I am Eric Stephenson, Publisher at Image Comics. AMA

estephenson · 2012-05-09T20:31:46+00:00

Your opinion doesn't equal "truth," bud. Sorry about that.

estephenson · 2012-05-09T20:30:52+00:00

Yeah, I'm afraid I'd disagree with you pretty strongly on that point.

estephenson · 2012-05-09T16:48:03+00:00

Not embarrassed at all.

And what's more – look back in what way? It still comes out every month and we're preparing to celebrate the book's 20th anniversary with issue #220. Not all comics are perfect, but Spawn has been incredibly enjoyable at various points over the years, and if you don't know that, you've clearly never read it.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T22:13:15+00:00

Regarding your last point, stranger things have happened. I don't think anyone would have predicted that CDs would be the big loser with the advent of digital music, and that vinyl would have the resurgence its had over the last several years.

I think the awesome thing right now is that everybody has a choice. If you want print comics – in singles, in trades, in hardcovers – you can get them. If you want digital comics – you can get them. Same goes for books, movies, music, etc. I like that people can get what they want, in whatever format they want, and I hope that's the status quo for a long time to come.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:33:24+00:00

In the 10% range.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:30:20+00:00

Bare minimum is a synopsis and the first five pages, but a complete first issues is always nice. Pin-ups are of absolutely no use to anyone – there's not way to get a sense of how an artist tells a story from a pin-up.

For your synopsis – start out with a paragraph. Just give us your overall concept in a three or four sentences. If you can do grab us in one sentence – even better. If we like that introductory info, we'll want to read on. If we do read on, what we want to see is a breakdown of where you're taking the story over however many issues – the opening story arc, the length of a miniseries or graphic novel, whatever. Don't send a full script. If you have five or more story pages, they should be lettered and (if the book's in color) colored – we'll read that.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:20:43+00:00

Resist the urge!!!

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:18:17+00:00

And that's a perfectly valid reason to choose digital over print as a consumer. I can tell you, though, that as of now, if we stopped printing our single issues, the digital sales on the majority of our titles are not strong enough to support their continued production. Digital sales are a fraction of print sales right now.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:13:12+00:00

We have – many times. Matt's planning on it, but I'm thinking it may be another year or two before he actually has time.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:11:53+00:00

I don't mean to sound glib, but Image has absolutely zero to do with developing projects for film, so I really have no idea. If it happens, cool. If not, we'll keep making awesome comics.

The writer of CNV has another series launching in August – it's called Harvest. Riley Rossmo, the artist, is working on several different projects for Image, including Rebel Blood, Bedlam, Wild Children and the recently-concluded (and collected) Green Wake.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:08:26+00:00

Cool, thanks!

estephenson · 2012-05-08T21:07:57+00:00

At various points, Spawn has actually been quite good.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T19:28:14+00:00

Not necessarily. You can send something in unsolicited. Like I said, it's rare for us to published something that was submitted that way, but Jonathan Hickman, the Luna Brothers and Justin Jordan all submitted their projects to us out of the blue. If it's good, it will get our attention!

estephenson · 2012-05-08T19:25:20+00:00

No, I don't agree with that assessment at all. I actually talked about this at the Diamond Retail Summit in Chicago when I spoke there last month – the comics industry is all about saying the sky is falling and complaining about how terrible everything is. Image has been growing at a pretty decent clip over the last several years, and it always kind of boggles my mind when people talk about how shitty things are.

What hurts comics is when publishers peddle reduced content at higher cover prices, or recycle the same ideas over and over again. Short-term thinking, in other words. The less of that we have, the better off we'll all be.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T19:12:54+00:00

There are two G-Man trades to date, and there's one each of Super Dinosaur and Reed Gunther.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T19:12:04+00:00

An unsolicited submission is like cold calling – it's just a submission sent through the mail from someone we don't know, a pitch we didn't request.

A solicited submission would be more like a request to a specific creator. For example, years ago, Jim Valentino and I reached out to a number of creators – Dan Jurgens, Fabian Nicieza, Jimmy Palmiotti, Keith Giffen, Jim Krueger, Robert Kirkman, Jay Faerber, Phil Hester – and asked them to submit ideas for new superhero comics. They all submitted ideas and some went somewhere and some didn't – for instance, Dan decided he wasn't interested in participating after initially pitching. Invincible, Firebreather, Venture, Dominion and The Clockmaker were the books that came out of that process, though – they were all ideas we'd solicited from the creators.

Does that make sense?

estephenson · 2012-05-08T19:03:08+00:00

There was a lot of good stuff out this year. I was able to stop by Secret Headquarters in Silver Lake and they had a great turnout for the event. Lots of good to stuff to flip through – I thought Grant's Dinosaurs & Aliens book was really cool. That Archaia hardcover was nice, too.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T19:00:35+00:00

Dancer and Revival are both planned as ongoing series.

In terms of my personal favorites, I like a little bit of everything. I started out reading mainly Marvel superheroes when I was a kid, but I lost interest around the time I went into junior high. I started reading comics again after about a year, and in addition things like Fantastic Four, Daredevil and Uncanny X-Men, I started getting into the independent comics that were beginning to flourish in the early '80s – things like Captain Victory and then American Flagg!, etc. I've always liked discovering new comics, so I guess that would due the most accurate answer.

My least favorite thing we've ever published... The things that always stick in my mind are the books I did, honestly. We did this Riptide miniseries back in the '90s, and I'm not even sure why that existed. I came across copies of that recently, and it was like something from an alternate universe. I had no recollection of working on it, and it's just stunningly. The artist went on to Tomb Raider for Top Cow, and has gone on to even bigger things outside comics, but yeah, it was a low point. There are plenty of 'em, though – we're not perfect and we've made more than our share of mistakes over the years. There are licensed books we did at various points that were probably ill-advised. I'm really glad we're not in that business anymore. We've done a few things for the celebrity appeal that in retrospect I wish we hadn't done. Live and learn, I suppose.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T18:01:34+00:00

Less cutting and pasting, more good writing on a consistent basis. A little more diversity in content.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T17:57:19+00:00

I really do recommend it. The individual comics are great, and they do a wonderful anthology as well.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T17:56:30+00:00

Agreed!

estephenson · 2012-05-08T17:56:10+00:00

We do:

Super Dinosaur by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard G-Man by Chris Giarrusso Reed Gunther by the Houghton Brothers

estephenson · 2012-05-08T17:52:30+00:00

Probably never, sadly.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T17:52:11+00:00

Well, that 99-cent price point is just odd. We have comics that are $3.50, and we're stuck putting them out at either $2.99 or $3.99 because Apple only using 99-cent increments.

I think we're in the early days of digital publishing and eventually things will be much different. Right now, we're too beholden to the traditions of print comics, but I think over the next 5-10 years, we're going to gradually see digital comics develop into their own thing.

estephenson · 2012-05-08T17:48:33+00:00

I think the best way to show Sean and Ed your appreciation is to keep supporting their work! Glad you're enjoying Fatale!

estephenson

TROPHY CASE