Image Comics: what happened?

Remember when Image was mostly known for publishing the worst excesses of 90s-style grim'n'gritty superhero comics, like Spawn or Youngblood? Well, I was just thinking that during the last 10 or so year they've probably published more good comics than Marvel and DC combined... And not just enjoyable mainstreamy stuff like Invincible or Chew, but also great indie-style and artsy comics like Bulletproof Coffin, Beast, I Kill Giants, Prophet, Saga, etc... Even in the 90s they were releasing some good comics (1963, The Maxx, Astro City), but it seems there's been a definite change from their original "Marvel with more boobs and violence" style to their current, far more adventurous publishing policy. So what happened? I know Robert Kirkman was made their creative director or something a while ago, but it feels the change I'm talking about had happened long before that...

I guess Image benefitted from abandoning the shared universe they originally had, so it's easier for artists and writers who can't adapt to the "Marvel house style" or "DC house style" to come to them, as they don't seem to have any sort of house style of their own anymore.

Image was founded a coalition of different studios, each of which was run by a founder and AFAIK none of them overlapped

Would've thought the fact that Image still offer creators full copyright - whereas Marvel by and large don't anymore - is a big factor in this

spawn is still going on, wildcats, cyberforce all that stuff is still going on.

well WildCATS is only sort of half-assed going on as part of the mainstream DC universe

but yeah most of the bigger sellers are on the more arts-and-crafty side of boobs and violence. (Saga still has boobs and violence)

Well yeah, I'm not saying the boobs and violence stuff still doesn't exist (though I would count Saga among then, while it technically has boobs and violence, neither is there for titillation), but that Image has managed to broaden its publishing policy to in ways Marvel and DC haven't, and as a result has (in my opinion) published more quality comics than either of the Big Two. I mean, can you imagine something like I Kill Giants coming out from either of them, even though the writer has worked for both? Even Vertigo, DC's imprint for the more adventurous stuff, has mostly just stuck to publishing urban fantasy and horror in the Swamp Thing/Sandman mold, with the recent addition to noirish and hard-boiled crime comics; i.e. genre fiction, some of admittedly great, but few of their comics venturing outside that comfort zone.

As for the different artist studios/imprints, I think a couple of them still exist, but AFAIK for years most of Image's have comics come from the main company and not the imprints.

"though I wouldn't count Saga among them"

Image has been putting out non-gritty-teeth stuff since pretty early on -- i think what you're noticing is that those are now the biggest sellers.

I think why you'd see DC/Marvel doing less of that -- they make plenty of money on the superhero stuff (if not necessarily on the comics themselves),
that it's not really worth it to develop any other properties. In relative terms, they would likely lose money doing a Walking Dead deal with Kirkman
(not like they actually go negative, but those resources might produce a better return if it was spent on their existing titles, since they own the
merchandising/videogame/movie rights, and not Kirkman)

In recent years, DC have published comics about fictional characters living in the same world as us but hidden from us seeing them; a genetically engineered neanderthal keeping a child that has run away from a reality show from being discovered; a boy who was a product of the world of fiction but doesn't realise he's the copy of a dead child; post-apocalyptic human-animal hybrids; an Amercian presidential candidate haunted by dreams of alien abduction; the Viking age; Burroughsian pest exterminators; ancient Greek myths retold on the streets of modern London and a full line of digest sized books for teenage girls.

But, y'know, don't let the facts get in the way of your premise.

northlanders would make for an awesome TV series, particularly if they timed it with the next Thor movie coming out, but that might rub people the wrong way if they timed it like that.

In recent years, DC have published comics about fictional characters living in the same world as us but hidden from us seeing them; a genetically engineered neanderthal keeping a child that has run away from a reality show from being discovered; a boy who was a product of the world of fiction but doesn't realise he's the copy of a dead child; post-apocalyptic human-animal hybrids; an Amercian presidential candidate haunted by dreams of alien abduction; the Viking age; Burroughsian pest exterminators; ancient Greek myths retold on the streets of modern London and a full line of digest sized books for teenage girls.

Yes, and I've read most of these, but while a couple of them (The Unwritten, Ex Machina) are good, some (Fables, Greek Street) are mediocre at best, and my point was that even most of the Vertigo stuff exist within somewhat narrow genre limits: they're either Swamp Thing style urban horror, Sandman style urban fantasy, or Watchmen style superhero deconstructions (though I have to admit I have no idea what the "post-apocalyptic human-animal hybrids" thing is, maybe it's something different?). The Minx line was an interesting attempt for DC to diversify its comic line, but it seems to have failed: only a handful of titles were published, and the whole imprint folded within a year or two.

And yeah, maybe I'm exaggerating my claim a bit, maybe Image isn't putting out more great and original comics than Marvel or DC, but it certainly competes with them in that regard. I'm interested how it went from having only a couple of good, non-derivative titles (like The Maxx or Astro City) to where it currently stands.

What you seem to be saying, following your posts above, is "why don't the big two publish more books I like", which isn't really that helpful. Particularly since your examples for Image's past are as atypical as you could think and you're ignoring that they're still publishing most of their original genre output.

I don't think Image has an editorial policy per se. You just go up to them with your comic book, and if they think they can sell it, they'll put it out.

How is this any kind of mystery?

- within the first year, the partners invited Moore & Pals to do Silly 60s Superheroes and Don Simpson to make fun of them with Silly Image Superheroes (and Todd launched his own atrocious comedy books like Boof & The Bruise Crew)
- other ppl like Kieth & Stroman started to be invited in to do whatever whatever without a sponsor studio
- Larry Marder was hired to make the individual studios run shit in a way that wasn't damaging the overall company
- Marder's presence (plus Valentino) made it look safe for ppl to bring their self-published successes to Image for shelter when Marvel fucked the entire distribution system to death (Bone, A Distant Soil, Strangers In Paradise)
- when the market settled down to Diamond's monopoly and the new arrivals went home again, Valentino felt lonely and started soliciting new introspective B&W stuff for the "Non-Line" (also Marder went to Todd and Valentino became publisher)
- later on Larsen became publisher and sought out more stuff that was middlebrow genre entertainment with thrills, bcz he's Eric Larsen, and also went back to emphasising the original, flubbed Image recruiting credo of you take your shit there and you get all the control and all the money
- then Eric Stephenson got made publisher and got even better at recruiting a broader range of styles and ~building a brand~ in a way that wasn't either cod-Stan's-Soapbox or illiterate-90s-I-was-on-MTV-once-cod-Stan's-Soapbox

(Homage and Cliffhanger both happened around death throes of Capital/domination of Diamond, which was obv a strengthening of pop-genre diversity at the time, but not sure how much Lee then flogging errthing to DC may have tainted this - note that 13 years later DC are still actively fucking LoEG, which was OG Homage)

(^ and also I was obv trying to stick to stuff market-IDed as "core" Image)

spawn is still going on, wildcats, cyberforce all that stuff is still going on.

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 8 November 2012 02:59 (8 hours ago)

well WildCATS is only sort of half-assed going on as part of the mainstream DC universe

― I loves you, PORGI (DJP), Thursday, 8 November 2012 03:00 (8 hours ago)

and Cyberforce stopped for nine years til 2006, and then for another six years afterwards

you might as well say Wetworks has been continually published

Theres a new wetworks? Truly we have entered the end times.

Jim Lee published it at DC abt five years ago for no evident reason, Mike Carey scripting

(had no idea abt the latter point til looking it up)

- within the first year, the partners invited Moore & Pals to do Silly 60s Superheroes and Don Simpson to make fun of them with Silly Image Superheroes (and Todd launched his own atrocious comedy books like Boof & The Bruise Crew)
- other ppl like Kieth & Stroman started to be invited in to do whatever whatever without a sponsor studio
- Larry Marder was hired to make the individual studios run shit in a way that wasn't damaging the overall company
- Marder's presence (plus Valentino) made it look safe for ppl to bring their self-published successes to Image for shelter when Marvel fucked the entire distribution system to death (Bone, A Distant Soil, Strangers In Paradise)
- when the market settled down to Diamond's monopoly and the new arrivals went home again, Valentino felt lonely and started soliciting new introspective B&W stuff for the "Non-Line" (also Marder went to Todd and Valentino became publisher)
- later on Larsen became publisher and sought out more stuff that was middlebrow genre entertainment with thrills, bcz he's Eric Larsen, and also went back to emphasising the original, flubbed Image recruiting credo of you take your shit there and you get all the control and all the money
- then Eric Stephenson got made publisher and got even better at recruiting a broader range of styles and ~building a brand~ in a way that wasn't either cod-Stan's-Soapbox or illiterate-90s-I-was-on-MTV-once-cod-Stan's-Soapbox

Thanks, this is exactly the sort of illuminating answer I was looking for, and I figured you might be the one who could give it. I haven't a been keen follower of the business side of comic publishing, so I didn't know about all this stuff, but it certainly helps explain it.

I have to say, though, that since I live in Finland and buy almost all of my comics in trades, the whole distribution angle is still a bit of a mystery to me. How did Marvel "fuck the entire distribution system"? Why did Diamond end up getting the monopoly?

Sic, yr points are good ones and the clubbing together which happened post-Diamond is undoubtedly a factor as to how some of these people ended up at Image rather than at smaller studios or self-publishing but it kind of doesn't change the fact that Image isn't this panacea it's claimed to be at the start of the thread - it's the company that publishes Lisnser's DAWN for fuck's sake, which is just T&A.

Image still has more than it's share of genre books and no number of Manhattan Projects are going to alter this. It probably has a greater number of 'better' books by the original standard but this is undoubtedly down to the contracts offered compared to those at the big two and the creator owned benefits. The flipside of this coin is that in terms of public recognition you'll only get it at the big two - everyone else is only making comics for comics readers - and so if that's what you want, or a route into other writing, you probably need to go to the big two to do it.

Avatar are probably the #4 publisher of floppies? Dark Horse is pretty exclusively Hellboy universe now, most others (Boom, Dynamite, IDW) are just doing franchising, D&Q/Fanta/Top Shelf not interested in floppies.

This is kind of like saying Hodder & Stoughton publish better books because they're not Random House or Harper Collins and ignoring their releasing John Grisham, or Steven King in multiple covers. Or that Def American put out better records than Universal/Sony/Warner but forgetting about the Black Crowes or that Andrew Dice Clay album.

it kind of doesn't change the fact that Image isn't this panacea it's claimed to be at the start of the thread - it's the company that publishes Lisnser's DAWN for fuck's sake, which is just T&A.

Who claimed this? I was just saying that I've noticed that Image has released a wide variety of quality comics in the recent years, not that all (or even the majority) of their comics are good. I was interested in how they've come to this from where they've started; I don't many people in 1993 would've guessed Image would end up publishing comics like I Kill Giants, or Beast, or Prophet.

And yeah, no doubt Image too has a lot cash cow titles that allow them to publish more idiosyncratic but less lucrative titles, but it feels they allow for more idiosyncrasy for these "quirky" comics than DC or Marvel do.

So my list of 'quirky' DC titles was disregarded why again?

But to answer your question (as it's now phrased), as two of us have said Image is pretty much the only show in town for floppies any more so anything that would've previously been at a smaller publisher or self published is now there by default since Diamond started setting the rules.

Oh yes, you didn't like them, that was it.

Also yr Swamp Thing/Sandman/Watchmen trope isn't even vaguely accurate. And what is Astro City, if not a "Watchmen style superhero deconstruction"?

How did Marvel "fuck the entire distribution system"? Why did Diamond end up getting the monopoly?

Heroes World Distribution Co., originally named Superhero Enterprises, was an American comic book distributor founded by Ivan Snyder, active from 1975 to 1997, during the growth and consolidation of the direct market. Heroes World was acquired by Marvel Comics in late 1994 to act as the publisher's sole distributor. This ill-fated move, combined with other marketplace factors of the time, resulted in the financial failure of many other comics distributors and retailers — and the near collapse of the entire North American comic book market.

Throughout 1995 and 1996, Heroes World continued to flounder, facing lost business[9] and lawsuits.[10][11] Finally, in 1997 the company went out of business, and Marvel returned to Diamond Distributors,[12] which by that point was the only major distributor left standing.

And the why re Diamond is due to DC stabbing every single other distributor in the chest with one knife and ensuring that hundreds of cartoonists and publishers would have to quit, bankrupt, between immediately and a year or so later.

Or that Def American put out better records than Universal/Sony/Warner but forgetting about the Black Crowes or that Andrew Dice Clay album.

but dude, Black Crowes are awesome.

(snip) Image is pretty much the only show in town for floppies any more (snip)

the real problem with this for me is there distribution is terrible in Ireland. Or else the shops don't buy in their stuff because no one here wants to buy comics that aren't tits-n-capes super titles. But whatever the reason, I missed loads of issues of both Bulletproof Coffin series, and would probably have bought more issues of, say, Guerrillas, if I had ever seen them.

They have exactly the same distribution in Ireland as DC and Marvel do.

the shops don't buy in their stuff because no one here wants to buy comics that aren't tits-n-capes super titles

Aye, this is probably the source of your problem, not Diamond. (Although the removal of sale or return 6(?) years ago would have hardened this attitude. Shops just can't take anything on spec any more.)

Image has always been non-returnable through Diamond, it's the very foundation of the direct market as established by Phil Seuling in 1973

I stand corrected.