Obligatory Comic-Book Post
So, let's see what's in the news:
"Its market share slipping, Image Comics has made a change at the top, replacing Jim Valentino, who resigned this week as Publisher, with Erik Larsen."
Hmm. Well, as the one Image founder that's actually consistently put out a book in the decade-plus since Image has been founded, I guess that's good.
"Larsen promised changes under his leadership, including a shift to more superhero books from Valentino's emphasis on "cutting edge, alternative comics. '....[M]y roots are in the more mainstream camp,' Larsen said."
Ah. I see. Because Image's market share is slipping.
"Industry sources have told Internal Correspondence the other Image partners thought that Valentino was taking Image in too much of an 'alternative' comics direction and that they feel that Larsen will be able to nudge the company more toward the mainstream and provide more support for Image's top-selling comic book titles."
Sounds like Miramax. Indie-turns-mainstream. Indie cred lost as market share rises. Erik Larsen the new Harvey Weinstein? Too early to tell.
Image Comics started out as a rebuttal to market-leader Marvel's tradition of corporate ownership of intellectual property. Image's comics are all creator-owned, not publisher-owned. Thus, the theory goes, the risk is off of the publisher and onto the creator. So there's little to be lost in publishing all kinds of stuff, and the market will determine what it wants.
Initially the Image books -- things like Spawn, Youngblood, Savage Dragon, WildC.A.T.S., StormWatch -- in other words, things you may have heard of ten years ago if at all -- were as revolutionary in the arena of mainstream comics as the intellectual property argument was in the arena of comic book copyrights.
After the initial boom, the '90s begat a bubble of Internet proportions around self-indulgent, often-late, often-mediocre comic books. Image's improvements in physical production led to industry-wide upgrades in paper quality and color. Cover prices rose.
Image began to splinter almost immediately. Many of the seven founders -- defectors from Marvel, all -- founded their own "imprints" from which to publish the kinds of books they liked. Jim Lee's WildStorm was eventually bought by Marvel's rival DC. Rob Liefeld's Extreme changed names and publishers a couple times in a slow process of implosion.
Jim Valentino's Top Cow has had arguably the most success long-term, not discounting the meteoric rise and slow fade of Todd McFarlane's Spawn title (McFarlane has now parlayed his comic book success into action figure sales, and singlehandedly introduced a revolution in quality in the world of action figures. He has all but left Image Comics behind). And so Jim Valentino has been Publisher at Image, in that office park on Batavia just south of Katella.
Other ground-level publishers have risen to fill the void the Image initially carved out of Marvel, and Marvel itself under indie-makes-good chief editor Joe Quesada has reinvented itself and rescued itself from a late 1998 bankruptcy. Image's 15-20% market share in the mid-nineties, thanks largely to a sheer volume of mediocre titles plus a few megahits like Spawn, has been gobbled up by all the other indies that Image paved the way for. It's as if Ralph Nader became Secretary of State or something, and it opened the floodgates for third-party candidates.
Meanwhile, in the office park on Batavia, Jim Valentino quietly left the door open behind him. A haven for comic creators with no fear of a corporate machine chewing up and destroying their characters, Jim Valentino's Image has offered to accept submissions and help independent comic creators publish and distribute their work, supplying high-end services like computer color, printing, and distribution. It's as if Disney was looking for home-grown Pixars.
And while all this has been happening, in the background Erik Larsen, an Image co-founder, has been writing and drawing his book Savage Dragon, now improbably at issue #113. The most no-nonsense Image founder, Larsen has proven himself to be a sensible businessman. I have no doubt that Image's new superhero attitude, meant to distance itself from the clamoring hordes of low-run indie comics and reestablish itself as a powerhouse in the marketplace, will be profitable.
The question, though, is whether it will be any good. Image's first popular titles, like Spawn and Youngblood, were a reaction against traditional superhero fare and helped to change a genre's dynamic across the entire industry. The natural progression, as that succeeded, was toward less and less traditionally mainstream content, helping to bring new ideas to the marketplace. Broadly-drawn superhero books like Supreme fizzled out in favor of darker, more genre-ambiguous titles like Witchblade, The Darkness, and Fathom; and fantasy flourished with titles like Battle Chasers.
Marvel, meanwhile, has reinvented its superhero shelves with its Ultimate editions of Spider-Man, X-Men and other popular titles; also, it caters to less clean-cut tastes with its Marvel Knights line. Perhaps the time is here for Image to gently curve back towards the largest market in the industry, but if so, the void that Image once occupied with left-of-mainstream superhero books isn't there waiting for Image to return, and the indie fare that it helped nurture now clutters the shelves.
And the door that Jim Valentino left open to aspiring creators? Only time will tell if Erik Larsen will prop it open with a cardboard cutout of Superman, or perhaps close it altogether. Superheroes and comic books were born together, so it's no stretch to assume that superhero fare will bring buyers back to Image. Whether it be a regression or a renaissance, only time will tell what the future holds for aspiring creators like Stephen and, yes, myself -- creators writing the types of books that Image used to publish.
"Its market share slipping, Image Comics has made a change at the top, replacing Jim Valentino, who resigned this week as Publisher, with Erik Larsen."
Hmm. Well, as the one Image founder that's actually consistently put out a book in the decade-plus since Image has been founded, I guess that's good.
"Larsen promised changes under his leadership, including a shift to more superhero books from Valentino's emphasis on "cutting edge, alternative comics. '....[M]y roots are in the more mainstream camp,' Larsen said."
Ah. I see. Because Image's market share is slipping.
"Industry sources have told Internal Correspondence the other Image partners thought that Valentino was taking Image in too much of an 'alternative' comics direction and that they feel that Larsen will be able to nudge the company more toward the mainstream and provide more support for Image's top-selling comic book titles."
Sounds like Miramax. Indie-turns-mainstream. Indie cred lost as market share rises. Erik Larsen the new Harvey Weinstein? Too early to tell.
Image Comics started out as a rebuttal to market-leader Marvel's tradition of corporate ownership of intellectual property. Image's comics are all creator-owned, not publisher-owned. Thus, the theory goes, the risk is off of the publisher and onto the creator. So there's little to be lost in publishing all kinds of stuff, and the market will determine what it wants.
Initially the Image books -- things like Spawn, Youngblood, Savage Dragon, WildC.A.T.S., StormWatch -- in other words, things you may have heard of ten years ago if at all -- were as revolutionary in the arena of mainstream comics as the intellectual property argument was in the arena of comic book copyrights.
After the initial boom, the '90s begat a bubble of Internet proportions around self-indulgent, often-late, often-mediocre comic books. Image's improvements in physical production led to industry-wide upgrades in paper quality and color. Cover prices rose.
Image began to splinter almost immediately. Many of the seven founders -- defectors from Marvel, all -- founded their own "imprints" from which to publish the kinds of books they liked. Jim Lee's WildStorm was eventually bought by Marvel's rival DC. Rob Liefeld's Extreme changed names and publishers a couple times in a slow process of implosion.
Jim Valentino's Top Cow has had arguably the most success long-term, not discounting the meteoric rise and slow fade of Todd McFarlane's Spawn title (McFarlane has now parlayed his comic book success into action figure sales, and singlehandedly introduced a revolution in quality in the world of action figures. He has all but left Image Comics behind). And so Jim Valentino has been Publisher at Image, in that office park on Batavia just south of Katella.
Other ground-level publishers have risen to fill the void the Image initially carved out of Marvel, and Marvel itself under indie-makes-good chief editor Joe Quesada has reinvented itself and rescued itself from a late 1998 bankruptcy. Image's 15-20% market share in the mid-nineties, thanks largely to a sheer volume of mediocre titles plus a few megahits like Spawn, has been gobbled up by all the other indies that Image paved the way for. It's as if Ralph Nader became Secretary of State or something, and it opened the floodgates for third-party candidates.
Meanwhile, in the office park on Batavia, Jim Valentino quietly left the door open behind him. A haven for comic creators with no fear of a corporate machine chewing up and destroying their characters, Jim Valentino's Image has offered to accept submissions and help independent comic creators publish and distribute their work, supplying high-end services like computer color, printing, and distribution. It's as if Disney was looking for home-grown Pixars.
And while all this has been happening, in the background Erik Larsen, an Image co-founder, has been writing and drawing his book Savage Dragon, now improbably at issue #113. The most no-nonsense Image founder, Larsen has proven himself to be a sensible businessman. I have no doubt that Image's new superhero attitude, meant to distance itself from the clamoring hordes of low-run indie comics and reestablish itself as a powerhouse in the marketplace, will be profitable.
The question, though, is whether it will be any good. Image's first popular titles, like Spawn and Youngblood, were a reaction against traditional superhero fare and helped to change a genre's dynamic across the entire industry. The natural progression, as that succeeded, was toward less and less traditionally mainstream content, helping to bring new ideas to the marketplace. Broadly-drawn superhero books like Supreme fizzled out in favor of darker, more genre-ambiguous titles like Witchblade, The Darkness, and Fathom; and fantasy flourished with titles like Battle Chasers.
Marvel, meanwhile, has reinvented its superhero shelves with its Ultimate editions of Spider-Man, X-Men and other popular titles; also, it caters to less clean-cut tastes with its Marvel Knights line. Perhaps the time is here for Image to gently curve back towards the largest market in the industry, but if so, the void that Image once occupied with left-of-mainstream superhero books isn't there waiting for Image to return, and the indie fare that it helped nurture now clutters the shelves.
And the door that Jim Valentino left open to aspiring creators? Only time will tell if Erik Larsen will prop it open with a cardboard cutout of Superman, or perhaps close it altogether. Superheroes and comic books were born together, so it's no stretch to assume that superhero fare will bring buyers back to Image. Whether it be a regression or a renaissance, only time will tell what the future holds for aspiring creators like Stephen and, yes, myself -- creators writing the types of books that Image used to publish.
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