"Oh--and his new "Bruce Timm" style looked absolutely nothing like Bruce
Timm art. It was just cartoony. "

I figured as much. If he really drew like Bruce Timm ... Well, Bruce Timm can adapt his style to pretty much any subject matter. If you hired some regular artist and he turned out that kind of work ... ( I get your point, though).

But I'm curious: When you invited guys like Keith Giffen along, was it just presumed that they would produce work like they'd done before or were there discussions back and forth about what your expectations were. Because Keith Giffen used to play around with his writing and art style a lot, and if he heard "Do whatever you want", I imagine it's like telling a teenager that he can go to a drunken frat party if he promises to behave.

Well, I am, and I am a fan of Weird Al's work. Get your facts straight like you tell others to do, cranky.

Erik Larsen's reply: ("I said what now? That's completely false. I said that kind of book would be likely the kind we might be allowed to do had we failed at Image and had to return to Marvel. Those books, by the way, were either over or on their way out at the time we would have have come crawling back. the point being--these were not A-list titles.

There was some segue into a discussion in which I suggested that the
public perception was that Byrne had to take lesser books after having
left Marvel for DC and having come back but at no point did I claim
Byrne's anything was "a failure.")
****************************************************

I'll stand corrected. You did not say he came crawling back to Marvel and had to take "third rate" titles. But I'll stand by my claim that you did imply it. You did so by suggesting that if you failed at Image you would be forced to come back and work on lesser titles like others who left Marvel in the "lurch". Then listed three titles JB worked on after coming back from DC as your "proof". But if you say that is not the case I'll drop the discussion of that point. 

I do have another question for you Erik. I'm a little confused on how Image was run when it started. I'm talking past Malibu. On one hand you say that you "hired" Keith Giffen. Meaning he was your employee or an employee of Image. Then when he and others were fired you claimed not to be involved. I believe you said you were at a con when they were let-go. Being that there were six partners would you all not have an equal say on who was hired or fired? I also understand that you all kept yourself in your own sub families of Image (Extreme/Top Cow etc.) But common perception (a very popular term in this thread) was that you all ran the company together. For better or for worse you can't be too shocked when people blame the problems of one business partner on the whole. Be it late books, firings, lawsuits etc. On the flip side any and all success would be given to the six of you. I don't see it completely unfair that any and all failures would also be given equal share to the six.  

I still think Liefeld's What If #7 (Wolverine Became An Agent of Shield) is a fun story and cool art.  It's from early in his career and I've heard tell that his art was "corrected" by the inker.  I don't much like what he later did, but I still like that one.

Edited to add:  I bought all the trenchers and I still think they're good fun... don't have much else IMAGE but I still have those.