Episode 17: Image Comics

know of. And I was able to snag it before some dork, but if he I had to change my name to Danny M. Fernandez and it ruined my whole identity I was. Originally they wanted me to change it to Danny Murray um, and then I would have been a to name person, like all the too name freaks out there. Shout out to you guys. Jessica Michelle Singleton was all like an Aaron mal DeLong and Christopher Smith, Bryan and Ryan Leslie Fisher and Sarah Michelle Giller and

all of the Yeah. But now you're like Michael B. George I know, and Michael J. Fox. Michael J. Fox. So it's a that's not a bad company to be a part of true True, True True. And it's because for y'all behind the scenes, your name can't even sound like someone else's name. So there wasn't even another Danny d A n I, which is mine because it's short for Danielle. It's that it sounded like the boy's name, which is d A n n Y. I just want to give people that didn't want to try and go

for Danielle Fernandez. No, that's what my mom calls me. No. Um, I like my short it's my stage name. It's like my it's really short and easy. And I wish I could have at Danny. But um, congrats to the twelve year old girl that has at Danny that never tweets. That's the last thing I tweeted Jack about because when he was like, we're deleting all those locked to counts so they don't count for your followers. Um, and I

think I dropped fifty all wards when that happened. And he's like, it's going live now, and I was like, all right, are you doing anything about the people squatting on accounts? Like if he like if he has not tweeted, and I'm waiting and I know there's other if he's out there waiting for it, we check it out. There's other es. Yeah, I wonder if I could like get a let's call Jamie Jamie loftus who's a hacker, um

and see if she's not a real hack. I mean, she wouldn't want me to say that she is a real hacker, but like see not about hacking, but like if they know how to get someone's email and politely ask them if we can buy it. Anyways, welcome to Netificent. Today we are covering image comics. Yeah. Yeah, no. Image comics is very interesting because I think outside of the big two, which is Marvel in d C, I think I would I would say they're the next popular comic

book publisher. I mean they they're known for Spawn, you know, and they that that's actually originally what the Walking Dead and and you a lot of sky Bounds comics kind of rooted in was image. So so yeah, i'd say they're they're the third. I would almost go on a limb and say third. Oh, they are the third, most of off top I knew it, you knew it. Yeah, So, speaking of they are best known for The Walking Dead, Kingsman, Wanted Spawn, Savage Dragon, which Blade the Darkness Invincible Saga.

It's great and Chew Chew was great. Have you ever read it. It's basically about this detective who can like see the past if he eats it, so like he'll have to write chew on bodies to like see what happened in the crime scene. Last I heard they were trying to adapt that into a TV show. I think it would work. I feel like that's one of those that would be a fun procedural that we've lived on, like TBS or something. Yeah, for sure, we already have

a zombie one people get an eat so so. In December, Cabal of Comic Creators Todd McFarlane, Rob Life build In, Jim Lee, Marvel's three biggest artists, informed Marvel President Terry Stewart that the company's policy towards talent were unfair, that creators were not being appropriately rewarded for their work, and that they were leaving effective immediately. They are also representing creators Eric Larson and Mark Sylvestry, who were not present

but had met within the night before. This was so ballsy. Yeah, they were the top the top creators and comic book artists, and I think they knew their power. It's really funny because later in an interview that Mark Sylvestry did, he said it wasn't actually that much of a risk because Marvel would take them back in a heartbeat. He knew that they needed them, Oh yeah, and so they just walked away, and they mainly walked away. Yeah, for those reasons.

They wanted to create something where comic creators could publish their own creation of materials without giving up the copyrights to those properties. And they still honor that till this day, which is why Image Comics is one of the kind of best comic book companies to work for if you have the power to kind of push your own brand and own it. And that's the sole reason that Robert Kirkland, Robert Kirkman sky Bound exists today because he he basically

owns Walking Dead. He was able to then put it under his own umbrella company and do more with it, which like create the TV show and the video games, the Tailtale video games and other things like that. So you see the power in owning your own property versus having it sold off for pennies like Marvel did to the likes of Spider Man and and all the other ones that ended up sitting in a semi cinematic graveyard

until the I guess about nineties. McFarland actually said there were no demands of Stuart or Marvel, but they merely informed him they were leaving. Can you imagine that, like didn't even like give him an opportunity, just you know they were leaving. They gave their reasons why and cautioned Stewart to heed those reasons unless they wanted more people

to leave the company. I did want to say on an Image Comics Expo panel, which they did end up having an Image Comics Expo twenty years after they had formed Image Comics, Liefeld reiterated that again he wasn't upset about leaving Marvel, how he wasn't at all frustrated or disappointed with his tenure at Marvel, as much as the fact that he just more was looking forward to doing

new stuff for the future. So I don't know, it sounds like they didn't necessarily have a It was kind of more of a business, maybe a passion type of thing. It felt. It feels like it was more like, Hey, we're doing this thing, and this is why we're doing it. But if you change your policies, you might be able to prevent other top artists from doing this in the future. But it didn't stop at Marvel See. The creators had the same meeting with d C Comics the next day.

Jim Ley asked Whilst Potassio, who worked on The Punisher X Factor the Uncanny x And to join them as well, and then the team worked out a deal with a small publisher, Malibu Comics, for production and distribution, and then decided on the title for their new company, Recycling, a name that Lifeld had originally intended for an aborted self published venture. On February one, a press release was sent

out announcing the formation of Image Comics. Yeah so it was originally a group of eight creators that founded it.

That would include Todd McFarland, who was known for his work on Spider Man, Jim Lee for X Men, Rob Lifeld who worked on X Force, Mark Sylvestri worked on Wolverine, Eric Larson who did The Amazing Spider Man, Jim Valentino who did Guardians of the Galaxy, and Will's Potassio who did Uncunny X Men, and also longtime Uncanny X Men writer Chris Claremont, and this development was nicknamed the Exodus get it because of the people that worked on it.

So Marvel stock fell three dollars in twenty five cents a share when the news became public. And Images Organizing charter had two key provisions. One Image would not own any creator's work. The creator would too. No Image partner would interfere creatively or financially with any other partners work, foreshadowing this would come back in this group. And Image itself would own no intellectual property except the company trademarks its name and its logo, which was designed by writer

Hank Canals. Yeah. Each Image partner founded his own studio, which published under the Image banner, but was autonomous from central editorial control. Oh so, so that basically that's what Robert did with sky Bountain. Seems like Claremont was not part of the partnership and Portasio withdrew during the formative stages to deal with his sister's illness. So Image originally

consisted of six studios. Todd McFarland Productions owned by Todd Farland obviously Wild Storm Productions owned by Jim Lee, Highbrow Entertainment owned by Eric Larson, Shadow Line owned by Jim Valentino. Top Cow, we know top Cow, that's they It seems like they kind of spawned out in their their own thing now top Cow Production owned by Mark Sylvestry and

Extreme Studios owned by Rob Liefeld. So this is real cool because I didn't know top Cow came from Image because top Cow now just for the image in my head that popped up. They have their own booth at Comic Con now and sky Bound the same way, and it's crazy that and you just see the power of why that's such a good thing because it only helps Image because obviously they still have loyalty to Image because

they gave them the opportunity. But now they're creating these smaller indie studios that can just blow up on their own, like top Cow and now sky Bound. Well. Also Todd McFarland's properties really blew up with Spawn and Wild Storm as well that Jim Lee did, which he ended up so lane actually, so we'll get into that. But the first Image comic books to arrive in stores were Lifefield's Young Blood, Larsen's The Savage Dragon, McFarland Spawn, and Lee's Wildcats.

Did you ever watch the Wildcats animated series. I did not, actually I think I did. I'm I'm gonna look it up real quick, and it's funny. Out of this starting lineup, the only one I can't remember is Savage Dragon. I remember Young Blood, I remember Spawn, and Wildcat. When I look it up, I'm sure i'm gonna remember it. But Savage Dragon was also an animated show as well. Really, yeah,

it's't that funny. But I think a lot of people, so we've said this before, but if you and I were born the same year, that's why we're so perfect together. If you and I were both born in eighty eight, and uh, we love all of our fans of all ages. But it's really funny because I think people forget that. Sometimes they'll be like, you didn't watch it in its original run. I was like, no, actually, my parents had not conceived me yet. Um, so I didn't watch Star

Wars originally in theaters on Fortunately. Oh I remember Wildcats because I remember the dude with the Deadpool esque mask hanging off, but but but the top his hair was blonde, so you knew he had blonde hair. I was like, that's the cool guy. That was my favorite of course, because any guy in the nineties, but also like the main character, like or the hero, he had his hair coming up. That was like the nineties were the time where you had those masks where your hair would poof

out the tops. And yes, that was very popular for that. That was his jam and popped up a lot in a lot of the Image comics. So but because of they were so passionate, these creators were so passionate behind this project and it was their project that they really put their heart and soul into it, and their series sold in numbers that no publisher other than Marvel, d C or Valiant Comics had achieved in since the markets

declined back in the nineteen seventies. So within a few months, the Image title success led to Malibu having almost ten percent of the North American comics market share a few months. That's how powerful they were that they could leave and

start their own comic book company and take off. Also, we want to say that this is the nineties coming off of the seventies, which had a huge boom in like the value of comics from that era, and so you had people who were trying to always get like what would be the new thing that's going to be

valuable in the future. So you had that on your side to um, which actually led to the overproduction of comics and the the the unnecessary deaths of certain characters to really drive people to the stains to try and buy it. Actually, I was going to talk about when Johnny Storm died a few a few years back, that was just over over marketed. It was black bagged, and

then he came back later. So the only person who's died for a long period of time, even and I think I mentioned this in the early episode, was Jean Gray, and it was because they realized they made a broken character. When you make someone like the Phoenix God, you're like, we gotta get rid of this. Because part of me was like, oh man, that sucks that Jean Gray is the like is the only one. But then when you thought about you're like, oh, yeah, they made her broken.

She can bring people back to life, she can end life with a snap. They they're like, oh man, but you could have just pulled that out of her and had another female character. But you know, comics. But you made a good point if that this was a time when people were starting to collect first edition like they were collecting comic books for financial reasons. They were kind of shifting from trading cards because I was the thing that was really popular with trading cards now to comics.

So by the beginning of Images, Financial Situation was secure enough to publish its titles independently, and they left Malibu. They're telling all these people, we don't need you anymore. Well, I mean, that's it seems like that's the whole business model was like, get good enough to be on your feet and run on your own and do your thing. Go go, go top Cal run, run for the hills, you go sky bound, you could do it. Todd McFarland Productions, go go wait, wait, why are you making that movie

with Michael g I White. I know he's great, but somehow, how, how did you make a crappy You know what I was gonna I was gonna walk that back and say, I actually really enjoyed the Spawn and the HBO animated series, which was too hot for me to watch, but you know who snuck up and watched it put it on a VHS. You boy, it was. It was good, But I wanted to put an asterisk next to uh, trading cards.

We're not coming for baseball cards. But don't think we're sleeping on trading card games were coming for your Magic the Gatherings. I spent too much money on Magic the Gathering for me not to talk about it on this And we're talking about you, and we're talking about Pokemon, which you know in the Nerdficent discord, people were asking, you know, what is the second popular trading card game,

and like people were like jokingly like, oh, Pokemon. You actually Pokemon and Ugo still have very active tournaments to this day. But we'll save that for that episode. If I need to tell you that Mark mark ellis another He has a pack. He just looked his pack of Magic the Gathering cards and were thirty thousand or something. I was like, Hi, but he is so you know Mark,

He's so like chill. Yeah, I'll just sometimes I'm like, no, you gotta do it now, Mark, please, because um, it is worth more unopened than open, because if you open it and it's a dud, you get nothing. Somebody will spend that money and hope they get a black lotus. Yeah. All right. So with all of this happening, of course, Marvel suffered greatly. The sudden death of Talent would eventually

lead up to the company's famous bankruptcy. In Jim Vlentino said, although Image got blamed for it, the decline in bankruptcy actually started back when they were at Marvel, which I would agree with. Like I was saying, they're just in and like we said before this, they were on a decline to begin with. It wasn't necessarily Image. Image was just the new hotness at the same time, and Image Comics became one of the most popular imprints of the

mid nineties. Yeah, nothing to me, says ninety comics like Image. I wouldn't say Marvel, I wouldn't say I'm sorry, I won't say Marvelous to you, nineties comics were Image because you saw that spawn, you saw the buckles, young Bloods, blood Shot at the time, Valiant in the picture, Like, those were nineties comics to me, I wasn't thinking about those guys yet. I mean, they were still on the stands because their mainstay. But if if I had to

scream out one, it probably would be Image. And every single book that came out of Images First Error was covered in visors and blood and claws and boob. Yeah, intended for kids nurtured on nerd rage with desperate Matt Macheesmo would would yeah, that's nineties. There was Which Blade, a comic about a gauntlet that pairs onto a female host, giving them superpowers and tearing off their clothes till till they were basically just if you don't know what Which

Blade is, I would suggest googling it. Not at work, but a live action TV show. But it was very toned down because I remember tuning in to be like, are they gonna are they gonna Which Blade? Which Blade? They did not, But do you remember j Lo's famous VMA's outfit that that kind of split down the middle that imagine that, but like cool nineties semi metal tentacles type looking things. That's Which Blade? Yeah, yeah, also a

good cause play. So by the mid Image series such a spawn in The Savage Dragon had proven themselves as lasting successes, the former frequently topping the sales charts for months in which new issues came out. Well. New series such as Wild Storms, Jen and Top Cows, Which Blade and The Darkness were also successful. Image had become the third largest comics publisher in North America that quickly, that quickly.

In the Darkness too, I remember lasted because this is like the mid nineties, and I think on the midts the two thousand's they had that Darkness game came out, and that was like everyone was like freaking out about it. At the time, I was was unaware of the comics and I didn't know why people were so hyped on it, but it was because people were like, Oh, this comic book video game is coming out and it's like super broody and dark. I mean it's literally called the Darkness. Yeah.

So during this time they were still in this like honeymoon phase for them. They also kind of were celebrities. Now it's so weird, like we see this now with a but typically it's not necessarily the comic book creators or even like the vo actors or whatever of the series. It's normally you know, Hugh Jackman or whoever you know. Not for this time, but like whoever was playing the character wasn't necessarily the behind the scenes people, but they

became like celebrities. They actually had a book signing appearance at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles as the first Image comics were coming out, and life Field appeared on the front page of the l A Times. There were TV cameras there were helicopters, there were police brought in for crowd control. They said as many as two thousand fans. Lifefield said, by the time we got to the Chicago Comic Con, we were just riding the wave of it. They actually, Yeah, this, this, I would say, is very

much there. Their honeymoon phase before the drama. If someone ever uses the honeymoon phase, you know that it has to end and when the drama comes, he gets quite spiced. Let's get to the drama. After these messages back everyone, I'm trying that out and it did not like it. Yeah, that might be the new thing. Producers are like trying. One of them is very disappointed, the other one's giggling, so so they just split split reaction. But let's get

into this drama that popped off. See, I am a messy boy who loves the drama pettiness that is involved with these men petty as hell. I love it. I forgot what I was doing, but I was doing something petty to a friend and I was with one of my female friends and she remarks is like, see, people say women are petty, but man, I was like, oh, you don't you have a clue. You have no clue. You have no clue. Did you see how someone financed tolk Holgan's case against Gawker? Because that that is the

pettiness that only comes from Richmond. Let's not even get started on what might be coming in the future from such the likes of Elon musk Uh. He has too much money and too much male pettiness, and he could only go bad. But let's get into the drama. The partners had little business or management experience, and mini series

quickly fell behind their intended publishing schedule. As the issue shipped weeks and even several months late, fans interests tended to wayne and left retailers with inventory they couldn't sell when it arrived. In response, retailers cut orders to reduce the risk. This significantly hurt the studios, which were each responsible for their own cash flow and profitability. Some issues of Lifefeld's Young Bloods arrived nine months late. Yeah, someone

straight up was like, I can't read this. I have to take care of my baby. I thought I was gonna jam out on my laps. Yeah. Here's the thing. These men were so great and talented and powerful that they could leave their respective one. They could leave their respective studios like Marvel in d C and know that they would still take them back. But to they were at the heart of it artists. They weren't businessmen, so they weren't trained on the business side. That has to

do with printing, shipping logistics, and then counting. Yeah, and then on top of that do have Yeah, the deadlines are the hardest thing. Like I mean, if you if if if you want to know how hard deadlines are? Asked Kevin Smith, I love you, but man, can you

not drop a comic on time? Like it's it's just it seems so simple, but when you really think about it, if you think about the time it takes to complete a comic, writing up the script, getting a pencil inked and colored, you have to do that in the span of a month. If you, if you, if you get ahead start normally you you could buffer that. But most times, I imagine guys like Image the rising popularity, you're doing it. You're going month to month and that's a lot of

moving parts to get something done on the deadline. So yeah, it's gonna be rough. And uh, what's also rough too, is since everyone has their own business, some people might be filling the hurt while others aren't. And if you're all under the same banner, you might be wondering what the heck is going on. So basically, Larry Martyr, who was a cartoonist and writer, was brought on to literally manage the artist so they can finish on time, and

became images executive director. So that's that's their solution. They're like, and you know what, I respect that sometimes you just need to bring somebody and to read it all in. And I think that's the downfall of a lot of people, Like when you're already on top, you have a wave, you're like, I don't need no boss. Oh my gosh. If he tangent to this, did you read the This came out months ago, but did you read the Johnny

Depp Rolling Stone. We would talk about I'll say this, I'll say what, And I always have to give credit to Kurt because he brought it up on the episode. But you just saw the effect of because his sister used to take care of all his finances and everything like that, and they had a falling out when he refused to get a pre nup before he married her. And you can see what happens when he does not have that control. You see that she really was the one keeping it all together for him, and now he's

just on this downward spiral. Anyways, read that if you want to see how people throw their lives away, So then they Image comics. They kind of had a semi breakup, and everybody tells the story differently. Life Field in the So Much Damage documentary, which I highly recommend. It's on Sci Fi Why I think you can actually YouTube it and watch it. It's a documentary on the history of Image comics, he said, and I quote that they were

ruthlessly competitive. That the men were ruthlessly competitive makes sense. I mean, they're all in their own ways, these great creators. And on the subject of how life Field went from being the unifying force that brought the Image Partners together to launch a comic line to being the unifying force that brought the Image Partners together to kick him out of the company, Larry Martyrs said, there is a Rashman

aspect to all of this. Everybody perceives what happened from their own point of view, though we probably all share bits and pieces in our perspectives, are very emotional disagreements between the partners began to develop. Several of the partners complained that Lifefield was using his position as CEO of Image to promote and perhaps even to financially support, Maximum Press, a publishing company that life Field operated separately from Image.

So Vestry withdrew top Cow from Image in June, although he retained his partnership in the company, protesting that life Field was recruiting artists from his studio, including the highly popular Michael Turner, who was doing the art on which Blade, which Yeah, I mean it's funny because I can see how that can be a total different POV thing where life Fields like, look, we're all Image, I could take your art, you know, and it's we're just supporting the

button And he's like, nah, you're doing whack and you're taking my hotness. That is what Lifefield said. He said, quote people were grabbing other people's talent at this time. Yeah. He was like, I don't see what, but this is what we were all doing. Yeah. So Larry Martyrs said Lifefield was making an increasing number of business decisions that

were counterproductive to being a business partner. The other five partners discussed ousting Lifefield from the company in early September, Lyfefield issued a press release stating he was resigning his position at Image and leaving the group. Nearly simultaneously, the Image Partners issue that place press release stating that they

had fired Rob part This is the Betty part. His resignation came only minutes before the second meeting that would have forced him out anyways, Oh my gosh, and the spiciness. And then so Lifefeld gave up his share of the company and moved all his publishing ventures into a new company, Awesome Comics, and Silvestry subsequently returned Top Cow to Image. Wow. So that that move right there is really the icing on Top two where it's like, all right, top Cow is not a part of this. As long as life

felt here, he's gone, We're bringing top Cow back. Yeah. You know, it's really fascinating when I was watching this documentary that they do seem, you know, they've gotten over it. It's it's kind of I mean, I can't fully speak for them. From what I could tell when they were asked about and when Leyefield was asked about it, it seems that they were all just like, yeah, that was

a thing that happened. Oh, I mean, I feel like it's one of those things where if you're still successful and you moved past it, it doesn't bug you as much. I feel like slights bug you more if you feel like that might have been your downfall if you fall behind. Like, for example, when that story that, uh, what was it Ari Shaffier beating up Bobby Lee because oh, you haven't

heard it. So Ari Shafier was dating someone who was on Matt TV with Bobby Lee, and when they broke up, Ari thought that Bobby like introduced her to this guy that she ended up leaving him for. So Ari drives to the comedy store and beats up Bobby Lee at the comedist store and they were like when that story was told, there next to each other, laughing about it. And it's one of those things where it's like they're both still good in their careers and so they can

look back on it a laugh. Whereas if you know that would have led to Bobby like not being on Matt TV and then being like just this unemployed comic and yeah, yeaah, he probably would have still been salty about it. I think you can look back on the junk when you're still good. Yeah, maybe because they came out on top. Because that's also what happened with them with Marvel Is they left, but they were like, oh no, we're still cool with them. We're just not gonna do

We're gonna do our own thing. We're big enough now, So I think that I agree. Jim Lee sold Wild Storm and its characters to d C Comics, citing a desire. This makes sense though he cited cited a desire to exchange his responsibilities as a publisher for the opportunity to do more creative work. I think that's what all of

them wanted to do in general. They just wanted to do it on their terms because I think it was frustrating for them that now they had to control every asp the business side of it, when all they really want to do was just create. So Lee, though, was the biggest market share for Image Comics, wild Storm had the most books, so this was a big deal. Wow at the time, probably wasn't too about that and Lee both left, So yeah, that's that's that. That's two big

chunks leaving. But they were flourishing in other mediums because Wildcats had an animated show, Savage Dragon had one as well. Spawn had its movie with Todd McFarlane and then the HBO animated series I was talking about that was mad spicy. Then, like you mentioned, Which Blade had its live action show on T and T. So Lee and Leifeld were gone. Jim Valatino became a publisher and started bringing in things that weren't superhero oriented. Uh. And I think that's a

cool It's a breath of fresh air. I think it was in perfect time too, because I feel like by the end of the nineties people were a little burnt out on capes. Yeah, and so we'll talk about some of those comics that he brought in right after the break and we're back. So yes, So things were changing at Image Comics. In fact, actually Image Comics like their focus was changing. They were trying to move with Jim Valentino now being on top of kind of helping decide

what was going to be made there. He wanted to move away from superhero oriented comics which was heavily saturated, still heavily saturated, but not as much. And he actually brought on Powers, which is a very popular comic that was by Brian Michael Bendis. Brian Michael Bindis is a big name Brian Michael bndes is who created Miles Morales.

It was because of him, and he said he did it specifically because of the Donald Glover interview where he said he wanted to be Spider Man and then he got a ton of real fascinating yeah, like like it's I mean, not the racist thing now, isn't it. I mean, isn't it fascinating that that interview we now have Miles Morales and he now has a movie. Oh yeah, it's crazy and it's crazy too, because that's why I'll always

have a respect for Brian Michael business. Because he saw a person of color speak out about something that he wanted and he just did it. He was like, yeah, why not, You're right? And I think so much good just comes from that of someone having the power to make the change that. You know, some people might be like, why why do you need to make Spiderman black? Cool? Uh? Well, um,

I don't know. Actually I do know, because the reason Spider Man is the biggest hero hands down, is because he his face is completely covered, so anyone can be Spiderman. Spider Man was every man. That is why across cultures everyone liked Spider Man because anyone could have been Spiderman because there was a mass covering. You don't get that with Batman because enough of his face is shown that you know that he is Caucasian. Same thing for Superman

everything else. So that's why Spider Man pin popular. So to make it seem like as if like his the fact that he's white is this huge thing, It's not true because his biggest moments are when he's wearing that mask, and when he's wearing that mask, you don't know who he is. So for just one issue, one in one universe or one line, to know that someone under that mask looks like you as a big moment, and you've seen a lot of change in a lot of excitement

and kids. When Brian Michael Bindis did create that character, that's so fascinating. I was on a panel with jan Manuel Roca, who does comics on Comics and I've been on several panels with him, and he was talking about in Star Wars that he we had to say our favorite characters, and he said Darth Vader and I was like, oh, you're like, you know bad, you got some evil in you. He was like, no, that was the only character that

I could pretend to be because I could. You know, he wore a mask, so I could be under that mask. I didn't really relate to the other characters. Yeah, it's just so fascinating. Also, like who gets to pass on that mantle. That's the thing about Spider Man is that when you're in a costume, anyone could be on to it. Anyone could be could have that mantle passed on to them. And these characters are not immortal, so they do have other other young people picking up picking up the mantle.

But yeah, so Brian Michael bends created Powers. It helped ship. So that's just a complete tangent on Brian Michael business. And also why he's a get I think that's what I originally started with and then just went to the things I like about him. But yes, he made powers. Sorry, no, no, no, he he helped shift the image of image. Really, so Powers was a police procedural, It's not like anything they

had done before. The series followed the lives of two homicide detectives that were assigned to investigate cases involving people with superhuman abilities or powers. Yeah, and it eventually got adapted into a TV show that was on the PlayStation Now network, and it was doing pretty well for it to be like on a hard network like that. And then we have the O G Triple O G guy, who I you know, really brought image back on the

map in a big way. Robert Kirkman, Rob Kirkman who he pitched Valentino a zombie comic, black and white zombie comic at that and uh, and that comic turned out to be The Walking Dead and basically UH. Robert Kirkman was said that people would ask him what the highest selling issue of The Walking Dead was and he'd say the current issue because each issue out sold the previous

as it climbed every month in sales. And I remember when it started out and it blew people's minds because it was just right on the I know, now we're like in zombie overkill, but when The Walking Dead came out, it was just there. We weren't at critical mask and zombie stories. And to have this story that just has such a high turnover rate where anyone can go. You just also didn't see that in comics. To jump back to something I said previously, or in comic books, people die,

they come back. Death isn't It's almost like Dragon ball Z like if they die, they're like, You're like, oh, they can come back. Where you now have this new comic that not only makes you get attached to these characters, but we'll take them from you. And that's it. I mean, we don't even want to get started on issue one hundred. That one really rocked people's socks. And then uh then they went and did it in the TV show, and which I thought they I thought they wouldn't because TV

is different. People treat TV differently. So I got a huge props when they just repeated it on TV. And it was funny because there was that level of people like what I was like. But it happened in the comics. It was it happened so much that it overflowed and TV fans were like, we still got them here. It's like all right, all right. They are some of the

most loyal fansh their fan bases ravenous and exciting. Yeah. So, starting in two thousand nine, Image began to really grayly expand the types of comics that it published, and good for them, to be honest, that's exciting. It is nice to have something like Saga or you know, which is like you know, the sci fi fantasy doesn't necessarily have to be superhero at like completely have these really flawed and characters and verily adult stories very much so that

just explore just everything. So I just wanted to say. Saga creator Brian Cavan said of of Image, I love all the companies I've worked with, but I think Image might be the only publisher left that can still offer

a contract I would consider fully creator owned. Saga is really important story to me, So I wanted a guarantee of no content restrictions or other creative interference, and I needed to maintain one control and ownership of all non publishing rights with the artists, including the right to never have our comic turned into a movie or television show

or whatever. So fascinating. Yeah, it's so good because that is a thing, the other side of it, because there's the one side of it where like when it is turned into a TV show or something, you you have the ownership of it. But sometimes you may not want that path teenage meeting Nina Turtles. Yeah, you may want it to just live on the page and uh and yeah, I think you know. Image has allowed some weird comics that I think would never exist without the brand existing,

or maybe it would just under another banner. But like sex Criminals, which is by Chips Adarski and uh Matt Fraction, the concept of it are two people that when they have sex and orgasm, they stop time. So it's a it's a it's a mature comic, but just the concept of that is just so weird, and like how they find each other is such a weird, and it's like a very human love story on top of that with also the stuff that they have to deal with having this weird power. I don't think you would see its

sex Criminal a Marvel pages. I don't think Marvel would even go that deep. I mean they do have Marvel Max, which I feel like the only Marvel Max, which if you don't know Marvel Max is they're kind of mature comics where anything can happen. There's only two series that I felt really worked for Max that didn't felt force, and it was Wolverine, which like seeing that go full explicit was fun, and Nick Fury and it was like his kind of like side missions and that was like

just straight up James Bond. I think everything else put under Max title just almost forces it because you're like, this person isn't that violent. I don't think they would just but Wolverine, he will just disembowel someone. And you're seeing that and you're like, oh, yeah, this is everything that you've written in Wolverine and kind of stopped the brakes at I wanted to say for those that don't know Saga, which I highly wrote, that I know you read Saga as well if he definitely check it out.

It is adult, so heads up for parents out there. But I mean also I read stuff in the sense that like Game of Thrones as adult with not even being that that that much. Like it's not like it's not going to say it's not like sex Criminals, where if you hear sex from as you're like, I don't know, but like something like Saga's like it just has you know, nudity here and there when yeah that now I'm sorry, it has a boob am I allowed to say boob Yeah, okay,

it has a boob out. But yeah. It's about these two parents that are in love and they're both from warring races and they're in a galactic war where they struggle to care for their daughter, who sometimes narrates the series as well. It's highly recommend. Yeah, it's very beautiful.

Um but Fiona Staples, her art is gorgeous, like just some of those spreads that you get to, you're just like you just want to go back and read it, just to look at some of these spreads, and it's very beautiful and romantic, and her and Brian cae Von are creating something extremely beautiful. I do highly recommend, and I'd say just go for the what I like to do. For here's a quick comic guide for all my new

beast of comics. You can buy single issues, which come out on a monthly basis, or if you have the patients, you can buy trade paperbacks which collect about things about five issues, and they're really quick with Saga to drop the trades. So I would highly suggest doing that because a story like Saga, I cannot read single issue. I have to get a lot of it at once, like wait in a month with Yeah, I remember, I forgot we were like at l a comic con or something.

Your backpack was full of Saga books. Yeah, it was because I let someone borrow one and two, three, And it's one of those things where just like books, comics are the same you let someone borrow some trades, you may never see it again. So I just bought the hardcover back and then everything after that. I was just organizing my trades today. So that's also why I'm like

on top of my game with calling comics. I did want to stay just closing us out that Image sales groups and sgnificantly during this period, especially with Saga to a market share of around ten and an influx of Marvel and DC associated creators began to publish their work with them, and Yeah, as of sixteen, McFarland Spawn and Larsen Savage Dragon continue as the longest running creator owned titles by Image Partners, with over two hundred fifty two

issues respectively, and at this point that was we do know. At this point in time, Jamie Fox is confirmed to be Yeah, they cast at him. We'll see how it goes. Jamie Fox is an OSCAR awarded actor, so I don't want to us pretend like he can't step up to the role. I just I don't know, do you feel like, see this is what I see? Because it possibly might be r rated. They haven't said that, but I'm just yeah, I'm pretty sure Todd Todd is a very like he

wants to be on that. I mean, especially because they already had that h like there, they had an animated show that was spicy. So but I feel like, okay, if it's R rated, we have Jamie FOXX, we have

someone that has a comedy background. I feel like this might be partly also because of Deadpool, like just that fan base of it being like not necessarily him, but I'm saying the R rated comedy esque superhero possibly not saying that that's what Spawn is because he's kind of much darker than that's super dark, Like this is the one where like the freaking Zack Snyder Gloom would work, Like this is the like to be honest, So yeah,

he should be doing that. Like if I had to pick a superhero movie for Zack Snyder to do, it would be Spawn. But do you think that maybe they want a different I know that Jamie Fox can play really serious roles, but I feel like his comedic background has to probably come into play. I like his drama more than comedy, so I may him when he was like goofy shocker. Yeah, then maybe it'll be a mixture. Who knows, Well, where where can people find you? Danny,

you have anything to plug right here in the studio. Well, let's see this is we've already gone to Comic Con, so you and I are probably sick, So sure, Danny, Yes, So catch me at Miss Danny Fernance M S D A N I F E r n N d E Z and you can definitely hit up our t public page. We handed out some shirts at Comic Con, our Stay Nerdy shirts. I love them. There are logo, Uh, definitely hit up some. Get some Nerdificent gear, get a laptop. I have stickers all over my laptop and now I'm

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shout out of suggestion. We may just ignore it. But besides that, I want to give a shout out to you know z Daddy and the booth young Zach McKeever. Uh, you know Anna our producer, uh sitting in with none only the Dan what's your last name? Dan Goodman because he's a good man and of course he's Jeff Coten Christopher hasci otis doing that sweet research for us, getting us uh super correct with all the INFOCT we need

to give it to your ers. So thank you once again coming through and as always, stay learning