page_title: Image Comics
section_title: Diversification
hierarchical_section_title: Image Comics / History / Diversification
caption_attribution_description: English: The “Image Comics Show” panel at the New York Comic Convention in Manhattan, October 9, 2010. Pictured left to right are comic book creators Tomm Coker, Tim Seeley, Ben McCool, James Zhang, Nick Spencer and Ron Marz. Photo by Luigi Novi. This photo may be used, modified and published for any purpose, only if a easily visible credit to the photographer is placed near the photo in each instance in which it is used. Please maintain the original file name in all uses. (See licensing information below.) Publication of this photo without this proper attribution constitute copyright infringement. For more information on my photos, you can contact me here.
context_page_description: Image Comics is an American comic book publisher and is the third largest comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry in both unit and market share. It was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-owned properties, in which comics creators could publish material of their own creation without giving up the copyrights to those properties. Normally this was a case in the work for hire-dominated American comics industry, in which the legal author is a publisher, such as Marvel Comics or DC Comics, and the creator is an employee of that publisher. Its output was originally dominated by superhero and fantasy series from the studios of the founding Image partners, but now includes comics in many genres by numerous independent creators. Its best-known publications include The Walking Dead, Invincible, Spawn, Saga, and Kick-Ass.
context_section_description: The founders of Image were best known for their dynamic and extravagant art, and for character-driven, thinly-plotted stories in the superhero genre. Although the company also published dissimilar works, many readers came to perceive this as the "Image style" of comics. Valentino had become less active as a creator after the company's first few years, and responded to this development in 1997 by using his position as a partner to seek out and publish a number of titles by other creators in distinctly different genres and styles, in a deliberate attempt to diversify Image's output and how it was perceived. Although most of these series—ironically dubbed the "non-line" because of their lack of commonality—did not sell well and were soon cancelled, they introduced an increasingly important business model for the company: offering other creators the same total-ownership terms the partners enjoyed, but taking a fixed fee upon publication for the company's administrative costs. This practice was later formalized as a function of "Image Central", a business unit independent of any of the studios. This focus on non-studio comics increased when Valentino took on the role of Image's publisher, assuming many of the responsibilities held by Marder until he left the company in 1999.
  The company's position in the North American direct market diminished in the 2000s, challenged by Dark Horse Comics and IDW Publishing for the position of "third largest publisher" after Marvel and DC. In February 2004, Larsen replaced Valentino as publisher, largely continuing existing business practices. Larsen stepped down as publisher in July 2008 and executive director Eric Stephenson was promoted to the position. Valentino returned to operating his own studio with his Shadowline imprint.
  Shortly after Stephenson's appointment, Image added Robert Kirkman as the company's first new partner since its founding. Kirkman's black-and-white series The Walking Dead was at that time already a long-running and popular series (it would run for 193 issues and serve as the basis for two television series), and his series Invincible was one of the longest-running series featuring a superhero created in the early 2000s (it would run for 144 issues). Kirkman created an imprint under his direction, known as Skybound.
  Starting in 2009, Image began to greatly expand both the types of comics it publishes and the types of creators drawn to the publisher, beginning a period of critical acclaim. Among its award-winning series, are Chew, Morning Glories, Fatale, The Manhattan Projects, and Saga. Saga creator Brian K. Vaughan explained why he chose Image to publish that series:
  I love all the other companies I've worked with, but I think Image might be the only publisher left that can still offer a contract I would consider "fully creator-owned." Saga is a really important story to me, so I wanted a guarantee of no content restrictions or other creative interference, and I needed to maintain 100% control and ownership of all non-publishing rights with the artist, including the right to never have our comic turned into a movie or television show or whatever.
  Image's sales grew significantly during this period to a market share of around 10% in 2015, and an influx of Marvel- and DC-associated creators began publishing creator-owned work with them. As a result, Image was voted Diamond Comic Distributors' Publisher of the Year Over 4% three years in a row between 2013 and 2015. By this time, a clear majority of titles Image published in a given month were non-studio productions. Meanwhile, McFarlane's Spawn and related titles, his McFarlane Toys line, Silvestri's Top Cow imprint, and Kirkman's various series remained a substantial segment of Image's total sales. As of April 2020, McFarlane's Spawn and Larsen's Savage Dragon continue as the longest-running creator-owned titles by Image partners, with over 305 and 245 issues, respectively.
  The company's headquarters moved from Berkeley, California to Portland, Oregon in 2017.
caption: A panel of non-founding Image creators at the 2010 New York Comic Con (l–r): Tomm Coker, Tim Seeley, Ben McCool, James Zhang, Nick Spencer and Ron Marz
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