on their catalog on their website). So our book presence online is nearly non-existent. After a few months without much from them, they said they were planning to physically release the 4 issues of the book, and we finally made it to Diamond Previews back in March 2021 for a release on the 7th of June 2021.  I made a preorder here in a comic book shop in France to have my book; cos a few shops are buying stock for Action Lab here in France since it's a small publisher. So until the release, I started to try and promote my book on my social media for people pre-ordering my book, but still nothing from Action Lab to promote the book up until the release, and what a surprise the day of the release when I called the shop to learn that nothing from Action Lab has been put out. From here, the book has been pushed back a few times, until the 8th of August, the last date when the book should have been released, but once again, nothing hit the shelves. So here we are 3 months after the initial release date without a statement publicly or privately to any creator." Since the interview, Chris tells us "Action Lab has changed the date on Diamond from the 8th of august to the 22nd of September" and received a reply from Action Lab, apologising for the lack of communication, that the first issue is already printed and will be released on 9/22, with strong preorders of around 2000 copies. And they suggest working together for a strong release. Chris is less than welcoming to this new approach. But let's keep an eye out for The S-Factor, a superhero reality show comic book, which Bleeding Cool highlighted when solicited, shall we?

Charles McFarland told us, "We created a series called The Citizen that Action Lab picked up, dropped one issue on Comixology then completely abandoned for about a year. I never heard how it sold or anything else about releasing the other 3. Then this year, they told us all four issues would release physical additions, and after a month, it still hasn't arrived in stores, and no one can give us an honest answer of why not." He also had a response and told us, "He told me that the first issue never made it to Diamond, but now there's a date of Sep 22nd. That's about all I know as of now."

While Jarred Luján, who kicked off a lot of the initial complaints about Action Lab last week, told us before the interview that "Our book, Crash & Troy, was picked up and began production in 2020. We weren't communicative with Action Lab all throughout except that they planned to still release the book but wouldn't solicit until all four issues were completed. In December, the book was completed. Vito Delsante became our editor, and we were given a release date of 7/21. My artist, Kyler Clodfelter, and I contacted over a thousand shops, planned signings, and all that, only to have the book delayed to 7/28 due to a "sizing issue"… We sized the pages according to our contract. Anyway, the book was again delayed to "8/11 or 8/18" because of an issue supposedly at Diamond. It was released on neither. We asked for the book to be cancelled and for us to be able to walk away with our book after we found out four other books had the EXACT same issue and were told no. We have done all the work with no advertising, no help from Action Lab, and now four false release dates." But now Jarred Luján has posted, "Action Lab has made it clear they will not terminate our contract unless we pay $3k for the printing costs of a first issue that has failed to release four times. Not sure what to do at this point. We are unsure what our next move is."

While John J Perez is in negotiation, he initially tweeted out, "I don't know what else I can add that hasn't already been said. ARCHON was a book series the whole team truly loved. It wasn't marketed, the release dates were messed up, and we haven't seen a cent in royalties in almost 6 years. I paid for the first issue myself incurring about 5-6k of debt. With interest, it ballooned to almost 10k. We thought sales would at least supplement costs, but it never materialized. Sheets explaining income mysteriously vanish with every new accountant. It's shady as all hell." But he also got an offer "UPDATE: Action Lab gave us a number. $11,751 plus "Diamond Shipping and Fees" to buy back the rights. Gonna lay down." adding "FINAL UPDATE: I made a counteroffer to buy Action Lab's inventory of up to recover the cost for production: $6,862.28. As of sending this out, they have DECLINED. Further, they claim sales figures from 2015-16 are gone because they only legally have to hold onto them for 3-5 years." Today he updated further, saying, " Last Friday, we were told that we would need to buy the stock of Crash & Troy #1s for around $3k in order to terminate our contract. We would take control of the stock. We requested an invoice from Diamond that proved the stock's existence. We were informed that we would need to make a decision by the 8th in order to avoid shops being billed by Diamond for the distribution of the book. After that, the book would be released anyway. We emailed AL on Saturday the 4th that we would be willing to pay for the stock of books once we receive the invoice. We received no reply, so I sent another email today, the 7th, to make sure they saw it. AL said that Diamond had been notified, and they were awaiting a response. I responded that we would await their response. We have not heard anything since. We still have not seen an invoice for the stock we are supposed to buy. To be clear, if the book's release is pushed forward anyway, it will do so without us, the people that created it. Not sure what to make of that situation. However, I am cautiously optimistic that will not be the case. All of us want this to be over. We want to move on. This has been a brutal 18 months regarding C&T. All of us are a bit emotionally and mentally spent on it. We look forward to a conclusion, which will hopefully come tomorrow."

And Dan Mendoza, who settled with Action Lab over his lawsuit, will now see future  Zombie Tramp come to fruition on Kickstarter. Creators who still have issues with Action Lab are encouraged to email the following address set up for such a purpose: alecreator@actionlabent.com.

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