Every week, Image Comics sends a newsletter about our upcoming releases to retailers with a letter at the beginning. This message, by Image Comics PR & Marketing Director Jennifer de Guzman, was in the September 25, 2012 newsletter.
It’s a big week for us at Image, with the debut of Grant Morrison’s and Darick Robertson’s HAPPY! With big-name creators like Morrison, Ed Brubaker, Chris Roberson, and Greg Rucka declaring their disillusionment, discontent, or simply disinterest in working for DC and Marvel, we’re continuing to prove the strength of the creator-owned model. High-profile creators translate their success in corporate-owned books to independent comics — and new creators who want creator-owned careers benefit.
Rucka put it in no uncertain terms in an interview in Mark Millar’s magazine Clint, saying, “I have spent a lot of my comics career in service of other masters, – and I’ve had enough of that for now. I’m sick to death of the way the Big Two treat people” and “Despite what the publishers say, their interest in the talent is minimal now, the interest is only in promoting the financial worth of their properties.”
Talented people coming into the industry and comic book readers are all seeing this new attitude toward corporate-owned comics. They’re seeing the truth come out — DC and Marvel see comics as commodities and the people who create them as tools to use in the interest of profit. We at Image don’t see it that way. To us, comics are about stories and creators are the storytellers who are indispensable for continuing to push at the boundaries of what the medium is capable of.
You can make the future of comics one in which sales follow storytelling and revenue goes to respect by supporting Image Comics and other independent publishers. And in the coming months and year, you’re going to have ample opportunity to show you side with creators.
After the success of the Brian K. Vaughan-penned SAGA, FATALE, and, now, HAPPY!, we can look forward to great things from MARA (by Brian Wood and Ming Doyle) in December, and LAZARUS by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, THE SAVIORS by James Robinson and J. Bone, SATTELLITE SAM by MATT FRACTION and HOWARD CHAYKIN, JUPITER’S CHILDREN LEGACY by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, REIGN by Chris Roberson and Paul Maybury, and PRETTY DEADLY by Kelly Sue de Connick and Emma Rios in 2013.
I hope you’re looking forward to it. We sure are.
-JdG
