Why Were So Many Early Image Comics Late?

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 2:44 am

Why were so many of the early Image titles consistently and ridiculously late? I remember there were some issues of Youngblood that had like six months between them! The only one I can recall that didn't do this (as far as I remember) was Savage Dragon; and that's probably because Erik Larsen did pretty much everything on the book all at once.

I'm thinking maybe because the company was formed by a bunch of artists without direct experience running the business-side but I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the details in Image's early shipping delays.

ian_house · Post by **ian_house** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:46 am

Larsen

McFarlane

Liefeld

All VERY slow.

Unblessed · Post by **Unblessed** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:48 am

RJMooreII wrote:I'm thinking maybe because the company was formed by a bunch of artists without direct experience

Need an editor or someone to enforce deadlines.

Also, need to work on books months in advance. Crap happens. Need to be ready for it.

Draco · Post by **Draco** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 9:26 am

No editorial control and way too much nosebag

400yrs · Post by **400yrs** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 10:15 am

No editors is alot of it. In all honesty, they were already rich after putting out their first issue or 2 so I don't think the motivation to work was there either.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 10:56 am

I was just checking around online, and I was reminded this didn't even stop early on. Battle Chasers had a 16 month issue delay. And Image United has already had delays.

A year, 1 1/3rd year late? How do they do that? Just freakin' draw something, dude!

Unblessed · Post by **Unblessed** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:17 am

RJMooreII wrote:I was just checking around online, and I was reminded this didn't even stop early on. Battle Chasers had a 16 month issue delay. And Image United has already had delays.

A year, 1 1/3rd year late? How do they do that? Just freakin' draw something, dude!

I have this mental picture of a bunch of drawing boards in a large room with the artists in more of a frat boy/party atmosphere.

Loud music playing. Someone doing a line of coke on a table to the side. Keg stand here. Beer cooler there. Some shouting "WOO HOO!" lots of fist pumps, chest bumps, and pats on the back. Like how things had to have been at Wizard.

The phrase that comes to mind when I think of Image Comics, their artists, and the works they put out is: "Self Licking Ice Cream Cone". Meaning, they were all about themselves, were proud of it, and people actually paid them when they put something out.

This was the age of Art was above the overall comic.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:21 am

Interesting how, now that Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Erik Larsen aren't really part of the company anymore the core 'Imageverse' is down to what...Spawn?

They seem to be doing better now that they work primarily as a publisher for independent titles.

Top Cow seems to do the same thing. Marvel seems to do pretty well about getting comics out on time, though DC has had some problems the last decade or so.

Wizard sucks these days. I used to buy their magazines; now they're down to like 8 page black and white newsprint for twice as much. WTF, Wizard?

Unblessed · Post by **Unblessed** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:24 am

RJMooreII wrote:though DC has had some problems the last decade or so.

Yes. His name is Johns.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:27 am

Johns shares a writing studio, The Empath Magic Tree House, with writers Jeph Loeb and Allan Heinberg.

I think if I shared a room with those three I'd break out in hives.

Unblessed · Post by **Unblessed** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:29 am

RJMooreII wrote:
Johns shares a writing studio, The Empath Magic Tree House, with writers Jeph Loeb and Allan Heinberg.
I think if I shared a room with those three I'd break out in hives.

You must have a super robust immune system.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:30 am

Why did Wizard Magazine suddenly go to crap? It's basically just shilling for Marvel and bad movies like Transformers anymore. The free stuff on IGN Comics is better than anything I've seen in Wizard since around 2000.

Unblessed · Post by **Unblessed** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:37 am

RJMooreII wrote:Why did Wizard Magazine suddenly go to crap? It's basically just shilling for Marvel and bad movies like Transformers anymore. The free stuff on IGN Comics is better than anything I've seen in Wizard since around 2000.

You seem confused. Wizard's always been crap.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:40 am

For the first, oh, six years or so it was out it had a lot of information sidebars, casting calls and such that was interesting. They had industry information, but that's irrelevant now because of the internet. And they actually got real artists to do full color spreads. Now it's just them trying to be Maxim and failing.

I do not understand the Maxim-market to begin with. Just buy porn and Popular Mechanics. Maxim is like an inferior hybrid for tards.

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:47 am

Unblessed wrote:
RJMooreII wrote:Why did Wizard Magazine suddenly go to crap? It's basically just shilling for Marvel and bad movies like Transformers anymore. The free stuff on IGN Comics is better than anything I've seen in Wizard since around 2000.
You seem confused. Wizard's always been crap.

True, but the shilling for Marvel and bad movies has gotten worse than ever before.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:52 am

True, but the shilling for Marvel and bad movies has gotten worse than ever before.

I can't stand comic book artist/author/series shilling. I know if I like it or not, and no amount of 500 page paens to Bendis is going to make me buy his stuff. And why is Wolverine the only character they remember anymore?

It's seriously like a comic book/movie version of Maxim. Why do so many people in/around the comic industry attempt to pander to people who don't really spend money on their products to begin with? It's like the Republican Party and black people. Frat boys usually don't read comic books. They have the attention span of a mayfly.

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 5:32 pm

RJMooreII wrote:Interesting how, now that Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Erik Larsen aren't really part of the company anymore the core 'Imageverse' is down to what...Spawn?

I know Lee left, and Liefeld did for a while, but Liefeld is back as of teh most recent Youngblood series and Brigade, and Larsen never left as far as I know.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 6:04 pm

Tim wrote:
RJMooreII wrote:Interesting how, now that Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Erik Larsen aren't really part of the company anymore the core 'Imageverse' is down to what...Spawn?
I know Lee left, and Liefeld did for a while, but Liefeld is back as of teh most recent Youngblood series and Brigade, and Larsen never left as far as I know.

I guess Larsen never really left, but he kinda went everywhere with Savage Dragon; he was doing books for lots of diff. companies.

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:03 am

RJMooreII wrote:
Tim wrote:
RJMooreII wrote:Interesting how, now that Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Erik Larsen aren't really part of the company anymore the core 'Imageverse' is down to what...Spawn?
I know Lee left, and Liefeld did for a while, but Liefeld is back as of teh most recent Youngblood series and Brigade, and Larsen never left as far as I know.
I guess Larsen never really left, but he kinda went everywhere with Savage Dragon; he was doing books for lots of diff. companies.

Larsen served a stint as publisher for Image, and don't forget that Savage Dragon is up to around #164, or in other words has hit an average of over 9 issues per year over 18 years, all with the same writer-artist (Erik Larsen).

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:16 pm

leonmallett wrote:
RJMooreII wrote:
Tim wrote:
RJMooreII wrote:Interesting how, now that Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Erik Larsen aren't really part of the company anymore the core 'Imageverse' is down to what...Spawn?
I know Lee left, and Liefeld did for a while, but Liefeld is back as of teh most recent Youngblood series and Brigade, and Larsen never left as far as I know.
I guess Larsen never really left, but he kinda went everywhere with Savage Dragon; he was doing books for lots of diff. companies.
Larsen served a stint as publisher for Image, and don't forget that Savage Dragon is up to around #164, or in other words has hit an average of over 9 issues per year over 18 years, all with the same writer-artist (Erik Larsen).

Interesting point. That might be a slightly better ratio than Sim for Cerebus. Considering how busy Larsen has been, 164 issues at an average of 9 per year isn't bad at all.

RJMooreII · Post by **RJMooreII** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:43 pm

Erik has done very well getting Savage Dragon done in a fairly timely manner; it just seems to be the rest of them who go wonky from time to time. Rob Liefeld is ridiculous, it takes him like 3 months to do 3 pages.

Most artsy types in general seem to be horrible with deadlines and money management. I don't get it. You've got a job to do, just freakin' do it. It can't possibly take more than a few working hours to go from pencil to inked and colored. What are they doing the rest of the time?

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:02 pm

RJMooreII wrote:Erik has done very well getting Savage Dragon done in a fairly timely manner; it just seems to be the rest of them who go wonky from time to time. Rob Liefeld is ridiculous, it takes him like 3 months to do 3 pages.

Most artsy types in general seem to be horrible with deadlines and money management. I don't get it. You've got a job to do, just freakin' do it. It can't possibly take more than a few working hours to go from pencil to inked and colored. What are they doing the rest of the time?

The case of Leifeld, I don't WANT to know what they are doing. The problems at Image are why I have so much respect for titles like Y: The Last Man, 100 Bullets and Fables. Never off schedule and pretty much the same team, aside from the odd fill-in for Fables. Image could learn a lot from Vertigo. Now, if Ellis could just get the next few issues of Fell to market...

Cyberstrike · Post by **Cyberstrike** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:31 pm

Some of it was no editors, others were the fact that these guys had to learn the whole comic book business on the fly stuff like printing, disturbers, color process, paying other people (writers, inkers, colorists, letterers, lawyers, publicity, and etc), some like Liefeld was still trying to do work for Marvel when Youngblood #1 came out.

It's one thing when you work for Marvel or DC and all you have to is one or two jobs on a book, it's quite another when you have to do a whole book by yourself.

Jim Valentino and Erik Larsen made the best effort to get their books out on time when Image started.

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:32 pm

Cyberstrike wrote:Some of it was no editors, others were the fact that these guys had to learn the whole comic book business on the fly stuff like printing, disturbers, color process, paying other people (writers, inkers, colorists, letterers, lawyers, publicity, and etc), some like Liefeld at the time was still doing work for Marvel when Youngblood #1 came out.

It's one thing when you work for Marvel or DC and all you have to is one or two jobs on a book, it's quite another when you have to do a whole book by yourself.

Jim Valentino and Erik Larsen made the best effort to get their books out on time when Image started.

I've always looked at it as the biggest problem being Leifeld and the fact that he has never handled himself as though he were a real pro.

Cyberstrike · Post by **Cyberstrike** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:34 pm

xodacia81 wrote:
Cyberstrike wrote:Some of it was no editors, others were the fact that these guys had to learn the whole comic book business on the fly stuff like printing, disturbers, color process, paying other people (writers, inkers, colorists, letterers, lawyers, publicity, and etc), some like Liefeld at the time was still doing work for Marvel when Youngblood #1 came out.

It's one thing when you work for Marvel or DC and all you have to is one or two jobs on a book, it's quite another when you have to do a whole book by yourself.

Jim Valentino and Erik Larsen made the best effort to get their books out on time when Image started.
I've always looked at it as the biggest problem being Leifeld and the fact that he has never handled himself as though he were a real pro.

I'm not trying to make any excuses for him, just stating something that I remembered.

ValiantFans.com Board - Since 2004

Why Were So Many Early Image Comics Late?

Why Were So Many Early Image Comics Late?

Re: Why Were So Many Early Image Comics Late?