AfterShock Comics just announced a brand new partnership with Legendary to adapt the title Party & Prey as a feature film, but the publisher is being accused by numerous creators of failing to pay writers and artists for work on their titles. People working in the comics industry have spoken out on social media in recent days about publishers falling behind or failing to make payments, which prompted author Alex de Campi – creator of Grindhouse for Dark Horse Comics and the writer of Archie vs. Predator – to name AfterShock as one of the culprits. While highlighting an example from a creator who spoke about late payments, the author called out AfterShock.
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“This is [AfterShock Comics]. They owe friends of mine tens of thousands and I’ve been doling out contact details of California Lawyers for the Arts like it was Xmas candy. This is shameful behavior & people need to know. Also their rights deal SUCKS,” de Campi wrote on Twitter.
A few days after this and other tweets, AfterShock and Legendary announced their new deal to create a movie based on Party & Prey, the comic from writers Steve Orlando and Steve Foxe, artist Alex Sanchez, colorist Juancho!, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. In the wake of AfterShock’s announcement, ComicBook.com reached out to the publisher for comment on the issues of payment to creators.
“Thank you for reaching out. For easy reference, here is our statement on the matter, the company is addressing late payments as outstanding funds owed to the company come in. There are no non-payments,” reads AfterShock’s statement. “Everyone who is owed money will be paid. We recognize our obligations and consider creator compensation our number one priority. We apologize for this situation and are making our best efforts to rectify it as quickly as possible.”
In AfterShock’s press release for the new collaboration with Legendary, they label the deal to make Party & Prey a “competitive situation,” though there’s no word on what other production companies or distributors were involved in the process. The project is currently set to be directed by Patrick Brice, who previously directed films Creep and Creep 2 as well as episodes of the HBO series Room 104. Writer Rob Forman is attached to writing the script, and he previously helmed an episode of iZombie and is working on the Spider-Man 2 video game.
