It must be agreed that Marvel is going through a rough period recently. The studio faced several issues with its projects and artists in recent times. As the Superhero company was already suffering with so many problems on its head, the feud with Robert Kirkman adds another addition to it. New reports state that The Walking Dead creator had a very unpleasant time with the company.
Marvel finds itself in another controversy after Robert Kirkman took to an interview to reveal that the company has some unfair contract clauses. This also adds to an interesting addition to the case of big companies not providing fair payment to their workers.
What happened between Marvel and Robert Kirkman?
Robert Kirkman is widely popular for creating some of the most iconic comic book series The Walking Dead and Invincible. The 44-year-old artist has also worked with Marvel for various projects but had a very bad experience recently after the studio shut his series midway. The artist who has worked for the House of Iron Man in writing Marvel Zombies and Ultimate X-Men expressed his disappointment towards the company after they canceled his Sleepwalker-based mini-series.
When he spoke to Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane in a podcast, he stated that the superhero company didn’t show professional behavior and he was just fired like that. Kirkman was called by a Marvel Executive who said that.
“Hey, so we shut the whole thing down, you’re fired, I know you did a lot of work on issues 2 and 3, but we’re not gonna pay you for that, because we’re never putting it out.”
Further, when the writer looked at his contract closely, he got to know that Marvel can fire any writer without any clause which showed a very bitter side of the Superhero company. This has made a negative impact on the writer as he admitted to not having any trust anymore. But it is not something new for Marvel to face controversies related to paychecks as something same occurred in the infamous case of Yelena Belova.
Also Read: Marvel Zombies – Five Events From The Comics We Want In The Show
Marvel is not new to paycheck controversies
The controversy with Robert Kirkman reminds us of the infamous case of Yelena Belova that occurred during the release of Black Widow. When the 2021 Scarlett Johansson starrer was released the creators of Yelena Belova Devin Grayson and JG Jones revealed that they were tremendously underpaid.
The creators who expected a figure around $25,000 only got a tiny $5,000 for themselves. Devin Grayson was quite vocal about how Marvel failed to keep their word.
“It’s like the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. You could win $1 million, but you won’t.”
On the other side, even the star Scarlett Johannson also went for a lawsuit over a pay dispute with the studio over the 2021 movie. A few months back, the internet was also shocked to see the treatment of the VFX artists and how they are given a workload till the last day of release. Given, the amount of money they generate from their projects, better treatment of the artists would be much appreciated by the fans.
Source: Comicbook
