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Topic: Did Image ruin comics--in new ways? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 12 December 2017 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I just watched the final episode of Kirkman's "Secret History of Comics" (no, this is not a thread about the show) which focused on the origin of Image Comics, and a couple of new things struck me.

Now, I think it's been said before (by people here and elsewhere) that "Image ruined comics!" but I always thought that referred to the exaggerated art (bubble boobs, muscles, and pouches) and also that the books were always late (and the founders didn't seem to care).  But the new things that struck me were:

1. INDUSTRY SALES--Marvel Comics (and comics in general) were really on a roll when the Image founders jumped ship.  Their X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN sold millions!  Sure, it was the speculator boom that was going, but, still, the company was healthy and who's to say that the speculator boom wouldn't have morphed into something more solid if the founders jumping hadn't helped end it early?  Instead, Marvel's stock dropped and the company was weakened...and a weak Marvel is bad for the industry.  (Not to mention, Marvel tried to copy Image's style in the 90's, and way too many of their books were overblown garbage--further diminishing the company.)  Instead of finding new ways to grow, now Marvel was scrambling to recover and survive.

2. SCHLOCK--Did the big sales simply shift from Marvel to Image?  For a while, but Image's unprofessionalism soon squandered that good will.  These six artists came out with their six books and they sold BIG!  Whether you like their styles or not--these were the hot books and the hot styles at the time.  But then these guys immediately hired carbon copy artists and churned out thirty other books--by non-star/inferior artists.  They immediately abandoned whatever standards they might have had going in.  But what if they hadn't?  What if, instead, they invited in Neal Adams, John Byrne, Walt Simonson, Frank Miller, Jim Starlin, Howard Chaykin, etc.--all to do one book each?  (Maybe they did and everybody said no.)  But, for young guys who thought the big companies were doing it wrong and they were going to show them how to do it right--they ended up being just like the big companies themselves (and not in the best ways).

3. PRICES--On the show, they bragged about bringing in Photoshop coloring and slick paper "and now everybody does it"--but that also raised the prices...and lowered the subtlety.  (Can you imagine Jim Aparo working on glossy Image paper?)  Maybe kids liked the bright colors and slick paper, but only adults could afford those prices.  (And they were also proud that now super-heroes could be seen in bed with girls.)  Is Image responsible for the mass exodus of kids from buying comics?

To be honest, I was one of those guys who loved Image at the beginning.  I was in my early 20's and I had drifted away from Marvel and DC.  I still bought some independents and that put me in the comics shops to see the posters for the coming of Image.  People were excited and I was really excited!  A new company, by the best (well, hottest) in the biz, on books they always wanted to do!  A third company with a new world and a new mythology to explore!  Was this what it was like in the early days of Marvel?  I bought all the founders' books (except I couldn't get into SPAWN past the first issue) and it was great!  Then came the second tier (talent and characters), and the third tier--and it immediately became all watered down.

And now Image has sort of a second life as a place for creator-owned series that are unconnected, books that rise or fall individually--another Dark Horse Comics.  And it, like the whole industry, is just sort of limping along at a time when super-heroes and their interconnected mythologies are the biggest things...in other media.

But what could have been.


Edited by Eric Jansen on 12 December 2017 at 1:06pm
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Ted Downum
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Posted: 12 December 2017 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Interesting question, Eric.

In some other reality, Image might have been...if not a good thing for comics, at least not as destructive a thing. If the Image boys had given any thought to a long-term strategy like the one you suggest (bringing in other top-level talent), if they'd concentrated more energy on the quality of their actual product, or even if they'd managed to ship their books on time, maybe they would have helped the genre flourish even more than it was at the time. Instead they helped push it over the cliff. (I've never thought they deserved all the blame for the nineties implosion...just their due, which is a lot.)

You make a good point about what the company has become. I think about all the small publishers that croaked after the speculator bubble burst--First!, Comico, all of those. Maybe the karmic scales have kept Image going so that there's a platform for books like Stray Bullets, Walking Dead, Invincible, Saga, the Luna brothers' stuff, etc...series that those now-defunct publishers might have published, back in the before-time.



Edited by Ted Downum on 12 December 2017 at 3:24pm
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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 12 December 2017 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I think Image was just an extension of what Marvel was doing in the early 90s. The only thing new that they brought to the table was the normalization of late books, and Marvel caught up with them there by the end of the decade. 
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Colin Ian Campbell
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Posted: 12 December 2017 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I think about all the small publishers that croaked after the speculator bubble burst--First!, Comico, all of those.
***
First suspended publishing in 1991, before Image launched and before the bubble burst.  I think they had sunk too much money into their Classics Illustrated series, which failed to sell in the required numbers.
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John Cole
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Posted: 12 December 2017 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

After all they did name their copmpany Image and not Substance.
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Darin Henry
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Posted: 12 December 2017 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Hi Eric!

To the end of your second point, I’ve recently begun to wonder what the industry would be like if instead of using their massive leverage with the big 2 to become separate mini corporations, the Image founders had formed a union for ALL creatives to receive guaranteed minimums, royalties, pension and health care contributions.  It’s likely that many non-name creators would have been helped far more by such union benefits than they are helped by paying Image a few thousand dollars to print their creator-owned properties that last a few issues and are never heard from again. 
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Ted Downum
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Posted: 13 December 2017 at 8:24am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Colin Ian Campbell: "First suspended publishing in 1991..."

*****

Quite right, Colin; thanks for the correction. I might have been thinking of Eclipse, which folded in '94-'95.
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 13 December 2017 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Hey Darin!  Yeah, the Image guys seemed to have a lot of popularity at the time, but maybe not so much clout.  At least that's what the show purports.  In previous years, you had Neal Adams pushing for better conditions for all freelancers, but that was at DC.  You get the impression here that Marvel was more "We can replace you!"--a perhaps foolish stand in hindsight.

Supposedly, the Image guys decided to just start their own thing and then treat people better there, but that may have been overblown on the show as I've heard a couple of things to the contrary on the convention circuit.

Full disclosure: I worked for Top Cow for two seconds as an artist and while they paid me well for the work I did, they were not great with me otherwise.
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