Can somebody explain how Image Comics works?

Can somebody explain how Image Comics works?
Like, how is it possible that Image comics that sell like crap are allowed to continue as long as the creator wants?
That shit doesn't really makes sense from a business perspective.

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Because they have enough series that do sell to counterbalance the ones that don’t, and image does cancel books , just not that often.

Are you kidding?

The bookstore market, also they get like 85% of the total sales of the comic. Image takes a flat fee from every comic they publish with the exception of the few work for hire gigs like Prophet or Spawn

>as long as the creator wants?
No, as long as the creator can afford to help pay to keep the series going. Savage Dragon right now is a great example of that scenario.

FOREVER AND EVER.

You pay image to publish your comic and they take a fee and take care of the actual distributing.

Because not every publisher is as inept as Marvel.

how do people not understand how vanity publishers work

Why does he keep it going? At this point, wouldn't making a new IP get him more Profit? Does he keep doing just because he can get away with drrawing porn?

So, Image is a vanity publisher?

> Image was set up so that creators could do what they want with their creations, and reap the benefits financially. When a book is published by Image, creators are not paid up front. It can sometimes be two or three months before one sees money from a book. It sounds rough, and it most definitely can be. But if it’s done right, the payoff can be far more rewarding than producing a book in the conventional manner.

When the creator does finally get paid, they get paid on what their book makes after the cost of printing and Image’s modest office fee, which covers solicitations, traffic, production, and some promotion of the book. We make no more money off of our highest selling book than we do our lowest.

I think he promised back when he started he would keep it running as long as he was alive. Nobody cares about him keeping his promise , but you do admire his devotion.

Not everything is about money, user.

>as long as the creator wants?
That's not how it works at all, it only keeps going as long as the creator can afford it. Just ask Anthony "why won't anyone buy my shit" Johnston.

Honestly Marvel still feel like they'd rather not have to deal with bookstores. They can't find their Watchmen/DKR/Batman Year one etc, a single volume comic that they can keep in print forever that always sells.

I was at a Barns and Noble earlier today and no Civil War, no Infinity Gauntlet, no Planet Hulk, just all their big serial titles and the odd reprint.

A glorified one, and one that at least gives a bit more service than most other ones, but yes.

That sounds like an awful business model.

>tfw to stupid to understand any of this honestly

don't worry that just means you'll fit right in here

vanity publishing companies are actually pretty viable

though specializing only in comics would seem like it'd obviously limit your business, but image is still going so it seems to be working for them regardless

It's a company set up by artists so they could 100% own what they make Angela lawsuit aside . It's high risk high reward.

The company is just their to distribute your work, not profit of it. Which in turns draws loads of people away form work of hire publishers. I mean loo how many of Marvel's former big names are all at Image now, that company had a major brain drain. Even the ones that staid only do one title, like Aaron

That explains shit like this.

maybe but its one that differentiates them from the big two and allows them to exist in their niche

There's plenty of examples, sure. You really think Image is publishing web comics like Octopus Pie because of their "quality?"

Only if you care about making money and nothing else.

Does Marvels not do that for them, fill that criteria? I love Marvels. I thought it would sell great, especially as a crash course to the "Early Years" for newcomers.

Yet they are thriving nowadays.

It should but the problem is Marvel has trouble keeping stuff in print. DC realized decades ago that they needed to keep Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in print and it helped those books a lot.

>those poses
That pic's oddly familiar, but I can't tell why.

Amazon has it listed as out of stock at the moment and it's not on InStockTrades, so looks like they let it go out of print

Image isn't "the elite" of creator owned comics, so I have no idea why you're so surprised they'd publish something like that.
You come at them with a pitch, a creative team, and a resume if you're a literally who, and they decide if your pitch is viable or not. Obviously they wanted a piece of that tumblr cake without going all in like Marvel.

Because it looks like any of those generic "monster girl" manga series, you mean?

Breakfast Club.

>those faggots and niggers should keep their crap out of our comics and just make their own
>WFT?! WHY ARE THESE FAGGOTS AND NIGGERS MAKING THEIR OWN COMICS?!

FUCKING MORONS

I swear to God at this point I think they're TRYING to sabotage the company.

>Obviously they wanted a piece of that tumblr cake

It's smart to try and reach as many audiences as possible. That comic looks like something I would hate, but it's better than a few years ago when Image turned into almost nothing but scifi comics with people trying to chase those Saga $$$.

I was actually thinking of TTCM2 poster, but then I realized that one's an homage too.

It actually isn't if you think about it.

The company was formed by a bunch of guys who were hot shit at Marvel during the early 90's, and knew to take advantage of their popularity. So each of them generally became successes making enough money during the 90's to do what they want. The whole thing of them not making profit off of each others' characters worked in their favor because sometimes there were situations where a founder left (Liefeld, Lee).

If they made a company where Image as a company owned all their stuff they might've ended up in a similar scenario like Valiant or Malibu.

They don't need to meet Marvel's or DC's sales tresholds because they don't have a staff the size of Marvel or DC.

Marvel cares far more about being a multimedia empire than they do about their low-sales comic book roots. Why are you surprised?

>. Even the ones that staid only do one title, like Aaron
That's not for long.

The people who run the company also make money off their own comics so they profit off the model from both the creative side and the company side.

>I think they're TRYING to sabotage the company

Problem is they now have the Mouse to keep them stable, where as back in the day when the company started heading down the drain you'd have either a) a bunch of bold new directions on characters or b) whole editorial management gets restructured and company changes directions. Stability is the enemy of Marvel

So you pay a fee to Image and in return they slap their brand on your comic, get it in Previews, which gets it to the Direct Market, and they handle production/distribution/marketing.

I wonder if their marketing also expands to conventions. What if I need my work in a trade paperback so I can sign them/sell them to people who want to see me? Does the creator have to buy their own comic from Image to sell at cons?

If I remember right, you don't pay them like a traditional vanity publisher, they only take a percentage off the money made through sales.

I'm probably just old and hate seeing the shit I love die off and be replaced with "product". So, not so much surprise as I'm arguing with different goals in mind.

I reckon you pay for them since the printing cost and such gets subtracted from you sales money.

Hey, I actually agree with everything you just said, I'm just trying to explain to brainlet-user what their reasoning was for publishing that dreck.

with Image you pay them to print your book and you don't make any money until the trade comes out

most of the line is pitches for TV shows and if they don't get picked up before the first arc/trade ends the creators will scrap the project and move on to something else.

it should really tell an artist something if their shit doesn't even meet boom's standards, though

tumblr does not have alot of Money and does NOT spend what Little they have compared towards a normal person who even if they have Little would rather spend it on non tumblr stuff.


tumblr are emotions and emotions of the MOMENT. they might "support" a comic by repling or "signal boosting" it, but noway are they gonna CONTINUE to buy it MONTH AFTER MONTH.

thats why SJW shit like the anti White america comic failed. pol won that won, the pro White movement toppled one of the big two which had huge economic backing and promotion and "support" in tumblr and what the like.

and guess what, not only the tumblr Whites didnt buy it, the other non White mexicans and blacks didnt buy it either.


if it fails and you dont have alot of Money to support your own book or mess with potential customers on socialmedia, then you are dumb and deserve to fail.

i wish my life was simple enough to be this emotionally invested in what comic books other people do or don't buy

must be nice

Kinda sorta relevant:

> just for kicks, look up a comic distribution website for self publishing
> 55lbs paper, black and white, glossy cover, 140pages
> $1,500 for 250 minimum ($6.00 each)

Damn! But I guess if you're selling them for 10-15 bucks you can make that up fairly quickly. But getting stuck with all that stock if your book sucks...

>REEEEE STOP MAKING COMICS THAT DON'T PANDER TO ME BY A COMPANY THAT I DON'T BUY FROM ANYWAY
Stay mad, capefag.

absolutely, especially when it affects ones Daily Life to see this shit. Its like adding mlp beastiality to the comics section that you are reminded of everyday you pass by said section

>Daily Life

Why did you treat those words like they were a proper noun?

trades

a comic book with 140 pages is 6 dollars?

to get it vanity published? sure, sounds about right

Six dollars each to create if you're buying in bulk from Print Ninja. I just took a manga trade paperback from Dark Horse from my shelf as an example to put in.

shipping included?
anyway you'll have to add at least shipping to readers
a small vanity press publisher may take care of distribution though

irc the minimum purchase order for diamond was 6,250 cover price

a no-name creator cannot charge more than $10 per OGN
plus you may sell like 50 copies if you're lucky

Comixology Submit + POD is still your best option, user.

Didn't see shipping included so I assume no.

Looking through the specs now. Had no idea comixology did POD.

i don't know that they do, but you can do it yourself
it's risk-free unlike printing your whole run of 250 or whatever, which would end up in your basement

>wouldn't making a new IP get him more Profit

Most startup businesses fail. Most new IPs vanish without trace. And some people have enough money that they don't feel like they need to care about trivial things like profit.

Yes. It's vanity publishing.

The vast majority of the things they put out are representative of people who have always known they had a comic book in them and were willing to take out a loan to prove it.

Vanity publishing is a great model for the publisher, but for the majority of creators it's terrible. They're going to pay out more in fees - yes, even at Image, if they don't get orders - than they'll ever see back from the printing. A lot of VPs just dump a pallet of your finely booked crap on your doorstep and bill you for it.

Image had an easier ride when they started up because they had so many established names working through them, but those guys were always guaranteed sellers. New writers don't have any back-office help coming up - they just throw their shit out and see if it sticks.

There were plenty of similar outfits on the creator-owned boom of the late 80s/early 90s that aren't around today, too - because it's not a good model of publishing overall. Booksellers hate it - if you order from a vanity publisher, chances are the stock will never sell.

The thing that a lot of right-on people miss about the bigger publishers "gatekeeping" is that the editing they do of works, and the choosing of works they think they can sell, is not down to fucking nepotism (at least any more than it is at Image). It's down to knowing your brand and what your audience will buy, and getting a product into that kind of shape to entice them. Frankly, even the Big 2 can't guarantee a new title will sell at all well - that should give you some kind of clue as to how hard a business publishing is.

You're going to die poor. Get a job teaching english to highschool kids and bitch about how nobody out there "gets it" while you plug away endlessly at successive drafts of your Great American Novel/Your Generation's Fight Club/A Superman We Can All Enjoy. Hook up with a parent you meet; hook up with lots of parents, even the students if you're super dumb. Never quite get why people don't want to buy your stuff, but kind of understand that if publishers wouldn't, the public probably weren't going to either and you made a mistake. Rue that mistake. Grow as a person. Hook up with someone twenty years your junior in what you think is a wonderful, loving relationship that vindicates your decision to play the field for so long and your belief that age and maturity aren't linked, then come home one day to find them crying because they finally understood all they wanted was a parent, not a creepy, ageing lover. See them a few months later, looking happy until they see you, and try that weak smile that always got them to smile back. Realize it's totally the kind of thing a parent would do, and smile sadly at nobody in particular when you realize they're already with someone and it seems more serious than they ever were with you. Grow old, and sad, and bitter, and die poor.

You won't have lived a life free of regret, you won't have made a whole lot of money, but at least you'll have tried. Finally you have the experience and wisdom to write that one killer story, the knowledge of how to sell it, of how to put your unique spin on what is an almost universal tale of the human condition.

Die of a heart attack on the toilet, aged 56, wishing to god you'd at least had someone in your life who would have tried to piece together your story from the vague, scrappy notes you left behind. Get cremated in a cardboard casket. Be scattered on municipal parkland in the absence of any relatives or descendants. Be forgotten, just like the unsold stacks of your vanity novel.

could you post an example how pig those 140 pages would be? manga volumes are quite small.

how big would said pages be? if its like an ordonary comic book its Worth it, since its cheaper than a small manga volume if thats the case.

anyone using the Word "grow" is no different than telling people to "grow up" in the non literal sense its retarded and you have to be an idiot to use it. what set of personality trait that one should have is better than just "grow" infact once you have it you cant "grow" anymore, instead what you are doing then is on a succesful path that has the highest probability of outcome of succeding, you cant do anymore when you are at %, not statistically speaking, and you only need to be on a high enough probability of succeding, the rest is extremenitpicking levels of trying to make it better, which is not needed.


Hell fight club was just about a retard going to random fights.

you are going to die poor, the other one has tried and stopped like all who would stop when it sees its not working, IF it didnt work that is. then re-Think and compare why X comic succeded and this one didnt. especially when self publishing, let alone in a age of the internet where marketing is easier.

He made most of his money from the 90's when he worked on Spider-Man and Savage Dragon (remember that Image releases during 1992 were fucking huge). Any IP he creates he creates for his Savage Dragon universe. His main priority was getting to own his own stuff and doing whatever he wants with his own characters, unlike that time when he did a Sinister Six story where he intended to use the New Fantastic Four (Spider-Man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Hulk) but then was told that he couldn't use Wolverine because he was showing up in too many other titles. Yes, there was a time when Marvel thought they needed to limit Wolverine appearances.

Erik Larsen even said on twitter that if he were only doing it for the money he would've quit Dragon 10 years ago.

Do me a favour mate. Get the FUCK out of my head.

gatekeeping is tighter at image than marvel

haha we have a writer here

good job but history is full of cases that don't fit your stereotype

>Your Generation's Fight Club/A Superman We Can All Enjoy

A comic that is a Fight Club but also a Superman comic is pretty good idea, user.

I steal!

It's essentially a vanity publisher for creators who made their name at the Big Two and want to try and get stuff optioned for movies or TV/streaming deals.

This is totally the state of Sup Forums

This must be sarcasm

Nigger did you REALLY type that all out?

wasn't that how they promoted image back in the day? some sort of creator's haven?

>tumblr does not have alot of Money
IIRC there was a graph of average household income among social media websites and Tumblr uses were, on average, pretty well off.

Now that I think about it, what does Sup Forums think about Moonstruck?

Welfare does not Count user, especially their parents income.


hell, even those who are snobby ass kids dont spend it on comics, meaning even WITH time and Money they dont care enough for that. they are creatures of EMOTIONS=of the moment.

Are you saying comics can't be impulse buys, or is this just more desperate rationalization that nobody but you really pays for comics and thus only you should get stories?

wow you sound insufferable

tumblrino go back to tumblr, you couldnt support. even other sjw acknowledge that its gettting canceled.

bleedingcool.com/2017/12/19/america-gwenpool-cancel-2018-solicits/

I guess hating 220 out of 300 million people in your country is not going to help with comic sales, let alone the fact that hispanics are very religious and anti gay. and they didnt vote hillary because its in their Culture to know women cant do the same thing men can, so they got something good going on there.

That's a lot of words for having no argument.

Blatantly untrue, Image publishes stuff from literally whos and Marvel only hires people who have already been doing stuff for Dark Horse, Boom, Image etc. for years.

dont be ridiculous

On purely economical terms, Image's lifeline seems to be Walking Dead and being creative venting spot for Marvel and DC's talent.

On logistical terms, Post-90s image works primarily as a publication and advertising company with the occasional personal deal when a good opportunity presents itself. They are free to reject people if they feel they can't deliver the necessary pr or think the idea is busted from the start. Star talents gets everything free because they are guaranteed money.

All in all, it's a good system if you really want to have your stuff published. What I don't know is how trades work.

Savage Dragon is his pet project mate. He just likes making those comics.

>but for the majority of creators it's terrible.
It's terrible if they have no idea how the market works. You can't put ultra niche stuff and expect loads of cash. Don't pity people who throw themselves blind into something.

This is really noticeable when the early 10s adaptation boom happened. suddenly everyone wanted to publish their movie script on image and be the next Walking Dead.

>and the choosing of works they think they can sell. It's down to knowing your brand and what your audience will buy
Avatar comics is a good example. The owner thinks that anything that isn't the house style would get rejected by fans, and he's right. Though i think he can have serious stories with excessive gore, avatar has turned into a brand after all.

oh you mean writers? yeah possibly... i was thinking artists.

Not anymore I think. Marvel is going through a massive talent drought right now.

It's a quantity over quality model. Works well when you handle over 30 titles a month.

>not profit of it
I wouldn't go that far. Image has changed from the early days.

>What I don't know is how trades work.
I've only glanced at the posts myself, but Jim Zub has talked about the economics of working with Image and has been posting pretty detailed charts (anything more specific might get him in trouble in my opinion). I don't know if he has ever mentioned the exact cut of sales that Image gets. This is a post about his ongoing series Wayward:
jimzub.com/creator-owned-economics-moving-market/
and this is one about his older series Skullkickers:
jimzub.com/creator-owned-economics-the-long-long-game/

>Image isn't "the elite" of creator owned comics
Who is?

Fanta, D&Q

They are good at what they do but they haven't really been a relevant as a viable creator-owned option since the 80s. Unless you make the very specific kind of comic they like they won't give you the time of day. The vast majority of creators would rather go elsewhere and do.

>Jim Zub has talked about the economics of working with Image and has been posting pretty detailed charts
Here's another such by Kieron Gillen:
kierongillen.tumblr.com/post/121756273497/market-maven-is-the-wicked-the-divine-in

From the post:

I’ll give you some really basic rule of thumbs for indie comic commentary:

Anything selling stably over 10k in single issues is a cause for celebration and joy. The creators are almost certainly extremely happy.

If you’re selling over (ooh) 12k, you’re probably making more than either of the big two would pay you, unless you’re one of the very biggest names.

If you’re selling anything near 20k, you probably have to buy drinks for your friends.

And in a real way, if Phonogram settled around 6k back in 2006, I suspect Jamie and I would have settled into doing it for another 40 or 50 issues.

There’s all manner of exceptions to the above, but if you look at the charts and bear that in mind, you’ll be closer to how the industry looks at those numbers.

None of the above includes digital sales.

None of the above include trades. You throw trades in, and you change everything entirely. A cursory look at hit indie comic numbers reveals that their trades sell much more than Marvel/DC main universe trades, with a few exceptions (There’s a reason why Matt and David’s Hawkeye was such a big thing, and it wasn’t its monthly sales).

How have you managed to have the worst writing in a thread that includes image comics?

Equally, it would be a mistake to confuse the audience of a book with its monthly sales. As said above, you would have to include a trades for that, and the trades are not a small thing.

On a personal level, we’ve sold over 50,000 copies of the first WicDiv Trade. Last I looked at Amazon’s stats we were selling about 1000 a month via book shops alone (i.e. not including comic shops, which is usually more.) The orders for 12 were 22k. The initial orders of the second trade are up 33% on the first trade. Realistically, we were hoping to stabilise at around 13k, and we’d have been enormously happy with that, even if we weren’t selling trades. Which we are. WicDiv is a ludicrous success, by far the biggest thing in our entire career. And thanks to everyone’s support in achieving that.

The idea that there’s articles being written which try and frame discussion of indie comics like this - and it’s an approach which is picked up by comment threads - is entirely counter to the reality of the comics industry.

That's actually less than I'd expected. Wish there was enough information to estimate the cost of six issues and a trade from Image or some other relevant publishers.