Image Comics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rorschach567 (talk | contribs) at 21:35, 7 January 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Jump to navigation Jump to search
File:Image Comics logo.gif

Image Comics is the third largest comic book publisher in the United States. It was founded in 1992 by seven high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material while holding the copyrights to their own characters. Image’s success has significantly changed the role of creators in the comic book industry, but infighting and a lack of business sense have resulted in a rocky existence.

Furthermore, many critics have carped Image’s line of comics for generic characters and concepts, excessively flamboyant artwork, an abundance of violence and sexily dressed female characters - criticisms that were especially prevalent during the company’s early days.

Image’s founders were Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Whilce Portacio, and Jim Valentino.

Series that have been flagship Image properties at some point in the company’s history include Gen 13, Savage Dragon, Spawn, WildC.A.T.s, Witchblade and Youngblood

History

Founding

The exact nature of Image’s founding depends on whose account one believes. However, it is fairly agreed upon that, in the early 1990s, several popular Marvel Comics illustrators had become angry that their artwork and characters they created were heavily merchandized with the artists receiving only little royalty pay and began to organize for change.

In December 1991, a group of these illustrators stormed into the office of Marvel President Terry Stewart to demand certain creator-rights. It is disagreed upon who exactly this group had included, but it is general known that Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld lead the charge. Supposedly, the meeting became intense and, when the artists threatened to leave Marvel, Stewart said the company could “always find someone else to pick the cotton,” an analogy that compared the artists to slaves.

Several months later, seven former Marvel illustrators announced the creation of Image Comics. The company’s original line-up included McFarlane (made famous on Marvel’s Spider-Man), Liefeld (The New Mutants, X-Force), Jim Lee (X-Men), Marc Silvestri (Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine), Erik Larsen (The Amazing Spider-Man), Jim Valentino (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Whilce Portacio (Uncanny X-Men). This development is sometimes called the “X-odus,” because four of these creators were made famous for their work on the X-Men franchise. Although each artist had become relatively well-known at Marvel, Lee, Liefeld and McFarlane were, by far, the three most popular.

Image was formed under two provisions:

  • Image does not own a creator’s work, the creator does.
  • One Image creator would never interfere, creatively or financially, with any other’s work

In the spirit of the second rule, each Image partner founded his own studio, which existed under the Image banner but was autonomous from central editorial control. Because Portacio did not opt to become a full partner in the company, Image originally consisted of six studios:

Development

The first Image comic books to arrive at stores were Liefeld's Youngblood, Lee’s WildC.A.T.s and McFarlane's Spawn. Propelled by star power, these series sold enormous numbers, unprecedented for non-Marvel and DC comic books. The company experienced lesser successes with Larsen’s Savage Dragon, Silvestri’s Cyberforce Valentino’s Shadowhawk, Portacio’s Wetworks.

With the prospect of owning the copyrights and maintain editorial control over their own series, Image soon attracted other creators to the company. These included Sam Keith, who created The Maxx for Image, and Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, who created Astro City.

Image soon came to rival Marvel and DC in terms of popularity and relevance. However, Image’s seven founders had little experience as writers and critics claimed the company relied on excessively flashy artwork, while their writing was weak and their characters were generic and not well-developed. Only a few Image properties were critically acclaimed (Astro City); some met with a more or less neutral response from critics (Savage Dragon, Spawn) and many were outright despised by critics and older comic book fans (WildC.A.T.s, Cyberforce and especially Youngblood).

Image’s founders also had little business experience and soon they found themselves overwhelmed with the responsibilities of their respectively studios. Soon Image Comics became notoriously behind schedule. Retailers often preordered comics that hadn't even been illustrated yet, only to discover that, when the issues actually arrived at stores, fans had lost interest. Retailers began loosing money on Image books and eventually stopped heavily ordering from Image, which significant hurt the still young comic studio.

The partners hired manager Larry Marder to take over the business operations and he developed better financial planning and somewhat succeeded in disciplining creators to deliver their work on time.

In the mid-1990s Image series such as Spawn and Savage Dragon showed an unexpected staying power, while new series, such as Wildstorm’s Gen 13 and The Authority and Top Cow’s Witchblade and The Darkness were also successes. Once considered a fluke, Image had established itself as a strong competitor in the comic book industry, although critical reactions were still less then enthusiastic.

Clashes between partners began to harm the company. Many complained that Liefield was using his power as CEO of Image to promote his own separate comic studio, causing Silvestri to cede Top Cow from Image in 1997. A year later, Liefeld was forced out of the company by the remaining partners, and they engaged in a legal battle that was settled out of court. Afterwards Silvestri, brought Top Cow back to Image. That same year, Lee sold Wildstorm Studio to DC Comics, hoping to drop his responsibilities as a publisher for more art assignments and disentangle himself from Image.

In February 2004, Erik Larsen replaced Jim Valentino as publisher of Image. Currently, the company continues to publish a variety of successful titles and attract new creators, but has lost significant sales momentum in the past few years.

Comic Series

This list is incomplete. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image_Comics&oldid=9201143"