I can understand the reasons for dumping the other creators, I certainly understood them at the time, and deadline and profitability problems are straight-forward. But the "It turns out we didn't like the books" seems an odd way to react to creator owned books.

I know it's a standard that any regular publisher uses. They don't like a writer or artist's approach on a book they fire him or (in the case of creator owned properties) dump the property.

But in terms of Image being presented of Image as a Creator Friendly alternative where people could publish their own thing, I would think that shy of obscene or brand-polluting work, the personal tastes of the founders would take a back seat?(Once a creator had been invited to publish with them, that is. Certainly I would expect some screening process to take place before someone was taken on board, at which time personal taste objections would be a matter of course.)

I'm just curious. I understand, as you say:  it wasn't your call.

And quite frankly I've tried self publishing with some of my friends too (certainly on an infinitely smaller scale), and thinking that you can just start stuff up and then make all the other decisions on the fly is a recipe for confusion and possibly disaster. Some people start making decisions for everybody else that are not the decisions that would have been made if communication was good. Our self-publishing venture for instance involved translated comics as back-ups in an anthology, but instead of handing them over to the guy with a language degree the translation duties were handed over to the only dyslexic in the group.

It looked to me as a fan that Image made a lot of bad mistakes the first years, but from my own experience I can tell that unless everybody involved is a Vulcan, mistakes are going to made in this type of start-up.   

As a (sorta) creator myself, knowing how hard it is to make a buck out of it, I cant for the life of me see why everyone goes bananas as soon as someone makes a smart business move, like the Image guys did.
Are creators the only ones on this green earth who doesn't have the fundamental right to put food on their plates?

It's almost a religious no-no somehow, to consider bills that has to be paid and a life that has to be built, using ones art to do so.

What are the moral arguments, that states that this is worse than manufactoring weapons, overcharge for AID's medicine in africa or waste taxmoney on a stupid war?

So, these guys made money because they estimated the market correctly, good for them.

By the way, Erik seem to simply state that an artists skill and power and he's 'fame factor' are in no way related.
That doesn't mean that JB wont return to the frontrow at any given time, all it takes really, is for him to just go there.
I suspect he could do that at any time, in a snap, simply by choice.

But I can also see him having a ball with Star Trek, considering tha fact that he has been a self proclaimed fan of Star Trek all his life.
I think most artists would love to be in the awesome position to be able to take some time in their lives doing this sort of stuff, just because they can and just because they have fun with it.

I'd kill for that privilege.

My point is that the true sign of JB's status in the BIZ is the fact that he can DO these things BY CHOICE.

And that's what people eventually started to go "bananas" about. Sad to think, after all these years, that there might still be some who cling to the myth of Image.


* They also developed an astonishing duality when it came to dealing with complaints. Selling themselves, they were a team -- Workers of the World Unite!   But when deadlines were missed, when work was shoddy, when other excesses manifest, suddenly they broke into a million shards. "Oh, that's just him!"

Yes, they are. But unfortunately, Robert, what you are stating there are opinions, not facts.

The majority of fans don't know who Paul Smith is or what he's done.

I dunno, I have a feeling that many of the comic book consumers still lingering are old farts who have been collecting since the 80s. Folk with disposable income who can afford today's over-priced, slickly produced pamphlets.

I'm not sure that leaving a high-profile title instantly reduces the sheen of a 'star' artist, wouldn't a loyal fan base stick with him/her regardless? I think that if Paul would have decided to maintain a steady presence in comics, he would've continued to sell books based on his talent.