Podcast Episode 185 :: 20 Years of IMAGE COMICS

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Recently, the fellas and myself realized that this year, 2012, marked the 20th anniversary of Image Comics. In 1992, seven former Marvel artists struck out on their own to make the kinds of books that they wanted to make, and inadvertently started a revolution.

Now I can imagine the eye-rolling going on from those of you who remember chromium covers and every other Image title called Blood (fill-in-the-blank). And that sort of derision is deserved to some extent. But putting aside all the gimmickry, it cannot be denied that Image Comics changed the industry forever in ways, ultimately, for the better.

As you'll hear on the roundtable, back in 1993, it would have taken a triple gatefold cover to contain my excitement for that initial line of Image books. That period was my personal 'Golden Age'. And Swain and Dwight both temper the conversation righteously with some great recollections of those days pulled from their memory banks.

From comic book millionaires to having an underground garage of exotic sports cars, to the direct market crash to becoming a respected independent publisher; we cover the gamut of Image's history — to the extreme.

-ADRiAN

'The Seven' in 1992: (clockwise from left, top row) Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, Jim Valentino, Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio.

'The Seven' in 2007 (below).

Comments

[ten]

First time listener, but I can tell this is going to be one hard habit to break. Great show, very entertaining.

SO!

47:20, The recap of Wildstorm / Image offices in La Jolla, CA... I went there once. Yeah, it was a fucking trip! There was this elevator door that required a special key to access the entry system with the swipe of a special employee ID. The office was humongous, even compared to some of the companies I've been associated with (which are huge apparel/footwear companies).

There will never be another time like that in comic-book history. I don't care if the old guard remember the early days of DC or Marvel with stars in their eyes. They never had a motherfucking SECRET LAIR like Image had. FTW x 1000th power. Insane days those were.