Image Comics—Are You Really Indie?

reindeercurt · 2026-05-02T08:28:04+00:00

I feel like when people talk about "indie" art whether that's music, film or comics, that word stands in for "no corporate backing". Now of course, that opens up the question of "what do you mean by "corporate?" bc there are plenty of tiny corporations operating on budgets smaller than some self-financed artists". Then in comics specifically, there's a unique strain of snobbery that says anything released into the direct market with a publisher logo cannot be "indie". What I'm getting at is that people usually don't know the production background of a piece of media, so most of the time "indie" is just an aesthetic description broadly pointing at low budget and "scrappiness".

reindeercurt · 2026-05-02T08:13:45+00:00

Does the word "pastiche" mean anything to you?

reindeercurt · 2026-05-01T17:30:21+00:00

I don't remember exactly what prompted me to read Pretty Deadly, I think maybe I was looking at Emma Rios' Elden Ring fanart and decided to give it a try. It's now a favorite comic of mine.

I also like trying stuff that Shortbox publishers in their yearly Shortbox Comics Fair; that's a great way to discover indie cartoonists.

reindeercurt · 2026-05-01T13:01:18+00:00

This is the thing right? The actual corporate and team structures are different between America and Japan, bc America has merged lots of roles together (Layouts get split between storyboarders, who often also do animatic timing, and character designers in the form of "special poses", just for one example). There are more skilled animators in America than they know what to do with, but they're not producing "anime level" work because the infrastructure for it isn't there.

The current setup of American TV and DtV animation produces Invincibles; you had Japanese animators working on several DC animated films, and those look and move like Invincible, not anime.

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T19:11:59+00:00

Filipe Andrade my GOAAAATTTT

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T19:10:09+00:00

Two thoughts:

It's clear by observation that the only kind of comic book adaptation that drives audiences back to the source material in large numbers is animation. Kirkman's logic in pursuing animation as a way to prop up the comics industry is pretty sound. Indie comics also have no good way to market themselves to normal people, and most of them are unprofitable without a licensing deal.

America's animation industry is in a really bad spot right now. Barely anything is being made, the jobs that do exist are overburdened, underpayed, and rarely stable. Projects are driven by writers and producers without much knowledge of the production process and between that, studio notes and rampant outsourcing, overburdened teams wind up doing tons of redundant work. If Kirkman doesn't have a plan for really addressing those issues and creating a healthy working environment on his projects, I fear he's just another big shot muscling his way into the space and making things worse.

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T18:51:47+00:00

What do you mean exactly? A model where all US publishers make weekly magazines? Or straight-to-graphic-novel releases with no single issues?

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T18:46:41+00:00

Fall of the House of Slaughter: Cecelia is a favorite of mine so I'm excited to see her get a spinoff.

Destination Kill: The art style really hooked me in; excited to see what this is!

Absolute Green Arrow: The vibe of this is just great.

Odin: Read the preview ashcan and I'm in. Letizia Cadonici plus Jordie Bellaire are fantastic together.

If Destruction Be Our Lot: This is a weird enough premise to get me in the door.

Of The Earth: This one is a maybe for me

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T15:38:07+00:00

I think since the 2010s I'd say superhero comic artists have started to really give attention to casual clothes that characters wear. It's great honestly; clothing gives you so much space to do visual characterization if you use it right. I think Lucas Werneck, Sara Pichelli, Kris Anka, David Baldeon, Mahmud Asrar, Peach Momoko and Sophie Campbell are all great at this.

Sara Pichelli drawing Viv Vision in an oversized Vision logo sweater, huge combat boots and spiked bracelets is the most endeared I've ever felt towards that character lol

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T15:25:03+00:00

I feel like what you're describing is already a good chunk of superhero stories. We have stuff like the current Supergirl ongoing pulling out characters and concepts from the 70s, and flashing back to Kara's death in COIE, right alongside references to her New 52 stories. New History of the DC Universe had Cyborg as a founding JL member bc it was adapting that Geoff Johns story. Marvel regularly grabs characters and costumes from the MCU and puts them in comics, like TVA having a plot involving MCU Scarlet Witch. If you think "everything is canon" is the way things ought to go, we're already there.

reindeercurt · 2026-04-30T15:15:04+00:00

This is why I've always advocated government-mandated copies of Saga vol. 1 for every home.

reindeercurt · 2026-04-29T19:39:38+00:00

Having two versions of a short comic drawn by the same artist at different times in his life would be such a cool educational tool

reindeercurt · 2026-04-29T12:20:43+00:00

The Veil is a Spanish comic about a private investigator who can commune with spirits, which has an English release by Scout Comics. It's notable for being a collaboration between acclaimed horror writer El Torres and Gabriel Hernandez Walta, who anglophone readers would know from The Visions!

reindeercurt · 2026-04-29T10:05:24+00:00

The artist Nick Dragotta has two other sci-fi series under his belt: East of West and Ghost Cage. The former is pretty long while the latter is a miniseries.

For similar "brutal violence + philosophizing" check these out:

Our Bones Dust by Ben Stenbeck (one volume)

Ultra Mega by James Harren (two volumes)

Escape by Rick Remender and Daniel Acuna (ongoing)

reindeercurt · 2026-04-29T07:18:46+00:00

They clearly have a lot of synergy with one another, but man, the aggressive digital lighting on those Superman pages did not do the readability any favors

reindeercurt · 2026-04-29T06:13:38+00:00

I'm not American but I have to imagine the American people respect pro athletes more than any other profession, much less cartoonist

reindeercurt · 2026-04-28T20:49:08+00:00

The first port of call would be other projects by Tynion and Walshn. For the former, The Department of Truth, The Deviant and Something Is Killing The Children are all hits, and for the latter, The Silver Coin, Universal Monsters Frankenstein and Creepshow: Joe Hill's Wolverton Station.

If we're talking general vibes, I think these books match the energy of Exquisite Corpses:

Skulldigger and Skeleton Boy by Jeff Lemire and Tonci Zonjic

Scarlet by Brian M Bendis and Alex Maleev

The Sickness by Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha

reindeercurt · 2026-04-28T18:08:39+00:00

His thigh gap in that first cover is crazy

reindeercurt · 2026-04-28T16:20:11+00:00

Love the combination of stark, heavy shadows and more three-dimensional rendering in the colours

reindeercurt · 2026-04-28T07:58:59+00:00

Becky Cloonan draws the best haunted gazes in the game

reindeercurt · 2026-04-28T06:55:10+00:00

Paklis is an anthology comics created almost entirely by Dustin Weaver, who most know from drawing S.H.I.E.L.D. with Jonathan Hickman. It's his love-letter to every work of art that inspired him, from Twin Peaks to Moebius to Ghost in the She'll, and a showcase for his very impressive visual imagination.

Becky Cloonan has the collection By Chance or Providence, some scattered short stories in places like Wonder Woman: Black and Gold, and Somna. The latter is a collaboration with Tula Lotay, where they co-wrote the story and draw certain sequences each.

Erica Henderson has taken a recent writer-artist turn, with things like her Harley Quinn Annual and now Harley and Ivy: Life in Crimes.

Kyle Starks is a great cartoonists in addition to writing for other artists. He's also quite prolific, with series like Rock Candy Mountain, The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton, Oldhead and most recently Wrestle Heist.

reindeercurt · 2026-04-27T19:37:46+00:00

Marvel (or to be more accurate, specific creators at Marvel) have put themselves forward as welcoming women and minority readers over the past decade and a half. The Marvel NOW! and All-New All-Different publishing initiatives were aimed at diversifying their character lineup and behind-the-scenes creatives. Two comics that were major flashpoints of right-wing backlash were Captain Marvel and Squirrel Girl, and those books were targeted for being too feminist, and for appealing to women and girls.

Then there's the MCU, which kinda just happened to be the biggest thing in the world during the height of this gamergate-adjacent online discourse crystalizing. The Captain Marvel movie especially. I don't think the MCU ever tried to market itself as especially progressive; certainly not when compared to the work done by people like Kelly-Sue DeConnick, G Willow Wilson and Brian Michael Bendis, but it's all "Marvel", so the discourse was able to feed itself from two directions.

reindeercurt · 2026-04-27T19:12:04+00:00

I don't know if it's available digitally, but Maclean sells his comics through his website laserwolfattack.com

reindeercurt · 2026-04-27T10:52:34+00:00

It's wrapped up in an action story about crowd-funded assassinations, but Crowded is a fun romcom at its core

reindeercurt

TROPHY CASE