Image: A Look Back

Originally published October 9, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1299

So was it worth it? Image, I mean. Understand, I’m not speaking of the company in the past tense, although some people already are.

I’m speaking of the original launch, filled with high-flown cries of independence. A group of friends, banding together and displaying their independence, thumbing their collective nose at the Big Two in general and Marvel in particular. Friends, going into business together. “Friends and business, now there’s a volatile mix,” I said, and was roundly castigated for it.

Since that time, the Image boys were watched like hawks, with folks looking for even the slightest hint of a betrayal of the lofty ideals. The early months/years in particular were rough, with Image claiming sales dominance over DC with orders for books that wound up shipping late or not at all. Hundreds of thousands of retailer dollars tied up, unavailable for other titles that did ship. The entire marketplace felt it. In terms of unsettling and undercutting the direct market, it wasn’t quite as comprehensively catastrophic as Marvel’s ill-advised attempt to self-distribute, but it was certainly up there.

And then, one by one, like the comic book version of Ten Little Indians, they began to drop, one by one. One Image founder was quietly removed—another removed much more loudly. And then, lo and behold, suddenly two creators were working for Marvel once more, which many perceived as akin to thumbing a ride with the Anti-Christ. Still, many outside creators kept faith with Image, bringing their projects under the Image umbrella—and they themselves came under criticism in some instances, as if there’s something wrong with seeking wider distribution for one’s work.

(Although one creator, when deciding to do so, defended the decision by choosing to publicly attack me, declaring what a vomitous individual I was—as if I’d criticized the move, which I hadn’t. Kind of hurt at the time, since I’d actually liked the creator in question and was unaware I inspired such revulsion. But I’ve dealt with much deeper cuts since, so it all kind of numbs out.)

So now there’s this latest “defection,” as Wildstorm prepares to sell itself lock, stock and barrel to DC. This is causing some consternation, some hand-wringing, some finger-pointing. Me, I read about it—and I just kind of shrug.

It’s business.

I mean, that’s all it ever was, right from the start, right? Why should anyone be surprised how any of this has developed?

I think part of the problem has stemmed from the truism that business and creativity don’t mix. Not in the public eye, not in the business community, and not in the artistic community. The public has a very solid idea of the way things are Supposed To Be. Creative individuals—i.e., writers and artists—are supposed to be starving in a garret somewhere.

They’re not supposed to be concerned about making a living, but instead about turning out creative greatness, about lifting man’s spirits, about commenting on the human condition and making us all better people, while at the same time paying little heed to their own material wants. An entire species of altruistic beings for whom money is not only secondary, but in fact polluting to the artistic spirit. A true artist doesn’t care about the rent, or sustenance, or buying the kids new shoes. A true artist lives for art and only art.

Then there’s the business side. These would be the network and studio executives, the patrons, the occasional crown prince—the people who make money available for the artist to express himself to the audience. The business side does not understand, does not comprehend what the creator does. Traditionally, most patrons have no artist talent themselves. Patrons can’t paint; that’s why they support artists, so that they can then bask in the reflected glory of making the paintings available to the world. There are the execs, who possess no creative ability but can only try to insert their sensibilities into the project, as welcome as a rectal probe and significantly less useful.

They understand money and only money: How to spend it, where to spend it, and how to juggle it so that it looks as if no money has been made. They are of substantially less moral character than creative types, presuming they have any moral character at all. Control-wise, they’re at the top; spiritually, they’re bottom feeders. They can make all the scummy business decisions they want, and in a way, that’s acceptable because considerations over filthy lucre is what they’re all about.

So along came Image.

Artists becoming businessmen, acting like businessmen.

How dare they.

We all know what artists are supposed to do and how they’re supposed to be. They’re not supposed to get involved with filthy business decisions. Whether we like their work or not—whether we consider them personally arrogant or sweeties, whether we think their endeavors are the height of entertainment or the nadir of recycled swill—we know what their place in life is supposed to be. How dare they join the bottom feeders. How dare they demand their piece of the pie. How dare they act like—*choke*—businessmen. Where the hell do they get off? That’s not their place in the scheme of things, that’s not what they’re supposed to be about, that’s not what we want to see.

They have tainted themselves, soiled their artistic souls. Anyone who associated with them had a bit of the same blemish (how else to explain the loopy fans who claimed that Dave Sim “sold out” because he wrote an issue of Spawn).

And even worse—once they had declared their independence, how dare they then consort with the companies they left?! It doesn’t matter that, in the entertainment industry, that kind of thing happens all the time. That’s why, whenever anyone leaves a high-profile project, be it writer, director, actor or whatever, the oft-quoted line is “artistic differences.” Those “differences” not only gloss over a litany of frustrations and arguments that led to an oft-times acrimonious departure, but it also hedges bets for the future.

The industry is simply too small; people whose throats you were at one day, you might find yourself thrown together with them on a brand new project the next day. You can’t afford to burn bridges behind you. It’s bad business. Jim Lee understood that from the beginning, even when folks ranging from fans to his fellow Image creators didn’t. Playing the firebrand and young turk is fine as long as you really don’t care about the old line about how you should be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because they’re the same people you encounter on the way down.

Which is not to say that Jim Lee or Wildstorm is on its way down. Far from it. It’s now an imprint of DC. So what? This is publishing, folks. Do you have any idea how many book lines are imprints of larger publishers? I remember when Berkley Books went on a buying spree, acquiring an assortment of other lines. For a time the beleaguered receptionist had to answer the phone as follows: “Berkley-Jove-Ace-Playboy-Second Chance at Love, how may I help you?” before they got it sorted out.

I’m still a little unclear on whether the sale was to DC or to Time-Warner. People seem to be using it interchangeably. If it’s the former, then Wildstorm becomes a subsidiary of DC. If it’s the latter, then they’re sister companies, with DC having as much influence over Wildstorm as DC has over Warner Books.

I suppose how you view it depends upon what you, personally, invested in Image’s motivations. If you saw Image as a group of independent young hotshots, determined to break away on their own, create a better world for freelancers than the one they left, and bound to show the Big Two that they had no use for them—that they could do it as well, if not better—then this is a crushing blow. It’s the equivalent of moving back home with your parents. It’s an admission of failure, copping to the notion that you simply couldn’t do it on your own. That it was all a waste of time, a paper tiger, an attempt at independence that ultimately failed.

Me, I just saw it as a bunch of guys trying to make a buck their way. So Jim Lee builds up a company, gets solid assets (i.e., creative talents) into the fold, and then sells it for a significant amount of money. It’s business. It’s not inherently good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous or evil. It just, well… is.

Theoretically, Jim gets a big payoff, none of the talent is hurt by it (although it does somewhat put Alan Moore in the crosshairs), the fans aren’t disenfranchised, and his fellow Image creators….

Well, there’s unhappiness there, I’d wager.

An Image creator said years ago, “We are all working for a common purpose and a common goal.” The goal wasn’t specified, though, and I guessed at the time, in this column, that it involved the creation of a line of titles that put the creators first. But I think now that I was wrong. I think I overcomplicated it. I think it was much, much simpler.

The goal was to be happy. That’s all.

They weren’t happy at Marvel. Whether it was because they weren’t making enough money, or they wanted to do their own characters, or they wanted control—it doesn’t matter. They just… weren’t happy. And they thought that creating Image would make them happy.

Which is really all anyone wants. It’s so fundamental to human nature that the right to pursue happiness is part of the first paragraph of the masterful document which laid out this country’s need for independence.

And self-publishing while writing books for Marvel and DC makes one creator happy. And being a multi-millionaire and toy maven makes another happy. And selling off his company makes another creator happy. To my mind, all are equal, all are deserving and entitled to that, and no one of them is intrinsically better, worse, or superior to the other. It’s just business. Show business.

Besides, those garrets can get pretty windy this time of year.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705).