From the moment of walking up to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts I knew this was gong to be a different experience. The atmosphere was relaxed but eager. People were standing around in small groups chatting with no defined line, unlike going to a Con where everybody is in a line and thus you are limited in who you are talking with to the people immediately ahead or behind you in that line. Then to make things better as I was looking around I spotted familiar faces from Southern California. Always nice to see familiar faces at an event, especially when attending alone.
Eventually the doors opened and the fun began They nicely had two separate tables for badge pickup, press/media/retailer and regular/premium badges. Sadly the space resulted in the sales table being set up in the same corridor that everybody had to traverse for the hall the panels were going to be in causing a bit of a bottleneck. Fortunately everybody took this in stride and was good natured and patient both while shopping or in traversing this corridor. As I was more interested in what we would be hearing I waited until later in the day to do my shopping and thus avoided most of the crowd as they were either in the hall for the panel or upstairs at an autograph session. (Plus that way I didn’t have to carry my purchases all day.)
Ah but you want to know what they had to tell us, what was the news of the day.
Roughly 500 of us filed into the hall eager to hear what Eric Stephenson, Image Comics Publisher, would kick off the day with during his keynote address.
After making it clear to the audience that:
I’m not the founder.
I’m not the owner.
I’m just the publisher.
Stephenson continued on with a reminder of who founded Image in 1992 as well as some of the principals that make Image different from other entertainment companies.
A place where they could own and control what they created. It was a grand idea and to make it even better they invited other writers and artists to join them. In the 21 years since then Image has grown into one of the most unique companies in all of entertainment. A place where creative vision can blossom and thrive. Creative people can control their own destiny.
It is easy to pay lip service to high ideals like creative ownership but the Image founders actually put their money where their mouth’s were when they formed this company. They did something no one had done up to that pointy, they staked their careers on it. They staked their careers on the belief that what they were doing was inherently right and that creators absolutely deserved control of their work.
Continuing on to review the success and performance of Image Comics in 2012 and the first six months of 2013 Stephenson emphasized the growth and market share gains achieved. [Images of slides of performance are included in the gallery so I won’t bore you with numbers here]
Stephenson went on from discussing the numbers to acknowledging the creators and titles that helped drive these numbers in 2012. This not only reinforced the attitude that the creators matter at Image but also set the tone for the day.
Week after week and month after month, the creators we work with, they reward our ongoing faith in new creativity with one of these new series after another. They prove along the way that there is more to entertainment that simply sucking every last drop of life of ideas born in the twentieth century. Create something new it is not without risks. Especially when the conventional wisdom prevailing among todays entertainment corporations is that audiences don’t want anything new. Or that the only good idea, is an idea that has been tried and tried again. Or to put it more bluntly, albeit more honestly, beaten into the ground and resurrected half a dozen times or more. That’s not creativity, that’s necrophilia.
Stephenson pointed out that not only is Image making strides when it comes to numbers, but more importantly it is beating the competition when it comes to talent, as talent is coming to Image in droves. Announcing titles and talent that has come to Image along with announcing new titles that are coming out in the coming weeks and months. Among those announced (and there were many more than this):
- Matt Fraction‘s Sex Criminals
- J. Michael Straczynski’s Sidekick
- Ed Brisson and Johnnie Christmas‘ Sheltered
- Kelly Sue Deconnick‘s Pretty Deadly
- Amy Reeder & Brandon Montclare‘s Rocket Girl
- Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting‘s Velvet
This moved onto reminding the audience that this October will mark the 10th Anniversary of The Walking Dead from Robert Kirkman and having Kirkman come out to talk about a little about what is planned for this landmark anniversary for the series. After acknowledging that season 4 of the television series begins in October the topic moved rapidly to the comic series that has been running for 10 years and the need to keep it fresh and not just rest on their laurels, not just have yet another zombie eat somebody (again). October will see the beginning of a 12 issue storyline released over 7 months called All Out War.
Moving on from zombies, The Walking Dead and Kirkman to crime comics and Ed Brubaker. Discussion of Fatale, which takes place in 90s grunge rock Seattle, beginning the fourth storyline. Brubaker points out that half of it is based on things that took place when he lived up there and the “mean streets of Seattle”. Continuing on to talk about his working relationship with artist Sean Phillips. From his words you can tell this is a creative partnership that Brubaker truly enjoys and plans to continue. This was followed up with the announcement of Brubaker and Steve Epting‘s Velvet, that fans of what they did on Captain America will enjoy, an espionage story.
Brubaker was followed by J. Michael Straczynski who came on stage carrying chairs forhimself and Stephenson with this comment, “Robert Kirkman can’t rest on his laurels, I can!” Discussion of Straczynski and Ben Templesmith‘s Ten Grand. How far would you go for love? Would you be willing to put up with an eternity of pain and death and suffering, like any marriage, for five minutes of fun? This was followed up with the announcement of Straczynski’s new series from Image, Sidekick that will be coming out in August. Though a San Diego Comic Con edition will be available later this month. More exciting announcements followed with the announcement Straczynski bringing all hiscreator owned content under one umbrella at Image Comics including Book of Lost Souls, previously at Marvel, with Straczynski and Colleen Doran. Straczynski will also be bringing Dream Police, previously at Marvel, to Image with the new series being penciled by Sid Kotian. As if these weren’t big enough announcements for Straczynski there was another book announced, a six-issues series Alone, which will have interiors by Bill Sienkiewicz. This series is going to deconstruct how comic book storytelling is done. And just when the audience thought there couldn’t be any more books being announced for Straczynski there comes one more… Protectors Inc. which will be coming out this fall with artwork by Gordon Purcell. As Straczynski prepared to depart the stage, Kirkman appeared to collect the chairs much to the amusement of Straczynski and the audience.
That was quite an addition of titles to the Image roster from just this one writer, but they weren’t done with the announcements or the talent surprises yet.
up was the creator of Peter Panzerfaust, Kurtis Wiebe. Wiebe came out on stage, joked that “I don’t think my parents even know what I do for a living” as he took a photo of the audience (presumably to show his parents). Wiebe told a little about the Peter Panzerfaust motion comic before leading into an announcement that it is now “being developed as for a live action tv series with BBC”, no release date was provided. Wiebe then spoke of Rat Queen and artist Roc Upchurch, and Rat Queens being like a rated R Lord of the Rings story, or what college girls would be like if they killed monsters.
And still the announcements and talent keeps coming, this time the with mention of the recent return to Image of the creator of the new book, Satellite Sam, Matt Fraction, who was wheeled on stage by Straczynski. It is becoming abundantly clear that all of these guys not only have fun together, have a sense of humor but are also entertainers even when not writing. Must say that everytime I think of Matt Fraction now the term “dapper dan” pops into my head. Good thing his first name isn’t Dan or I might slip up and call him that some time. For Satellite Sam, Fraction is working with, as he put it, “America’s Dirty Old Man, Howard Chaykin” Stephenson asked if Fraction had any clean Chaykin stories… laughing Fraction responded, “no!” Fraction goes on to say that the inspiration for Satellite Sam was his own fascination with “sex, death and live television” Fraction then asks the audience to give it up for Sex Criminals another upcoming book he has coming out with Image with art by Chip Zdarsky. Sex Criminals is about a girl that can stop time every time she makes whoopee. This girl meets a boy at a party and when they make whoopee she discovers that she is not alone. That he is outside time with her. Fraction seemed to get a kick out of hearing himself say whoopee live on stage. Stephenson thinks that for Hawkeye fans this is the next step. Following up on the discussion of Sex Criminals was the announcement of another new book coming from Fraction, Ody-C pronounced just like it looks and if you then wondered if it has anything to do with The Odyssey, you are correct, this will be it’s second adaptation at Image but this one is in space. And then to add to the twists you come to expect from Fraction, in an effort to give his daughter a hero he decided who better than Ulysses. Thus all the classic male roles will be female and all the female roles will be male.
Can you believe that with all of the above announcements they still weren’t done? There was still more amazing talent and books to come. You may be thinking, who else could they have? How about somebody that has done Punisher, Venom, Uncanny X-Force and much more… that’s right Rick Remender is also returning to Image. Black Science by Remender with art by Matteo Scalera and Dean White is described by Remender as the spiritual sequal to Fear Agent. Another book that Remender will be doing is Deadly Class with art by Wes Craig and Lee Loughridge. Remender wanted to write a book about his experiences growing up in the 80s hard core scene, growing with punk rock but not just that exclusively, but the many stories and things that happened in an interesting childhood. And he also had this class that he was building, Deadly Class. Deadly Class was sort of taking the high school experience, and taking the metaphorical knife in your back and the metaphorical poison and making it real. The High School they are attending is a High School for assassins. Remender realized as he was working on the two concurrently that they fit wonderfully together. Remender referred to these as comics for him, that he hopes we will like them but that he is now in a place of being able to work on things he enjoys. To awwwws from the audience Remender credited Image with his having a career in comics.
Remender was followed on stage by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, creators of Southern Bastards. From all the jokes we can gather that this book will have Southern Bastards, bbq, colorful characters and terrible things happening to the colorful characters. Or as Latour put it, the elevator pitch for this would be, sort of The Untouchables vs Boss Hogg or the Dukes of Hazard by the Coen Brothers.
The next guess was there, in spirit, or should we say via prerecorded video from Scotland, Mark Millar. He wanted to show up for the panel. He joked about his accent and hoping that there was somebody translating for us. Millar thanked for the support and enthusiasm for Jupiter’s Legacy. Millar shared with the audience that he felt Jupiter’s Legacy had been one of his most ambitious projects to date but that it has given him a taste for wanting to challenge himself to do something bigger. He wanted to do something that was basically the Marvel universe for the twenty-first century. He will be launching an entire line of books starting with this next one, MPH which is drawn by Duncan Fegredo. Millar suggested that Image should consider having the next Image Expo in Edinburgh.
Stephenson quipped that believe it or not they have more news. Announcing Noah, a graphic novel by Niko Henrichon and Darren Aronofsky.
To wrap up the Keynote, Stephenson brought up the size of the staff at Image Comics, 16 people, that helps bring all these fantastic books to the fans. This led up to the introduction of Ron Richards to the audience. Richards had the pleasure of announcing the updated Image Comics website, including the announcement that was met by rousing applause from the audience. Now when you purchase a digital comic from the Image Comic site, you will “own it”, the download will be DRM free.
With the wrap up of the Keynote we broke for lunch before continuing on for the panels and signings in the afternoon.
