Is it really fair to call Spawn the longest running, independently owned American comic...

Spawn is Todd trying to pretend he matters. Dragon is Erik's soap box, and it hurts to know there are people who pretend his shit's worth a damn just to be contrary.

Sim got divorced and fucked over on alimony, right? That probably took a huge cut of whatever income he was making from the phone book sales; the divorce happened pretty close to the end of the 300 issue run, I think, and was why he went totally nuts about women in that last stretch of stories.

Larsen should try to get another Savage Dragon cartoon off the ground. I remember the first one being pretty decent.

As for Erik not being interested in adaptations don't forget there was the Savage Dragon animated series

>the divorce happened pretty close to the end of the 300 issue run
May as well have said "Hi, I didn't read Cerebus!"

The divorce didn't "fuck him" and it happened back in the 80s.

Even people who haven’t read Cerberus knows that the divorce happened in the eighties, and that it was one of the major reasons he lost his shit. Well, that and he had struggled with schizophrenia, and then he got some acid which made his condition much worse.

Contrary to widespread assumption, acid is safe UNLESS you have a family or personal history with schizophrenia, in which case you need to stay as far away from it as possible

The divorce happened in the 80's. The only thing that happened there was his ex got the other part of the company with all the other titles they were publishing.

Acid is only "safe" in and of itself, you can get extremely fucked mentally or hurt yourself physically while on it, existing mental conditions or not.

And it went under quickly because publishing those other comics was more a goodwill gesture than anything.

He absolutely hated how that cartoon turned out, though. For a long time he didn't seem interested in doing another adaptation unless he was more involved in it, and his new jobs for Image publishing + having more interest in making his comic took up more time.

I mean, that goes without saying. Any mind altering substance should be taken in a safe environment where you can’t hurt yourself or any others. That holds true for everything from beer to weed.

It's a matter of severity. Acid has a strong enough effect that anything short of someone watching you to make sure you're fine is irresponsible, and there's no safeguard for potential mental trauma.

It's "safe," but you're taking a massive risk. Some people can take it consistently and be fine, but it's far more risky than pot or alcohol. Don't misinform people just because it doesn't hurt you, user. People need to know it isn't actually all that safe, even if it's not as actively dangerous as propaganda pretends it is.

I feel like you’re greatly exaggerating the danger of psychotropics. Numerous studies have shown that the only psychological dangers present in LSD is for those with an existing history with schizophrenia. Aside from that, you don’t ‘see’ or experience anything on acid, that isn’t already in your head. The saying is “acid doesn’t show you anything you aren’t supposed to see.”

Most trips are done just as you said, with at least one sober person watching over the psychonaut until the ride is over. That’s generally recommended by most people that practice use in safe and sane ways, which again, is very safe as has been established in peer reviewed studies.

The greatest danger that’s present in LSD is that the original recipe, from Abby Hoffman, was known by one person and has been lost. It’s heavily recommended that you only buy from people that you trust, which is just good advice in general, and that you test the shit that you do buy. It’s for that reason that people recommend psilocybin mushrooms over LSD, but they have different effects, take you to different places, etc.

pay up mcfarlane

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>creates Image Comics as a home for creators, where they can retain 100% copyright on their products
>tries to screw over NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN

Gaiman is rich

He wasn’t back when McFarlane was trying to screw him out of royalties. He was ‘the beloved writer of Sandman,’ but he hadn’t become NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN at that point.

Image hasn't published a good series since Bomb Queen. Spawn wasn't even a very good book in the first place. The comic had no story arcs and was written from issue to issue with Spawn never really doing anything and trying not to use his powers. All of what Image was doing in the 90's was trying to ape Chaos! Comics, but doing it shittier with more famous artists. I mean Evil Ernie and Lady Death at least had story arcs, where you could say something happened since they were generally published as mini-series for most of their runs.

The fact of the matter is they should cancel and reboot Spawn from the very beginning with an actual plot this time starting from square one since they have the benefit of the older comics already existing for a template. They could even have a meeting with a group of writers and artists and plan it all out in advance like the big two would, and have a competent book.

they should go the marvel route and make quippy movies of their shitty comic characters.

>Image hasn't published a good series since Bomb Queen
Wow, you've read their entire output to date? That's impressive. If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you like The Humans?

>they
Who's they? Todd alone controls Spawn, Image isn't really interested in building IPs since creators can take their books somewhere else any time they want and I'm pretty sure they don't see any money from adaptations, and if they do the amount is negligible.

Despite Kirkman not knowing what to do for a long time, the Walking Dead is still worth reading. The plot’s been meandering all over the place, but the characters are still great.

Image publishes a lot of good stuff that dies four issues in.

>Image publishes a lot of good stuff that dies four issues in.
Because it takes 6 years for their indie superstars to get those 4 issues out.

Isn’t all of Lemire’s creator owned stuff published by Image?

I can only think of one single series this refers to and it isn't even very good.

How did Mcfarlane screw over Gaiman, over what character/comic?

No, Black Hammer is at Dark Horse.

More like because there's no visual hook or advertising, so nobody knows it exists until it's too late.

>That's impressive
Drop the soi my friend, your defensiveness and dick sucking says it all.

>Who's (((they)))?
Let's not pretend that Image only cares about supporting indie creators.

Robert Kirkman's a fucking hack who normies glommed onto for no good reason, except that Image was publishing a zombie book, when there were other zombie books already on the market at the same exact time, many of them better.

> is still worth reading.
It was never worth reading, and stands as one of the most overrated series in recent memory.

They had a handshake agreement over co-creator credit and royalties for characters introduced in Spawn #9. And I think McFarlane made a big deal about it in interviews.

>your defensiveness and dick sucking says it all
What? You made a pretty fucking bold claim, the only one getting defensive about it is you.

>Let's not pretend that Image only cares about supporting indie creators
I never said that though

>Todd: "All my collaborators on Spawn are entitled to royalties for anything they make."
>Gaiman: "I made a Medieval Hellspawn and this girl named Angela."
>Todd: *Makes toys for 'Dark Ages Spawn' and Not!Angela, does not pay Neil*
>Gaiman: "Wanker."
They took it to court, Gaiman won.

Angela.

McFarlane had to start hiring pro writers to script Spawn for him very early into the book's run. Gaiman was one of them and he created characters like Cogliostro and Angela. Both became very popular and were integral to Spawn's origin and mythology. Likewise, so was Chapel, though he was created by Liefeld.

McFarlane decided that he owned those characters outright since they were created for his book and that Gaiman and Liefeld had no claim to royalties for their use and also could not use them for their own projects. McFarlane and Liefeld settled out of court regarding Chapel, but McFarlane and Gaiman were locked in legal battles for two decades over Angela and Cogliostro.

Gaiman eventually won, meaning McFarlane can not use Angela again and also has to pay Gaiman royalties to reprint any issues that had Angela in them. Gaimen then sold Angela to Marvel as a big FU to McFarlane. McFarlane skips any issues with Angela when doing trade paperback collections of Spawn, even issues that are really important to the storylines, because he doesn't want to pay Gaiman royalties.

It's all very petty.

Petty on Todd's part. Gaiman just made back sunk costs over a douche who kept pretending he didn't fuck him for 20 years.

Its a shame that such a decent concept as Spawn has little to no further development in terms of plot and character growth. It has such a potential and I don't why Todd hasn't hired a good writer to write good stories. Its like he doesn't want his IP to be successful.

Gold Digger's been running about the same amount of time, but I'm not sure if it qualifies for Indie or not.

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But he did! And then he tried to fuck em.

I'm not even sure which I'd call worse, but his are they both trash.

You pretended like Spawn wasn't an IP that Image needs, even if they're barely doing shit with it and the comics suck and nobody reads them. Much like The Walking Dead, it's a valuable IP for them. Image wants IP's it's just that their books are generally garbage.

>You made a pretty fucking bold claim
>the only one getting defensive about it is
Try not to be too much of a retard, getting worked up because nobody gives a fuck about whatever gay shit Image is publishing which only 3 people will read.

And now no one wants to work with him! Wonder why...

He tried one last time years ago when he hired Paul Jenkins to bring back Al Simmons. After the initial one-shot I think he lasted like one arc before walking out because Todd was too controlling and didn't let him do anything. He's been writing the title himself with the occasional co-writer ever since.

>Image wants IP's
But Image doesn't own IPs, that was my point.

Yeah, but Gold Digger is at least readable. Spawn has the benefit of being shit since it's inception, and only memorable for it's HBO series, since you have to put thought into a cartoon. The comics were just a series of cool images with word balloons pasted on.

Alright, so you've given up on trying to make sense. Guess you came to a thread about a publisher you hate simply because you love being angry.

Image's original "we support the creators and they own everything they create" promise when they founded the company was meant for artists, not writers. Image was founded entirely by artists who left because they felt writers were getting too much credit while they did all the real work. All their books save Savage Dragon eventually had to bring on writers within the first year because, as they found out, just because they could draw it didn't mean they could write.

However, their attitude toward writers didn't change; they still hated them. So the privileges and luxuries extended to artists regarding creator ownership weren't intended to also extend to writers, as Gaiman found out.

I know it's hard to imagine now, since Image is known almost exclusively for its superstar writers like Mark Millar, not for its artists. But originally, Image was founded as a "No Writers Allowed" haven exclusively for butthurt artists. McFarlane's 20-year legal war with Gaiman was an extension over his smoldering hatred of writers (McFarlane apparently had some sort of serious loathing for Peter David that was legendary in the industry in the 90s, too).

The writers ultimately won, though. Gaiman defeat McFarlane in court. Image is now known as "the place writers go to get proof of concept movie pitches published". Sorry, artists. You lost the long game.

Image must be a charity organization then like the Salvation Army right? They're not in it for the money or tv shows or video game tie-ins, or action figures? Get the fuck out of here with that smooth brained non-sense. The whole point of Image in the first place was because Todd and the rest of it's founders were being whiny children, because Marvel wouldn't let them do whatever they wanted, so they ripped off Chaos! Comics and decided they'd start their own Marvel with hookers and blackjack, and then never delivered on it and and then did the same shit that they were complaining about Marvel doing, such as the case with Niel Gaiman.

Todd and Peter David did a series of debates also, and David also happens to be insufferable and highly political, which is funny since nowadays he'd fit right in at Image.

I mean you're right, but there's a handful of issues with good writers sprinkled throughout while Gold Digger has been ugly (to the point of being unsexy) cheesecake forever.

It's a tough pick. I can't fault someone for saying either is worse.

That's ultimately the result of the artists being fucking terrible at composition and pacing. Sam Kieth' s one of the only dudes from early image who could construct a good page on his own, but even he was highly experimental and niche and hired a writer to help with dialogue.

That explains why I could never get into his work on Lobo.

user actually has a point: They want sales, not healthy IP. They're cool with the IP burning out and becoming shit (see; Spawn), they just want the shirt term sales.

It's kind of a stupid stance when you think about it, but there's not much else you can do when your whole shtick is "We don't own your IP."

Little bit. That one he didn't write at all. The Maxx is mostly him with Messner-Loeba helping him un-mushmouth it.

Holy shit, way to out yourself as a casual brainlet.

It's still one of their best selling comics and is above the cancellation line Marvel or DC have in place. So yes.

Savage Dragon, on the other hand...

>I don't know how Image works so I'll scream insults and cliches to look smart! Blackjack and Hookers Futurama Reference!

Image does not work the same way as a regular comics company. It's a much smaller company than other comics companies because of the way they operate.
Image takes a fee off any comic that is published through Image, no matter what it is. It used to be a flat fee but now I think it's a percentage.
Image does not make money from merchandise of the various IPs because the IPs are owned individually. They don't make money from Spawn merchandise or Walking Dead merchandise. Todd McFarlane makes money from Spawn merchandise and Robert Kirkman makes money from Walking Dead merchandise. The only way Todd McFarlane is making money from Walking Dead merchandise is when his company is making Walking Dead action figures. He doesn't get any money from Walking Dead Funko Pops. Erik Larsen doesn't make any money from Spawn or Walking Dead unless it's a crossover in his Savage Dragon comic. Brian K Vaughn does not make any money from Savage Dragon or Spawn or Walking Dead. Just Saga.
It's possible that the Image founders may pool in money to keep Image running, but I have no idea how true that is.
Creators mainly take the risk on the Image books. Usually with other companies you get paid in advance for your work. If you're working on your own book that you yourself own, you're not getting paid for it until the book is published.

Also you do realize your post is retarded right?
>Is it fair to call this comic the longest running independently owned comic when it is independently owned?
By this logic Cerebus wouldn't count either.

And like Image says on their FAQ:

>Image was set up so that creators could do what they want with their creations, and reap the benefits financially. When a book is published by Image, creators are not paid up front. It can sometimes be two or three months before one sees money from a book. It sounds rough, and it most definitely can be. But if it’s done right, the payoff can be far more rewarding than producing a book in the conventional manner.

>When the creator does finally get paid, they get paid on what their book makes after the cost of printing and Image’s modest office fee, which covers solicitations, traffic, production, and some promotion of the book. We make no more money off of our highest selling book than we do our lowest.

Also, the only work-for-hire scenario at Image comes from the studios set up by individuals. McFarlane has Todd McFarlane Productions. Jim Valentino has Shadowline. Kirkman has Skybound. If you do WFH on Spawn, you're dealing with McFarlane only.

JSC is the secret comic success in 2019

>Ignoring that Todd gets a cut off the top since he's technically an employee.
It's nothing compared to his toyline, but...

Just found this:

digitalwebbing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134884

If things are still the same as they were about 11 years ago, then Image takes the same flate fee on monthly books, but a percentage on trades.

It couldn't be a kids' cartoon now that his comic is literal pornography. Maybe an adult thing like Castlevania.

If true, that still wouldn't be even significant enough since the fee they do still has to cover the rest of the office costs and stuff like that.

Plus, I imagine that McFarlane and the founders still have to pay the publishing fees for their own books since there was the story of Liefeld getting in trouble for trying to publish his stuff elsewhere without having to pay fees, or something like that?

Jim Zub broke down the costs of making and publishing a book here:

jimzub.com/the-reality-of-mainstream-creator-owned-comics/

Are there any TPBs or other collections available that contain those disputed issues with Angela and Cogliostro? I was interested in maybe reading Spawn at some point but I have no interest in buying physical books if important issues are missing.

You'd have to find the TPBs published in the 1990's. I think there were two editions of it.

Zub also had an updated post in 2015 about it:

jimzub.com/creator-owned-economics-the-changing-market/

Well yeah, no shit.
Point is it's not really "independent" at that point.

When did Spawn jump the Shark? What's the best stopping point?

#1.

Regardless of your thoughts on how it starts, most agree it takes a dive after #100.

>Point is it's not really "independent" at that point.

How? Comic gets published by Image, Image docks the flat fee from the money coming in, rest of money gets divided up by the creators to cover all the other costs and anyone else working on it (where applicable).

Marvel and DC would be paying in advance to people to do pages of WFH stuff, and would be the ones covering the printing and all that stuff so it's not really factored into the salary. Maybe Vertigo works differently since the books are creator-owned, but I have no idea how that goes.

>When did Spawn jump the Shark? What's the best stopping point?

The Al Simmons narrative ended with the Armageddon story arc, so #163 is the organic stopping point. The world ended, Spawn's power meter finally hit 0, whatever passed for the plot was exhausted. The End.

Problem was, McFarlane kept the book going and it has been even more directionless than ever before. There was a chunk where Simmons died for realsies and got replaced with some boring fucker with amnesia named Jim Downing. It was tremendously boring and was when I tapped out (after #200). I think Simmons eventually came back as the lead, but there was some weird crossover arc where he became Omega Spawn, but that never got completed because the crossover characters had some sort of rights issues or... I dunno.

#163. If you HAVE to read Spawn, read only that far. Just also know that there are important crossover minis that you'll have to pick up, too, like the Angela miniseries and a crossover with Youngblood that kills off Chapel. So you can't just read #1-163 and get the whole story (or have it make sense, anyway). And because of rights issues, most of those minis and crossovers (the aforementioned Angela and Youngblood) can never be collected in trade no matter how important they are.

So basically, Image boys thought they could do what Kirby and Ditko did in the late 60s when Stan went hands off, only to discover they weren't such hot shit as Marvel paychecks made them believe.

This whole post is blatantly wrong, especially when you consider Claremont left Marvel with them, but this part,
>Image was founded entirely by artists who left because they felt writers were getting too much credit while they did all the real work.
Is especially wrong. These guys came from Marvel. There weren't any writers there. All of DeFalco's buddies in the editorial department were writing pretty much everything and they sucked at it. It wasn't that Marvel didn't value artists, Marvel didn't value any creators at all and felt anyone could do the work.

Pretty sure ELFQUEST beats it.