Posted in: Comics | Tagged: action lab, princeless

Class Action Suit From Comic Creators Filed Against Action Lab

Bleeding Cool previously covered a number of comic book creators issues with Action Lab Entertainment, the reaction of publisher Bryan Seaton to these issues, and claimed attempts to be putting some of them to right. But in a new class-action lawsuit, almost forty creators are suing Action Lab Entertainment, alleging that Action Lab did not live up to their obligations. And Bleeding Cool gets cited in the second point, "2. ALE claims to have had revenues of more than $1.25 million in 2016 (https://bleedingcool.com/comics/recent-updates/action-lab-announce-death-zombie-tramp-july2018-diamond-summit/)."

The class-action suit against Action Lab Entertainment contains repeated claims of lateness, lack of communication, non-payment, lack of statements, changing publishing plans, lack of agreed marketing, and more. Here are a few of the claims made by the plaintiffs against Action Lab. Meant to be a sampling of issues raised by creators against Action Lab, each claim has far more besides the below, and can be read in full here,

• Jeremy Whitley, Jason Strutz, Emily Martin of Princeless and Ravan The Pirate Princess, "When confronted about non-payment in the past, ALE has seen fit to unpublish digitally published comics rather than make payments to creators; for example, books are published digitally on a platform called Comixology. When confronted about digitally publishing issues of Raven the Pirate Princess without paying artists, ALE chose to remove them from Comixology rather than make good on the payments they owed. Seaton told Creators that in the year 2020 he shut the entire company down twice, but Creators were never told this or given an explanation as to why this would have been done. Seaton has frequently failed to answer time sensitive questions in a timely manner, despite nothing being able to be done at the company without his say so. Seaton told Creators that his email had been locked for some time and he did not know how to access it and had not pursued getting it unlocked. When Creators asked for their contract to be voided based on non-payment and other issues, Seaton called Creators and threatened to bankrupt them with legal fees."
• Tom Rogers, John Reilly, Dexter Weeks, of Herald: Lovecraft & Tesla. "ALE consistently failed to pay Creators on time throughout the course of their series' publication. For the first three volumes, Creators were paid on a royalties-only basis based on quarterly reports. These quarterly reports were also notoriously late."
• John J. Perez of Archon: Battle Of The Dragon, stating "The total unpaid cost for Archon is in excess of $25,000."
• Joshua Henaman of Bigfoot: Sword Of The Earthman "Creator only received one royalty report, on 9/2/16, that covered April to June of 2016. In that report, Advertising and Promotion was listed as a cost of $520 but no advertising or promotion was ever conducted."
• Rylend Grant of Aberrant, "Despite knowing that preorders were low, Defendant Seaton ordered an absurd number of Series 1 trades and Series 2 individual books, burying this project in hopeless debt. Seaton has told the creator that he must pay for all of those extra issues (at a cost of more than $15,000) in order to get the property back.
• David Schrader, Kristian Horn of Baby Badass, "On September 5, 2021, Creator asked for the rights to the property to be returned and Defendant Seaton offered to pay outstanding royalties of $715.20, demonstrating that ALE and Seaton had been withholding funds from creators."
• Jason Inman, Ashley Victoria Robinson, Ben Matsuya, of Jupiter Jet, "Per the contract ALE was to furnish with quarterly profit reports. Not a single one was sent to these Creators. Creators were only given a link to a Google spreadsheet which was never updated. It frequently included advertising and publicity expenses that Creators did not authorize or know about. No proof of these expenses was ever provided to Creators. The only time ALE ever updated the aforementioned Google spreadsheet when threatened with legal action in 2021. Upon information and belief, the spreadsheet was incomplete and Creators are entitled to more than what was reported."
• Dillon Gilbertson of Sweetheart, "ALE failed to update sales reports after August 2020. Those reports that were provided contained numerous inconsistencies and incorrect calculations. Creator reviewed these reports and determined that he was owed several thousand dollars. Creator was never sent the sums to which he was owed, despite correspondence from legal counsel. Creator was instead told that ALE had incurred printing and marketing expenses that were not included in the sales reports. Updated reports showed numbers, columns, and categories that did not exist in the previous reports and the newer calculations showed the book was actually selling at a loss, even though according to sales figures the book was selling well."
• Ken Marcus, Justin Carmien of Super Human Resources, "Creators only received a single sales report, in December of 2016. Creators believe that the figures reported by ALE were not accurate based on contacts with retailers and access to Diamond order figures."
• Corey Kalman, Brockton McKinney, Larkin Ford "Creators ordered about 7,000 copies of AmeriKarate books from two stores but the Quarterly Reports from ALE did not reflect these purchases. ALE undercut sales of the printed books by selling digital copies of the trade collections for $0.03 and $0.04."
• Tilly Bridges and Susan Bridges, of Killswitch, "Creators were required to produce forty pages of additional material for the project, at personal cost to themselves, only to have ALE decide not to use the additional material."
• Erica L Schultz of Twelve Devils Dancing " "Creator contacted ALE, and Defendant Seaton told her that the problem was that ALE was changing printers (from Transcontinental to Ave 4) and that Transcontinental refused to release the printed copies even though they had been paid for."
• James Wright, Jackie Crofts of Nutmeg, "In December 2018, Creators received an option offer from Universal Content Productions to adapt Nutmeg into a television series. ALE's involvement slowed this process down to the detriment of the project, ostensibly costing the Creators time and money."
• Riley Biehl of Miranda In The Maelstrom "Creator learned that the first three issues were available for sale on the Comixology platform. Creator was not made aware of this, and had been given the impression that the books would be rolled out in print and digital on the same date. ALE blamed Comixology for the premature release. Issues 4 through 6 were also released digitally, and again Creator received no forewarning. No marketing was ever done by ALE."
• Martheus Wade of Shinobi: Ninja Princess, "The first volume of Shinobi: Ninja Princess was available through Scholastic Books and sold very well. ALE took its cut and paid a portion to Creator. When Creator asked about the status of Scholastic Books making the second volume available, ALE said that the liaison with Scholastic Books had changed. ALE either did not follow up with Scholastic Books, or damaged its relationship with Scholastic Books, thereby resulting in the loss of sales and income to the Creator."
• Massimo Rosi of Cold Blood Samurai, "Creator put Defendant Seaton in contact with an agent for Editions Delcourt in order to sell the license for publishing in France. Editions Delcourt complained of Seaton's unprofessionalism and it took months to conclude the agreement after the parties had already approved the basic terms."
• Chad Perkins of Blue Lullaby, "The only marketing for the book was a single Tweet and an email."
• David Pepose of Spencer & Locke and Going To The Chapel, "Creator is owed monies from ALE for a multimedia option. Excessive legal costs were incurred by ALE without Creator's knowledge or consent. This cost Creator financially during the negotiation phase for the option. Meanwhile ALE injured the option relationship with high-profile production company Legendary Entertainment by refusing to sign any contract that did not give Defendant Seaton executive producer credit and commensurate fees, as well as demanding a percentage of any fees Creator would receive for on-set work as a consulting producer."
• Christopher Mills of Gravedigger, "Beginning in 2019, Creator made multiple attempts to reclaim his publishing rights. He was informed that the book was still selling digitally on Comixology, even though he had received no sales reports for years, including any digital sales. Creator was offered the option of having his rights returned if he purchased all unsold copies sitting at Diamond at wholesale cost plus Diamond storage and shipping fees. This was an exorbitant request, and shows that ALE improperly overprinted the book and failed to properly maintain its inventory at Diamond."
• Anthony Ruttgaizer of The F1rst Hero, "According to ALE financials from March of 2020, Creator's projects were $3,100.00 in debt. This year, Seaton demanded $17,000.00 from Creator to free his property rights. Seaton is charging Creator the wholesale price for books he failed to properly promote and sell, essentially earning the company the level of profit they would have received had they sold the books when they were originally published."
• Anthony Ruttgaizer of Slayer, "Creator saw his own book sold at conventions but was never provided sales reports or royalties for those copies."
• DeWayne Feenstra/Axur Aneas, The Adventures Of Aeo-Girl "ALE offered to release the property rights if Creators purchased existing stock
  totaling approximately $13,000, although there is no evidence that such stock exists."
• Colleen Douglas of Carmine, "The completed Carmine series was delivered to ALE on February 28, 2020, but at the time Defendant Seaton had allegedly resigned and no one was left in charge of the company. Defendant Seaton claimed to have shut down ALE in March of 2020 and as a result could make no efforts to support the release of Carmine. Carmine was released during the time Seaton allegedly shut down ALE. ALE released all five issues of the Carmine series digitally at the same time on April 22, 2020. That same day, ALE released over 100 titles from dozens of other authors. A deluge of individual titles released on the same day will cause many of them to be overlooked by critics and others who drive comic demand. Upon information and belief, this mass release was done because ALE was experiencing severe financial difficulties brought on by bad management and was in desperate need of cash."
• John Matsuya and Ben Matsuya of Midnight Massacre, "Creators were informed that the book was never printed, that it was not properly set up for the book market by Diamond, and that Seaton was working on publishing the project. They were informed the intent was to publish by October of 2021. The book was never published."
• Rod Espinosa of Adventure Finders, "ALE did not communicate with Creator nearly all of 2020. ALE did not furnish sales reports nearly all of 2020. ALE did not send Creator all complimentary copies to which he was due."
• Steve Bryant of Athena Voltaire, "ALE ran a Kickstarter campaign to launch the Athena Voltaire ongoing series but was late with fulfillment. Defendant Seaton falsely blamed the delays on Creator.
• Steve Bryant and Mark Stegbauer of Ghoul Scouts, "No payments were made in over a year. Digital sales have never been reported or paid."

Bryan Seaton of Action Lab was approached for comment two days ago but did not reply. We are happy to add any comments if they are made. UPDATE: Bryan Seaton has given us comment, telling us "Action Lab is reviewing the complaint, is confident that its contracts with the named creators remain in force, and intends to protect its rights vigorously."

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