Erik Larsen wrote: ...Yes--we were having deadline problems--but there were several of us who had gotten our act together and we didn't want to make things any worse than they already were. They had assured us they would make their deadlines and they didn't do that. But that wasn't everybody. Like I said, some were let go for other reasons. In some cases the others just didn't like the books after they'd seen them in print and they didn't want them to be Image books....

Knut wrote: ... 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?...

I'm glad Erik explained what happened with those creators from Image's second wave of creator-owned comics.

I wish I could remember the issue of "Wizard" magazine which first reported the firings of those creators. I remember that Hilary Barta was particularly unhappy with what went down.

That action of the Image founders booting the next crop of creators revealed to me at that time that those founders weren't truly for creator rights, but THEIR rights alone. And I was a fan of what they had started, too, so I was really disappointed in how that whole situation went down.

I don't recall if the "Wizard" article touched on the deadline situation, but I did remember a variant of the "others (founders at Image) just didn't like the books after they'd seen them in print" excuse being given for Image booting those creators and their books.

I have to agree with Knut, that hardly seems a creator-friendly attitude from a company that claimed it was behind creator's rights.

At the time it became popular to say Image wanted to be Marvel in the worst way -- and they were.

Sad to think, after all these years, that there might still be some who cling to the myth of Image.
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I'm going to step down here, because I dont far less about this than you, I'm from sweden, so I can't speak on that subject with any authority at all.

But being from this socialist country which sweden basically is, and being tought from the get-go that doing stuff for money is evil, especially if you are an artist, and then have to suffer through that incredibly stupid belief-system, make me especially partial to americans and their point of view in regard to commercialized entertainment.
- I'll take Michael Bay's "Transformers" over Bergman any day..

Who said it was a lack of professionalism? The complaint is that Image set themselves up as the Great Champions of Creator's Rights -- then revealed that they were not by canceling late books created by other people. The Seven Little Shits were untouchable.

As Frank Miller said, when he came to his senses at last, Marvel produced so much brilliant work in their first few years they were able to coast for the next forty. Image "produced" so much crap in their first few years they will have to spend forty years producing nothing but sheer brilliance to make up for it.