Image: The Beginning

Webmaster’s Note: For all the people who asked about posting something so things would be a bit calmer around here– little did you know this was the next column in chronological order to be published.

February 21, 1992

I must admit…I’m a bit spoiled.

To backtrack–people within the industry had been hearing the “buzz” (just as the press release says) about Image comics for some weeks now. A group of friends banding together to form their own business (friends and business; now there’s a volatile mix. I hope everyone’s got good lawyers going over the contracts) and produce their own comics.

And it wasn’t just that they were creating their own titles. It’s that, to varying degrees, they were walking away from Marvel, citing an assortment of reasons, none of which was particularly flattering to that publisher.

This is nothing new, of course. Any number of creators have become disenchanted with one or both of “The Big Two” and moved either to already-existing independents or self-publishing.

That’s where the part about my being spoiled comes in.

Creators such as Wendy and Richard Pini, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Dave Sim…these are people with talent and vision whose muses have produced titles whose subject matter doesn’t fit in with the Marvel and DC universes. Alan Moore did not cite disgust with DC’s business practices and go off to develop a new character named “Muck Monster.” He did “Big Numbers.” The Pinis had so much confidence in their elves that they were driven to produce “Elfquest” themselves, which thrives to this day while Marvel’s own “take” on elves, “Weirdworld,” vanished without a trace a decade ago. (Ironically, Marvel’s “Epic” imprint later reprinted “Elfquest.”)

So when a creator boldly announces that he’s off to start his or her own line, my presumption and hope is that it’s going to be something new and visionary. It doesn’t have to be highly marketable. Indeed, Marvel and DC’s main flaw is that titles are expected to draw significantly higher sales than an independent would reasonably expect for his piece of the market pie. So “Hard Boiled” doesn’t have to sell like “X-Men.” No one expects it to.

If Todd said, “I’ve been dying to do a good romance comic,” I’d be thrilled. If Erik said, “My life’s goal is to produce a solid western,” I’d be impressed.

So what’s Image publishing?

Superheroes.

Young superheroes. SWAT Team superheroes. Young freelance superheroes. A group of superheroes.

I mean…haven’t we got Marvel and DC for that? Why have X-Force clones when we’ve got X-Force?

I haven’t seen them yet, of course. Perhaps there will be some startling vision that makes us see superheroes in ways we’ve never seen them before. It’s possible. After all, not all superheroes are alike. “New Warriors” and “Watchmen” are nominally both about super teams, but are just a tad different in tone and style.

Can we get any idea in advance of publication as to whether the creators involved can pull it off, based on their previous work? Judging from their own press release, no, we can’t get an idea. Why? Because of the rather alarming sentiments voiced by both Rob Liefeld and Erik Larson. (And let me make it clear that I like both the guys personally; it’s what’s said in the press release that I’m reacting to.)

“I think that in many ways we’ve been holding back,” says Erik. “Most of our best creations have yet to be seen and will be seen under the Image imprint for the first time.”

Excuse me? Holding back?

Am I the only one stunned by this comment?

If you’re unimpressed by Erik’s recent work, don’t worry. If you can barely remember such characters of his as Shrapnel, take heart. It has nothing to do with lack of ability or talent. By his own admission, Erik’s just been dogging it. “Holding back,” as he says. Withholding his full imagination until a better opportunity came along.

Unless I’m inferring incorrectly here, the concept that fans are plunking down good money while figuring that a creator is giving it his all, every time out, doesn’t factor in. “Oh, this villain I just thought up is too good for Marvel readers! I’ll hold back!”

Rob echoes the sentiments. The release states that Rob “confirmed that his enthusiasm for the new line of comics has him bursting at the seams.” (What a concept. “Rob, are you bursting at the seams?” “Why yes I am, thanks for asking. These 501s are tight.”) And Rob goes on to add, “Not only do we get to share with fandom our finest creations, but we get to own them as well. What better incentive to do your best work.”

Well, gee…lemme think. Pride in workmanship? Commitment to a creative ideal? Are the retailers and fans who bought millions of copies of “X-Force” being told that their support was insufficient incentive?

It gives me the same queasy feeling that I get when I see one of those detergent commercials, wherein Woman X says to Woman Y, “What, how can you still be using Dayglo on your clothes? Don’t you know about Dayglo Plus?!” And she proceeds to tell us how wonderful the new product is, in comparison to the old and clearly inferior product. Which makes you wonder why, if the original product wasn’t all that hot, you were ever buying it in the first place. You feel like a fool because you supported the initial detergent. And you start to wonder if you’re simply being taken to the cleaners.

I keep trying to determine what the guys might actually mean rather than what they’re saying. Perhaps they mean that pride of ownership is what they take the greatest joy in. But again, here’s where my selfish viewpoint kicks in. I happen to think that some of my finest creations, purely in terms of merit and the effect they had on the audience, are works involving characters I did not create. So it saddens me a bit that the guys seem to feel that lack of ownership is a stumbling block to full pride in their work.

Or perhaps it’s just all hype, the same way as when Stan Lee would say, “Marvel Comics, the greatest works since Bill Shakespeare discovered the pen!” Now does Stan really, truly believe that Lee/Kirby “Thor” or “FF,” as good as they were, are on par with, say, “Hamlet?” I tend to doubt it. I doubt anyone really thinks Stan believes it. But quality hype is stuff that’s so over-the-top that you know to take it with a grain of salt.

Furthermore, quality hype should not denigrate the previous work of those people whose work you’re now trying to sell. Those “fans and retailers” being offered a chance to “get in on the ground floor of an exciting new comics universe” thought they were doing that when they bought into the newly revitalized Marvel mutant universe, or the new “Spider-Man” title…and are now being told that the creators themselves don’t consider that to be work reflective of their best efforts.

Speaking of Stan and Jack, I can’t pass up Erik’s claim that Image is “The most exciting thing to happen to comics since the creation of the Marvel Universe.” Oh, honestly, Erik. Has it occurred to you that if Stan and Jack and Steve had likewise been “holding back,” there wouldn’t have been a Marvel universe to bring you the measure of fame you now enjoy?

But you can point out that people like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko did their best work for Marvel (and Seigel and Shuster for DC) and have not shared proportionately in the monies generated by their creations.

You would be correct.

The troubles of the various creators in those instances, and many others, have been well-documented. No one covered themselves with glory. On the one hand, creators complained about perfectly legitimate deals that, with 20-20 hindsight, they wish they hadn’t made. They wanted a bigger piece of a pie to which they weren’t legally entitled. On the other hand, corporations came across as heartless, inconsiderate, boorish and ungrateful to the people whose imaginations created the six-figure incomes some executives enjoy, the millions of dollars in licensing fees filling the company coffers.

It used to be that the only business considerations of comics were held by publishers. No more. We have a readership base that is made up, in large measure, of people who see comics not as entertainment but as investments. And it would seem that we are also developing a creative base that is wising up, as it were. Who owns the story is becoming as great, if not greater, a consideration than what the story is actually about.

If Rob said, “I’m planning to do a series about a team of hermaphrodite bisexuals, and in the first issue they go back in time and discover Jesus was a vampire,” my feeling would be, “Yup. That sure wouldn’t have flown at the Big Two.” But there’s no discussion of subject matter that would have run afoul of corporate standards. Instead the release talks of cross-over storylines, team-ups and a shared universe…all stuff that not only is S.O.P. at Marvel and DC, but occasionally gets flack over being a mere marketing ploy.

Instead the main reason that the guys seem excited, according to the release, is that they own the characters themselves and, if there’s money to be made with those same filthy business considerations that people use to castigate Marvel and DC, then by gosh, the guys are going to make that money.

This is a significant consideration. Some headway has been made in the Big Two for creator consideration, but not enough. For example, all those Spider-Man and X-Force t-shirts…Todd didn’t get a dime off those. That, to my mind, has been and continues to be unfair. But if there’s a “Spawn” t-shirt comes out, the money goes to Todd…I presume.

Malibu publisher Dave Olbrich discusses the business end in the press release, stating that the deal, in addition to creative freedom, provides “better earning potential for artists and writers than ever before. Malibu is proud and privileged to help pioneer this new relationship from which the creators will clearly profit as much as the publisher company.”

Profit indeed. Sources said that Malibu was offering Image anywhere from 70 to 95 percent of the line’s net profits. In a separate conversation, Dave confirmed that the numbers were indeed “In that neck of the woods.”

Now Eddie Murphy has commented (not to me, mind you) that an offer of sharing in net profits is “a monkey deal”…meaning you’d have to be as dumb as a monkey. (Putting aside that an infinite number of monkeys working for an infinite period could produce the works of Shakespeare…although probably not an issue of “Thor.” Hey, maybe Stan was right after all.)

The point Murphy was making is that net means nothing. Gross is where the action is, and numbers can be crunched very easily so that when it comes time for the net profits, you wind up with nada. Hollywood bookkeeping is legendary for this (remember that “Coming to America,” one of Paramount’s big summer hits, was still in the red when Art Buchwald won his lawsuit).

Dave Olbrich, however, promises better things for Image. “I’m thinking in the long term,” he told me. Although obviously a few months of non-existent net profits would benefit Malibu, it would most probably alienate Image, and Olbrich pointed out, “When you do things in the long term perspective, you have to keep that in mind. There’s no long-term profit in violating trust.”

Furthermore, Malibu and Image are agreeing ahead of time as to what type of expenses qualify as documentable costs, to reduce or eliminate the chances of unpleasant surprises. This is, of course, only a partial solution, since actual dollar amounts can’t be predetermined. On the other hand, it eliminates the possibility of the sort of trickery in which movie studios engage. To make an outrageous example, Image isn’t going to have to worry about going to Malibu and saying, “What’s this part of the gross, where you took out $20,000 for limos,” to which Malibu replies, “Oh, that’s a legitimate expense. We hate to walk to work.”

The bottom line for Olbrich is, he told me, that he’s making every effort to deal in good faith since he’s “not interested in winding up in a worse position than when I started.”

I’m left, then, with only a couple of final thoughts. First, I can’t wait to see what happens if one of the creators has a falling out with the other guys and wants to take his character over to, say, Dark Horse. Can he guest-star characters he helped co-create for Image? What happens to licensing, particularly if the split is acrimonious.

Secondly, Image is going to boil down to the question of: What’s really selling? Is it the specific creators? Or is it actually the books that the creators are on? It seems the guys are attentive to the monetary bottom line. If that’s a major consideration, then what’s going to generate more money in the long run for Rob Liefeld: “X-Force,” which he doesn’t own, or “Youngblood,” which he does. Which will bring in more for Erik: royalties on “Spider-Man” or “The Dragon?”

With the Marvel titles, they’re backed up by thirty years of Marvel’s aggressively cultivated audience base, distribution, promotion, marketing and editorial power, all of which helped to push the masterminds of Image to the forefront of fan attention. But fan attention is notoriously fickle. They’ll be counting on that selfsame audience base to support their solo efforts, without the benefit of one of the Big Two pushing them. The fact that “Youngblood” sold 300,000 copies is meaningless. Sold to distributors does not equal sold to customers. Just ask the retailers at the recent Great Eastern convention who had “X-Men #1” in their 3 for a dollar boxes.

To a degree, I see Image right now as a skier just hitting the upward ramp of a jump. Hurled upward into the air by forces of which he is only a part, he glories in the freedom that is his.

Then he looks down.

The question is whether Image is going to wind up looking like Jean-Claude Killey, or the guy who tumbles ášš-over-teakettle at the beginning of “Wide World of Sports.”

As always, the fans will be the ultimate arbiters of that. Will the fans follow their faves? Or will it be like the movie actor who leaves Hollywood, goes to Broadway for a year and wins a Tony Award, only to return to Hollywood and discover that, as far as everyone there is concerned, he’s dropped off the face of the earth for twelve months. Thus far, it’s seemed as if Marvel and DC are Hollywood, and if you’re not working there, then to many fans, you’re out of work.

I, for one, am certainly hoping they succeed. Any guys who are nervy enough to go head-to-head against the Big Two in precisely the same genre that Marvel and DC have had a hammerlock for three decades certainly deserve the best wishes of anyone in a creative endeavor. It’s been a long time since Marvel and DC have had any serious competition from anyone other than each other.

I will be very interested to see whether Image develops into a portrait…or a silhouette.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, also hears there will be a title called “Wildcats.” How nice. I love Goldie Hawn movies.)