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sync & correction by f1nc0
~ Addic7ed.com ~

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For half a century of comics,

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there were only two shops in
town, Marvel and DC,

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and if you weren't working
for one of those,

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you just weren't working.

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I went in on day one hoping I'd
work for Marvel for 25 years.

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I just found out
that I wasn't wired that way.

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At some point,
you have to just say "no."

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A bunch of
Marvel artists who were, like,

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"Not for nothing, but we think
we could do this on our own."

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We didn't know
what we were doing exactly,

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but we knew
it was time for a change.

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None of us knew
how this was gonna work,

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or if it was gonna work.

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I said, "Remember that avalanche
we've been talking about all summer?

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I think it just became an atomic bomb."

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It was crazy.
It was a mini revolution.

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It was like that
"I don't give a [bleep] " attitude

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that kind of, I think, spoke to me.

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They were balls-to-the-wall
with it.

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And out of this crazy experiment

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came some of the biggest titles
in the last 25 years...

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but what these guys didn't realize

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is that what
they were doing selfishly

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would actually go on
to change the industry forever.

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_

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_

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When I was 12 years old, I'm
reading comics all hours of the day.

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Comics were hugely important to me.

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I start noticing
these names in the books.

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There are artists behind these books

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and they're all super talented,
and I gotta follow these guys.

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Late '80s, early '90s, man,
it was the artists' medium,

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and artists ruled the roost,

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and all the best artists
were collected at Marvel.

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You got your Marc Silvestri,

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your Erik Larsen,
Jim Valentino...

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but there were three undeniable
superstars at the time,

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Rob Liefeld,

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Todd McFarlane,
and Jim Lee.

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Those three guys
were drawing comics

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unlike they'd been drawn
up until that point,

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making the page-turns
so much more exciting

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as you would
go through these books.

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We broke the mould
of very static storytelling.

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I remember the day that I heard

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"Smells Like Teen Spirit"
by Nirvana,

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and the strum of the guitar and
the entire sound of that song,

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and how different it was,
and powerful and commanding.

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That's what
we were doing on the page.

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We had a very new sound
in comics.

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I was a huge Marvel fan growing up,
and so that was my dream,

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to work at Marvel
and to work on the X-Men.

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You have to figure out
how to get people to see you,

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and the way to do it is style.

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Look at how Todd McFarlane
can draw Spider-Man

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in this completely dynamic way
that nobody else has before,

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and you're talking about
a character

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that had been around for decades.
Suddenly, Todd McFarlane

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was putting his knees
over his ears...

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Spider-Man's, not Todd McFarlane's,
and it was dynamic.

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McFarlane, Liefeld, and Lee
were really coming up strong.

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Their work was being recognized,

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and they were very important to the
company. They sold a lot of books.

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Most days at the New York
Stock Exchange, the joint is jumping.

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Marvel Comics has enjoyed some
pretty heroic sales of late,

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an average of
8.7 million comics a month.

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Todd had just relaunched Spider-Man,

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one of the best-selling comics
of all time.

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Jim Lee had just done X-Men,
which, I think,

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is the best-selling comic book
of all time.

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Rob had relaunched X-Force.

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We'd had
the greatest financial success

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and the greatest unit sales
in the history of comics.

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I don't think
that will ever be broken.

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If one's goal is to break into

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one of the top two
comic book companies

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and work on the book
that you loved as a kid,

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it felt pretty good.

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It felt like it was
a pretty big achievement.

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I'd always wanted to work
for Marvel Comics,

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since I was a kid buying their
books from the liquor store.

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I never took it for granted.
Every day was exciting.

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I went in on day one hoping I'd
work for Marvel for 25 years.

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I just found out
that I wasn't wired that way.

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I think that
everybody watching now knows

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why we call this series

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"A Visit with
the Comic Book Greats."

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The problem with comics at the time

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is that DC and Marvel kind of had

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a monopoly on what creators could do.

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If you didn't want
to work at Marvel anymore,

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you could kind of cross the street
and go work at DC,

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but if you didn't want
to work with either of them,

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there weren't really
a lot of options for you.

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I created characters for Marvel,

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like Deadpool,
Cable, X-Force

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that are still going strong today.

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You know when you're in the zone.
I was in the zone,

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but suddenly I was hearing
from Marvel, you know,

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"Well, maybe we should
go this way or that way."

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I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wait, wait, wait.

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No, now I'm not driving
the car anymore?"

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You know, there's nobody that's...
that's indispensable.

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They can't be.

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The characters
are the most indispensable part.

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That's what the business was built on.

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So the book I'm doing

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is now selling more
than any book in the country.

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When I first walked
in the office, years ago,

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when it wasn't in the top 20,
they're going, "Help us!"

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And then I take it to the top,
I set records,

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and now they're going,
"We'll take over now, Todd," and...

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"Because it's too popular."

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In my world, the characters
had to come first,

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and, you know, Spider-Man
has to do certain things...

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and he can't do certain things.

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We used to tell advertisers
and merchandisers

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that "Spider-Man
will never disappoint you.

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He'll always do
what he's supposed to do."

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So you go,

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"I don't think this elevator
goes any higher here.

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I've reached the top
of my opportunities here."

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I had read the stories, and the
one that had the biggest impact

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was that they had
taken advantage of Jack Kirby.

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Jack "The King" Kirby,

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that was his nickname,
ladies and gentlemen.

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Jack Kirby actually
co-created 90% of the Marvel universe.

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We don't want to be the ones

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that create a kingdom of characters

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and then feel unhappy
with the way we were treated.

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I was on the phone with
both Erik, but mostly Rob Liefeld, a lot.

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Todd told me once,
"Ugh, you're calling me again?

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You call me
more than my mother,"

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and I was like, "Uh, I don't
know how to take that,

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but I'm just going to keep talking."

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The germ of the idea

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was as simple as Rob just
wanted to do his own stuff...

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any way he saw fit.

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Same with Erik,
same with myself.

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I decided I was going
to publish my own comic,

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and it was called The Executioners.

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I had a big emphasis
on the "X" in "Executioners."

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He'd taken out a one-page
ad in the Comics Buyer's Guide.

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It was just a bunch of characters
that he had come up with.

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I was so excited! I wrote my
check. I bought my ad.

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I'm gonna get a full-page foldout
ad in the Comics Buyer's Guide,

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which, The Comics Buyer's Guide

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was a huge weekly
comic book newspaper.

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And Marvel flipped out.

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They were giving him angry phone
calls, and, at that point...

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it was sort of
blood in the water, you know?

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We could see, like, "Oh, these
guys are... these guys are scared,"

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and that,
probably more than anything,

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was the genesis of Image Comics.

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The whisper mill
of the comic book community

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was a very strong and powerful thing.

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Rob was on the phone
all the time with Todd,

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and Rob was on the phone with Erik.

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Something big was going to happen,
but he couldn't talk about it

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and didn't really know
what shape it was going to take.

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We talked
about launching a label,

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and I said, "I'm ready to go.
I'm ready to do this now."

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We're going to get together,

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Erik, Rob, Todd,
and we're gonna have our books.

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Now, Rob says, "Hey, I've got
a buddy, Jim Valentino.

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Is it okay
if he comes along for the ride?"

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Sure, what the heck?

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We've got four.
The more the merrier to me.

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- We're now a boy band.
- Todd took over,

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and I asked him, I said,
"Are you really gonna do this?"

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and he said "Yeah,"
and I said, "Okay, then I'm in."

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Most of us were
still working at Marvel Comics,

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so we didn't talk in the open
about this.

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Definitely there were
secretive conversations.

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It was definitely, like, how
many guys can we draw into this,

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and how big can we make this?

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Now, at this point, we've involved
Jim Lee, but he won't commit.

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I'd been at Marvel for about five years.

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I got to work on the characters
I loved as a kid.

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I did very well by them.

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- Jim... was adored by Marvel.
- We were the bad boys.

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Mwah!
He was the golden boy.

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Nice kid, best art,
best-selling book for Marvel.

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They expected us to do something
stupid, but not Jim, you know?

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Nobody expected Jim to do it.

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Todd McFarlane had suggested
we bring Marc Silvestri onboard,

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and I'm gonna tell you,

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Marc is the premier illustrator
of our generation.

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So Todd and I are in New York City,

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and in the hotel lobby
where we were staying,

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Marc Silvestri's right there.

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"Do you have half an hour?"

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He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
It's about 11:30 at night,

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and I give him the best
sales pitch I've ever given.

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The way that Todd sells things,
and he's a great salesman,

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is that you just
don't want to be left behind.

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"Look at these Marvel
and DC guys," you know?

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"Look what they did
to Jack Kirby," you know?

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It was like,
"He gets nothing," you know?

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"He gets nothing!
We get nothing!

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This time, we've got something."
You know?

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It was genius.
I was like, "I'm onboard."

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Rob Liefeld, myself, and Todd,

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and we were all
in New York City

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because we had
some artwork of ours

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that was being
auctioned off at Sotheby's.

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And I run into Jim Lee,
and Jim goes, "Todd!"

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He goes,
"What are you doing?"

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I sort of told him
what we were doing,

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and he goes,
"Wow. Let me think about that."

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I appear to be
a fairly nondescript person,

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but there, in my heart,
I really like doing

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things that other people
wouldn't try to do.

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A few hours later, he phones
me up, and he goes, "Todd...

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You mind if... You mind if I join?"
and I go,

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"What? We've got the Golden Boy?...
Yeah, you can come."

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Once Jim made that move, the
train was off and running.

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- Hey.
- How are you doing?

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- How's it going, bud?
- Hey, what's up?

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Jim wanted Whilce to join,

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so everybody just went,
"Yeah, sure."

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I get a call from Jim Lee,

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and he says, "Hey, look,
there's something happening,

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and we'd like you to be part of it,

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but, uh,
I can't tell you about it,

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but, you know, if you can,
think about it."

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Four, five, six, seven...

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We just grabbed three X-Men guys.

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That was... That was the
best-selling books at that point. Wow.

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Basically,
all of the Spider-Man office

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and all of the X-Men office

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is now combining
into one new publishing label.

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That... was exciting.
That was very exciting.

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Todd had decided

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00:11:15,134 --> 00:11:17,402
that he wanted
to formally inform Marvel

237
00:11:17,437 --> 00:11:20,672
that we were leaving,
which I didn't understand,

238
00:11:20,707 --> 00:11:22,840
but if he was gonna do it,
I'm going too.

239
00:11:22,875 --> 00:11:24,842
I'm gonna be part of that ride.

240
00:11:24,877 --> 00:11:26,344
So Jim and I went along.

241
00:11:28,114 --> 00:11:30,081
Marvel was closed for the day.

242
00:11:30,116 --> 00:11:32,350
I just remember walking
through the dark bullpen,

243
00:11:32,385 --> 00:11:35,086
and there was Terry's dark room.

244
00:11:35,121 --> 00:11:37,055
That might've been the first
time I ever went to his office,

245
00:11:37,090 --> 00:11:38,157
maybe the second.

246
00:11:38,158 --> 00:11:39,758
It was supposed
just to be us and Terry.

247
00:11:39,792 --> 00:11:42,660
By coincidence,
the Editor-in-Chief happened

248
00:11:42,661 --> 00:11:44,328
to be going to get a coffee.

249
00:11:44,363 --> 00:11:46,998
"Oh! What are you guys
doing here?"

250
00:11:47,033 --> 00:11:51,436
I did stumble in, in that I wasn't
intentionally going to a meeting.

251
00:11:51,471 --> 00:11:52,904
You know, I just showed up,

252
00:11:52,905 --> 00:11:55,339
knocked on the door,
and was invited in.

253
00:11:55,374 --> 00:11:58,409
They weren't happy.
They really wanted control

254
00:11:58,444 --> 00:12:03,014
and a very large
percentage of the profits,

255
00:12:03,049 --> 00:12:06,718
and basically I said,
"That's not gonna happen."

256
00:12:06,753 --> 00:12:09,788
I'm sure we all have our warped sense
of what happened in that meeting.

257
00:12:09,789 --> 00:12:11,756
My memory goes something like this.

258
00:12:11,791 --> 00:12:15,426
"We're here to say we are
leaving Marvel Comic Books.

259
00:12:15,461 --> 00:12:20,031
We're just telling you why we're
leaving, and if you don't do something,

260
00:12:20,032 --> 00:12:21,899
you may have
another seven tomorrow."

261
00:12:21,934 --> 00:12:26,354
Terry's trying to come up with
solutions to what he perceived

262
00:12:26,355 --> 00:12:30,775
as our discontent, and
Todd was having none of it.

263
00:12:30,810 --> 00:12:32,777
Todd told him
about how his dad,

264
00:12:32,812 --> 00:12:36,981
when he worked at the factory,
they gave him a watch.

265
00:12:37,016 --> 00:12:39,951
"They gave my father a watch
for his work."

266
00:12:39,986 --> 00:12:41,886
Like, "We don't even get a watch,

267
00:12:41,921 --> 00:12:44,956
not even a watch from Marvel Comics,"

268
00:12:44,991 --> 00:12:47,191
and I was like, "A watch?
What the hell?"

269
00:12:47,226 --> 00:12:49,795
I think Jim... It was the first time
Jim Lee had heard about the watch.

270
00:12:49,796 --> 00:12:53,231
I don't think I said much,
other than "That's interesting."

271
00:12:53,266 --> 00:12:55,366
Was I surprised?
Yeah, I was a little shocked.

272
00:12:55,401 --> 00:12:57,835
I had shareholders
that would ask me,

273
00:12:57,870 --> 00:13:01,005
"What are you gonna do now that
you lost your top three artists?"

274
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:02,307
We left the meeting.

275
00:13:02,308 --> 00:13:05,243
Just like a movie, as the
elevator doors are closing,

276
00:13:05,278 --> 00:13:09,247
Tom DeFalco's on the outside,
and his last words to us were,

277
00:13:09,282 --> 00:13:12,483
"Hey, if it doesn't work out,
you've always got a home!"

278
00:13:14,587 --> 00:13:18,314
And I remember I looked at Jim,
and I just went,

279
00:13:18,349 --> 00:13:21,859
"Wow...
They think we can't do this."

280
00:13:21,894 --> 00:13:24,462
Marvel Entertainment
fell three and a quarter today.

281
00:13:24,497 --> 00:13:26,931
Eight artists are jumping ship
for a competitor.

282
00:13:26,966 --> 00:13:28,566
Some investors did the same.

283
00:13:28,568 --> 00:13:31,536
The industry trades
were writing Image's obituary

284
00:13:31,571 --> 00:13:34,606
from the moment they got the
press release announcing its birth.

285
00:13:34,607 --> 00:13:37,141
Marvel and DC, at the time,
essentially had a monopoly.

286
00:13:37,176 --> 00:13:39,110
They controlled distribution,
they controlled printing,

287
00:13:39,145 --> 00:13:41,045
they controlled the retailers
to a certain extent,

288
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:44,232
so the idea that another company
could be formed that could

289
00:13:44,233 --> 00:13:47,385
actually compete with them was
absolutely unheard of at the time.

290
00:13:47,420 --> 00:13:49,387
We represented
a generational shift.

291
00:13:49,422 --> 00:13:55,159
What united us for several years
was the industry rising up against us.

292
00:13:55,194 --> 00:13:58,563
You know, I'll confess. I didn't
think Image Comics was gonna last.

293
00:13:58,598 --> 00:14:01,432
We actually had professionals
dissing us publicly.

294
00:14:01,467 --> 00:14:04,502
"Ah, these guys, bunch of losers,
bunch of idiots, a bunch of..."

295
00:14:04,503 --> 00:14:06,103
"So unappreciative."

296
00:14:06,138 --> 00:14:10,174
None of us knew how this was gonna
work, or if it was gonna work.

297
00:14:10,209 --> 00:14:14,512
I had put every dime I had
into a down payment on a house.

298
00:14:14,547 --> 00:14:16,614
There was no precedence
to speak of.

299
00:14:16,649 --> 00:14:19,150
There was nothing that
we could turn to and say,

300
00:14:19,185 --> 00:14:22,019
"Well, these guys made it huge."

301
00:14:22,054 --> 00:14:25,122
It had been quite the opposite.

302
00:14:25,157 --> 00:14:28,694
What I told my wife at the time
was I either made

303
00:14:28,695 --> 00:14:31,362
the worst mistake
I've ever made in my entire life,

304
00:14:31,397 --> 00:14:34,565
or I made the best call
I've ever made in my entire life,

305
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:38,102
and we're just going to have
to wait to see which one it was.

306
00:14:48,247 --> 00:14:53,017
February 1st, 1992,
our very first meeting.

307
00:14:53,052 --> 00:14:54,928
We were supposed to say,
"Here's the book we're gonna do."

308
00:14:54,963 --> 00:14:59,590
We had to get practical.
Were we confident, cocky, or smug?

309
00:14:59,625 --> 00:15:02,493
I would say all the above,
if you mixed us all together.

310
00:15:02,528 --> 00:15:04,128
The thing that people
should be aware of

311
00:15:04,163 --> 00:15:07,031
is there was no group-think
going into this.

312
00:15:07,066 --> 00:15:09,467
We only had two rules...
and the first rule

313
00:15:09,468 --> 00:15:13,371
that was that Image Comics
Incorporated would own nothing, ever.

314
00:15:13,406 --> 00:15:16,474
The other rule was that we would
never get in one another's way,

315
00:15:16,509 --> 00:15:20,544
- as far as business went.
- Everybody had a different agenda.

316
00:15:20,579 --> 00:15:25,483
Todd was out to make
an anti-Marvel statement,

317
00:15:25,518 --> 00:15:29,520
but I just wanted the freedom
to do whatever I wanted.

318
00:15:29,555 --> 00:15:34,191
None of us considered this might
be a problem down the road.

319
00:15:34,226 --> 00:15:38,362
The book that I launched Image
with was called Youngblood.

320
00:15:38,397 --> 00:15:41,699
Youngblood is a
celebrity-focused superhero team.

321
00:15:41,734 --> 00:15:43,234
My first book at Image was called

322
00:15:43,235 --> 00:15:45,036
WildC.A.T.s,
Covert Action Teams,

323
00:15:45,071 --> 00:15:50,107
a group of espionage agents that
were after superpower villains.

324
00:15:50,142 --> 00:15:54,111
I created Spawn,
the character that today, I still do.

325
00:15:54,146 --> 00:15:57,949
Spawn is a man who's died.

326
00:15:57,984 --> 00:16:01,018
He's back, but it's five years later.

327
00:16:01,053 --> 00:16:04,956
Savage Dragon was this
super-powered police officer.

328
00:16:04,991 --> 00:16:08,460
He was just a guy who kicked ass.
That's all I wanted.

329
00:16:08,461 --> 00:16:11,162
My book for Image
was Cyber Force,

330
00:16:11,197 --> 00:16:14,031
mutants with
cybernetic enhancements.

331
00:16:14,066 --> 00:16:16,067
It...
You know, it was my X-Men.

332
00:16:16,102 --> 00:16:18,502
I did a book called Shadowhawk.

333
00:16:18,537 --> 00:16:22,006
I've never bought into the
"superheroes don't kill" idea.

334
00:16:22,041 --> 00:16:26,025
Well, he didn't kill.
He... he maimed.

335
00:16:26,579 --> 00:16:31,048
The first Image comic book
to be published was Youngblood,

336
00:16:31,083 --> 00:16:34,986
and as I sent it off to the printer,
there was a lot of buzz building,

337
00:16:35,021 --> 00:16:38,789
and we had no idea
where it was gonna end up.

338
00:16:44,030 --> 00:16:46,230
This may look like
any other Hollywood premiere,

339
00:16:46,265 --> 00:16:49,500
but this one is unusual
even by Hollywood standards.

340
00:16:49,535 --> 00:16:52,436
It's for the hippest
new comic book, Youngblood.

341
00:16:52,471 --> 00:16:56,241
Observers say it could be the
next Superman or Spider-Man comic.

342
00:16:56,242 --> 00:16:59,777
Youngblood definitely
changed everything.

343
00:16:59,812 --> 00:17:01,346
We knew it was gonna work.

344
00:17:01,347 --> 00:17:04,215
We didn't know
it was gonna "really work."

345
00:17:04,250 --> 00:17:07,118
Then Spawn comes out...
Bam! Even more sales.

346
00:17:07,153 --> 00:17:09,453
Then Dragon comes out,
does tremendous.

347
00:17:09,488 --> 00:17:12,723
Then WildC.A.T.s comes out,
almost as much as Spawn.

348
00:17:12,758 --> 00:17:16,561
I mean, it was just
hit after hit after hit.

349
00:17:29,075 --> 00:17:32,410
I remember when Spawn came out,
and that was just...

350
00:17:32,445 --> 00:17:36,213
That was a jawbreaker for me.
It felt like, you know,

351
00:17:36,248 --> 00:17:38,749
Wu Tang Clan
came out at that time, too,

352
00:17:38,784 --> 00:17:40,451
and they came out
with that gnarly-ass video

353
00:17:40,486 --> 00:17:42,520
where they didn't
have pupils in their eyes.

354
00:17:42,555 --> 00:17:44,522
It was just a vibe, you know?

355
00:17:44,557 --> 00:17:47,525
They really were able to capture,
I think, the '90s really well,

356
00:17:47,526 --> 00:17:50,461
for me, as a teenager,
'cause I was kind of dark.

357
00:17:51,397 --> 00:17:53,431
Everything
that was coming out of Image

358
00:17:53,466 --> 00:17:58,503
that first, I'll say, six
months or a year, phenomenal!

359
00:17:58,504 --> 00:18:00,838
For 13-year-olds like me,
the news that all those guys

360
00:18:00,873 --> 00:18:03,358
were jumping ship at Marvel
and forming their own company

361
00:18:03,359 --> 00:18:05,877
and creating new characters
was super exciting.

362
00:18:05,878 --> 00:18:08,212
- But you've read comics?
- I loved comics when I was young.

363
00:18:08,247 --> 00:18:09,981
- Oh, cool, okay.
- But this one is so different.

364
00:18:09,982 --> 00:18:11,582
I'm seeing cats get
out of bed with women?

365
00:18:11,617 --> 00:18:13,685
- That never happens.
- Hey... Yeah, well...

366
00:18:13,686 --> 00:18:18,176
The seismic impact that it had...
It affected everyone.

367
00:18:18,211 --> 00:18:21,225
It was impossible not to see
how suddenly, how overnight,

368
00:18:21,260 --> 00:18:23,612
there was this major player,
and it was like the inmates

369
00:18:23,613 --> 00:18:25,963
had taken over the asylum
for a little bit.

370
00:18:27,399 --> 00:18:30,234
One of our focuses was on production.

371
00:18:30,269 --> 00:18:31,402
We were going
to make the books look

372
00:18:31,403 --> 00:18:33,337
as good as
we could possibly make them.

373
00:18:33,372 --> 00:18:35,706
Jim's manager at the time said,

374
00:18:35,741 --> 00:18:38,209
"I'm gonna bring in
some Mac computers."

375
00:18:38,244 --> 00:18:40,311
- "Cool!"
- "And we're gonna do this PhotoShop thing.

376
00:18:40,312 --> 00:18:43,148
- Whilce, can you learn it?"
- "Yeah!"

377
00:18:43,149 --> 00:18:44,283
So if you look around this store,

378
00:18:44,284 --> 00:18:48,219
you'll see that all these comics
are colored digitally.

379
00:18:48,254 --> 00:18:50,588
That had never been done
prior to Image Comics.

380
00:18:50,623 --> 00:18:52,656
We printed
our comics on better paper,

381
00:18:52,691 --> 00:18:57,629
so the actual comic books themselves
looked better, felt better.

382
00:18:57,630 --> 00:19:01,165
Some of that
was just creative ego, frankly.

383
00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:03,667
They wanted their books
to be the best.

384
00:19:03,702 --> 00:19:05,302
In August of 1992,

385
00:19:05,304 --> 00:19:07,638
Image Comics became
the number-two comic company.

386
00:19:07,673 --> 00:19:10,374
We became the number-two
comic company with seven comics.

387
00:19:10,409 --> 00:19:13,311
DC, with their 60 comics that month,
was number three.

388
00:19:13,312 --> 00:19:17,314
We were in Wall Street
Journal, we were in magazines.

389
00:19:17,349 --> 00:19:19,250
We had our own tent
at Chicago Comic-Con.

390
00:19:19,285 --> 00:19:20,885
That's when we all kind of went,

391
00:19:20,886 --> 00:19:25,489
"Really? This is kind of crazy.
Kind of cool, but kind of crazy."

392
00:19:25,524 --> 00:19:27,892
The fun
we were having was ridiculous.

393
00:19:27,927 --> 00:19:32,598
We had three of the biggest
creators in comics, ever,

394
00:19:32,599 --> 00:19:36,801
and the fans could start at
ground zero, which was a big thing.

395
00:19:36,802 --> 00:19:40,838
Within Image Comics, we each
created our own separate studios.

396
00:19:40,873 --> 00:19:42,706
My studio was Extreme Studios.

397
00:19:42,741 --> 00:19:43,741
Jim's was WildStorm,

398
00:19:43,742 --> 00:19:47,578
and then later on,
Marc would create Top Cow.

399
00:19:47,613 --> 00:19:50,214
We went after some of the most
talented guys in the business,

400
00:19:50,249 --> 00:19:51,382
and I'd say, "So,
what are you getting a page?

401
00:19:51,383 --> 00:19:54,785
You getting $30 a page?
I'll pay you $300."

402
00:19:54,820 --> 00:19:55,954
It... ended the discussion.

403
00:19:55,955 --> 00:20:01,858
This becomes the moment, too, where
"be careful what you wish for."

404
00:20:06,599 --> 00:20:09,366
It's great making the
toys that you want...

405
00:20:09,401 --> 00:20:11,845
so great,
I made some for myself!

406
00:20:12,304 --> 00:20:14,772
Spawn, from Todd Toys.

407
00:20:15,441 --> 00:20:17,308
With the success
that we were experiencing,

408
00:20:17,343 --> 00:20:20,244
I was able to do
some creative things...

409
00:20:20,279 --> 00:20:23,398
For instance, go off and get one of
the top special effects prosthetics

410
00:20:23,399 --> 00:20:27,518
designers in the business to
create a seven-foot Badrock costume.

411
00:20:27,553 --> 00:20:28,786
And then, like, "Well,
what are you gonna do next?"

412
00:20:28,787 --> 00:20:30,454
"Make a spaceship."

413
00:20:30,489 --> 00:20:32,023
We decided, okay, well,
Todd's got the Spawnmobile,

414
00:20:32,024 --> 00:20:33,577
he's got Spawn Alley, well,

415
00:20:33,578 --> 00:20:35,907
we're gonna do the
Youngblood Battle Cruiser.

416
00:20:35,942 --> 00:20:37,695
Fans would be able
to go in, sit in it,

417
00:20:37,730 --> 00:20:40,497
they could pose
and have pictures taken in it.

418
00:20:40,532 --> 00:20:42,700
It was awesome,
but they never factored in

419
00:20:42,735 --> 00:20:45,002
how much it would cost
to actually break it down

420
00:20:45,037 --> 00:20:46,804
and ship it
to the next convention.

421
00:20:46,839 --> 00:20:49,640
You had to store the thing,
you had to set the thing up,

422
00:20:49,675 --> 00:20:53,978
you had to cart the thing around...
it did nothing but cost money.

423
00:20:54,013 --> 00:20:56,547
I sold it for virtually
pennies on the dollar

424
00:20:56,582 --> 00:20:59,283
to a paintball park
here in Southern California,

425
00:20:59,318 --> 00:21:00,852
but I was just happy
to get rid of it.

426
00:21:00,853 --> 00:21:02,913
That's when
you have too much money.

427
00:21:04,890 --> 00:21:06,790
We were just
these renegade punk kids

428
00:21:06,825 --> 00:21:10,628
who were going off
and doing their own stuff,

429
00:21:10,663 --> 00:21:12,363
and there was criticism of it

430
00:21:12,398 --> 00:21:16,700
because not everything
that came about was...

431
00:21:16,735 --> 00:21:19,403
completely awesome
right out of the gate.

432
00:21:19,438 --> 00:21:21,906
There were books
that seemed to be empty and flashy,

433
00:21:21,907 --> 00:21:25,509
there were books that had a
lot of possibility to them...

434
00:21:25,544 --> 00:21:27,078
The one thing that they had

435
00:21:27,079 --> 00:21:30,681
that clearly was an appeal
was the artwork.

436
00:21:30,716 --> 00:21:32,016
Whether the stories
were good or not

437
00:21:32,017 --> 00:21:34,852
didn't seem to be
a make-or-break factor.

438
00:21:34,887 --> 00:21:39,724
We were novices as writers,
and we come out of the gate

439
00:21:39,725 --> 00:21:43,927
with badly written books.
Okay, I'll concede it.

440
00:21:43,962 --> 00:21:46,330
And we crushed it sales-wise.

441
00:21:46,365 --> 00:21:48,432
Why? Because they liked our art,

442
00:21:48,467 --> 00:21:52,003
and you know who that
bugged the most? The writers!

443
00:21:52,004 --> 00:21:55,572
Image was playing to the era
and its strengths.

444
00:21:55,607 --> 00:21:57,808
The men looked like they could
kill you with a pinkie,

445
00:21:57,843 --> 00:22:01,412
and the women looked like
they suffered chronic back pain.

446
00:22:01,447 --> 00:22:05,849
The breasts on some of them
were of terrifying dimension.

447
00:22:05,884 --> 00:22:08,786
I mean, the joke is "pouches."

448
00:22:08,821 --> 00:22:13,390
Everybody had 90 different
thigh straps full of...

449
00:22:13,425 --> 00:22:15,726
I don't know
what they carried in there,

450
00:22:15,761 --> 00:22:20,331
- like, lip balm, maybe?
- Yes, the work was juvenile,

451
00:22:20,366 --> 00:22:22,833
and, yes, the work was aimed
at 14-year-old boys,

452
00:22:22,868 --> 00:22:25,402
but I was a 14-year-old boy,

453
00:22:25,437 --> 00:22:27,971
and 95% of the audience,
if not more at that point,

454
00:22:28,006 --> 00:22:30,607
was 14-year-old boys.

455
00:22:30,642 --> 00:22:33,977
I was a girl,
and I still loved Image Comics.

456
00:22:34,012 --> 00:22:36,947
It was like that
"I don't give a [bleep] " attitude

457
00:22:36,982 --> 00:22:38,916
that kind of, I think, spoke to me.

458
00:22:38,951 --> 00:22:41,118
I never really cared
what people thought.

459
00:22:41,153 --> 00:22:43,821
I was just happy
that Image Comics existed,

460
00:22:43,856 --> 00:22:46,657
because it had a voice
that I resonated with.

461
00:22:51,830 --> 00:22:53,064
People at this convention

462
00:22:53,065 --> 00:22:55,866
in San Diego, California
know something many of us don't.

463
00:22:55,901 --> 00:22:59,454
Over the past 10 years, some
of the most popular comics

464
00:22:59,455 --> 00:23:01,105
have become hot investments.

465
00:23:01,140 --> 00:23:03,540
I don't buy expensive books.

466
00:23:03,575 --> 00:23:05,542
I buy ones
I think will become expensive.

467
00:23:05,577 --> 00:23:09,079
By the time I retire, I'll liquidate
everything and retire comfortably.

468
00:23:09,114 --> 00:23:10,014
A lot of Image Comics

469
00:23:10,015 --> 00:23:12,116
and a lot of comics in general
back then

470
00:23:12,151 --> 00:23:16,487
was fueled by the speculator
market... and we knew that.

471
00:23:16,522 --> 00:23:18,122
I remember having
this conversation with Jim Lee

472
00:23:18,157 --> 00:23:21,158
about "how long do you think
this is gonna last?"

473
00:23:21,193 --> 00:23:24,862
Speculators
were buying comics in droves,

474
00:23:24,897 --> 00:23:28,699
just people were filling up
basements with boxes of comics

475
00:23:28,734 --> 00:23:31,168
that they thought were gonna
put their kids through college.

476
00:23:31,203 --> 00:23:34,004
You could sell
a million copies of a comic book

477
00:23:34,039 --> 00:23:36,975
just by showing people a cool-ass cover
and saying it had "number one" on it.

478
00:23:36,976 --> 00:23:40,110
You know how many alternate
Spider-Man "number one" covers

479
00:23:40,145 --> 00:23:42,914
I got, man? It's crazy.
I've got the platinum one,

480
00:23:42,915 --> 00:23:46,650
the holographic-type paper one...
I've got the one with the card in it.

481
00:23:46,685 --> 00:23:48,585
I've got the one with
the certificate in the back.

482
00:23:48,620 --> 00:23:51,249
These are two separate
posters, the same book,

483
00:23:51,284 --> 00:23:55,492
- but different editions of the same book.
- Right.

484
00:23:55,527 --> 00:23:58,729
Image...
Image was part of it.

485
00:23:58,764 --> 00:24:02,866
As an entire industry,
we took advantage of our consumer.

486
00:24:02,901 --> 00:24:05,736
You never, ever want to do that.

487
00:24:05,771 --> 00:24:08,835
Why? They will...
they will just leave you.

488
00:24:16,715 --> 00:24:18,715
By the mid '90s, sales
were down across the board,

489
00:24:18,750 --> 00:24:20,117
including at Image,

490
00:24:20,118 --> 00:24:23,053
but they were still a major
presence in the industry,

491
00:24:23,088 --> 00:24:26,190
but readers had no idea what
was going on behind the scenes.

492
00:24:26,225 --> 00:24:28,792
Image Comics
was born of rivalries.

493
00:24:28,827 --> 00:24:31,028
Rivalries are great.
They drive people.

494
00:24:31,063 --> 00:24:36,667
I would say that the six of us
were closer to being brothers.

495
00:24:36,702 --> 00:24:39,603
You're always in competition
with your brother.

496
00:24:39,638 --> 00:24:44,007
If we were guilty of anything back in
the early days of Image, it was hubris.

497
00:24:44,042 --> 00:24:46,944
Marvel and DC
weren't really our concern,

498
00:24:46,979 --> 00:24:48,546
because people were gonna
buy Marvel books

499
00:24:48,547 --> 00:24:49,814
and they were gonna
buy DC books.

500
00:24:49,815 --> 00:24:52,049
So who was gonna
be our competition?

501
00:24:52,084 --> 00:24:55,480
- My partner is my competition.
- It was like frat houses...

502
00:24:55,515 --> 00:24:59,790
Fighting each other
over ideas, over people.

503
00:24:59,825 --> 00:25:02,493
Who gets the new hot kid
that now walks into the studio?

504
00:25:02,528 --> 00:25:06,196
And if I do have a hot kid
that I nurture,

505
00:25:06,231 --> 00:25:08,899
and you then give him more
money than I'm giving him,

506
00:25:08,934 --> 00:25:10,901
should we be
doing that to each other?

507
00:25:10,936 --> 00:25:13,704
Giving people that freedom,
I think, was part of Image.

508
00:25:13,739 --> 00:25:15,006
It's, like, that's what we wanted.

509
00:25:15,007 --> 00:25:18,509
The autonomy that we had set up
was also beginning

510
00:25:18,544 --> 00:25:21,750
to be the source
of all of our tensions.

511
00:25:27,586 --> 00:25:29,120
In 1996,

512
00:25:29,121 --> 00:25:31,989
Jim Lee and myself
were contacted by Marvel Comics

513
00:25:32,024 --> 00:25:35,926
to come back and bolster some
of their classic characters

514
00:25:35,961 --> 00:25:39,296
who had fallen on hard sales times.

515
00:25:39,331 --> 00:25:42,065
They said, "Look,
these characters are suffering.

516
00:25:42,100 --> 00:25:46,803
We want your help in sort of restoring
some shine to the characters."

517
00:25:46,838 --> 00:25:49,206
I thought it was a big win
and a cool opportunity.

518
00:25:49,241 --> 00:25:52,743
These were characters I hadn't really
worked on while I was at Marvel.

519
00:25:52,778 --> 00:25:55,646
You know, that was when...

520
00:25:55,681 --> 00:25:57,915
as opposed to the early days
of Image, people needed money.

521
00:25:57,916 --> 00:26:03,253
Marvel came and basically
cash-whipped Jim Lee and Rob...

522
00:26:03,288 --> 00:26:06,431
And it's just, like,
now it's just about the cash!

523
00:26:06,466 --> 00:26:09,160
Like, oh, my gosh, now we're
administering even more,

524
00:26:09,161 --> 00:26:11,128
because now it's like I can be bought.

525
00:26:11,163 --> 00:26:12,146
When the news of Heroes Reborn

526
00:26:12,147 --> 00:26:14,299
reached the other partners,
they were very upset.

527
00:26:14,300 --> 00:26:18,001
It was the first time things
were getting openly ugly,

528
00:26:18,036 --> 00:26:21,104
and you're like, "Oh, we're not
being polite to each other anymore.

529
00:26:21,139 --> 00:26:22,806
This is...
These guys are pissed."

530
00:26:22,841 --> 00:26:24,741
I sat next to Todd on a panel

531
00:26:24,776 --> 00:26:27,044
when all the questions
for Jim and I that summer

532
00:26:27,079 --> 00:26:29,079
were about our deal with Marvel.

533
00:26:29,114 --> 00:26:30,648
He lost his cool.
He yelled at the fans.

534
00:26:30,649 --> 00:26:33,584
"This is for Image!
There will be a panel later

535
00:26:33,619 --> 00:26:37,020
where you can talk to them
about Marvel!"

536
00:26:37,055 --> 00:26:40,824
This was getting to the point where
it just... it wasn't fun at all.

537
00:26:40,859 --> 00:26:44,861
Under the Image Comics deal, I
owned all the books that I created,

538
00:26:44,896 --> 00:26:46,931
so I began to publish them

539
00:26:46,932 --> 00:26:50,867
under another company I created
called Maximum Press.

540
00:26:50,902 --> 00:26:53,136
The other owners
were not happy about that,

541
00:26:53,171 --> 00:26:56,073
because they actually saw that
as competition to Image.

542
00:26:56,108 --> 00:26:58,642
Todd sent me a letter that said,

543
00:26:58,677 --> 00:27:00,911
"If you do not bring these books
back from Maximum Press,

544
00:27:00,946 --> 00:27:03,113
we are going to take
legal action against you,"

545
00:27:03,148 --> 00:27:08,385
and I responded with, "I don't care.
I'm not bringing them back."

546
00:27:08,420 --> 00:27:14,358
Our pages are actually 10 by 15,
which is about the size of Rob's ego.

547
00:27:14,393 --> 00:27:15,993
There did
get to be certain arguments

548
00:27:16,028 --> 00:27:18,061
that had taken place
with Rob Liefeld.

549
00:27:18,096 --> 00:27:22,132
There ended up
being enough points of friction

550
00:27:22,167 --> 00:27:25,002
that Marc Silvestri was like,

551
00:27:25,037 --> 00:27:28,772
"Look, if this guy's gonna be here,
I got to go."

552
00:27:28,807 --> 00:27:34,078
Extreme Studios went after one of
Marc's top guys, and Marc had had it.

553
00:27:34,079 --> 00:27:35,312
You know, at that point,
it was, like,

554
00:27:35,313 --> 00:27:37,347
"What are we doing here?
This is insanity."

555
00:27:37,382 --> 00:27:41,284
I just couldn't live
in that environment anymore.

556
00:27:41,319 --> 00:27:43,120
I got a letter
pushed under my door

557
00:27:43,155 --> 00:27:45,856
by the publisher of Image Comics
that Marc has resigned.

558
00:27:45,857 --> 00:27:47,258
Now, I'm not stupid.

559
00:27:47,259 --> 00:27:50,027
I knew that that was ramping
up hostilities, and...

560
00:27:50,062 --> 00:27:52,796
but I-I got to tell you, I didn't care.

561
00:27:52,831 --> 00:27:55,899
Todd called me, and we talked...

562
00:27:55,934 --> 00:27:58,201
and I said, "I can't deal
with the B.S. anymore."

563
00:27:58,236 --> 00:28:02,739
And I go, "What if you're not
the one that goes?"

564
00:28:02,774 --> 00:28:07,811
We were gonna meet
in a suite at the Marriott.

565
00:28:07,846 --> 00:28:09,446
I wanted to do a little espionage.

566
00:28:09,448 --> 00:28:14,084
I bought the room next to the suite,
and Matt and I stayed in that suite

567
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,420
and literally, we are
laying on the floor,

568
00:28:16,455 --> 00:28:20,191
looking through the light in
the door, but I hear everything.

569
00:28:20,192 --> 00:28:21,326
"I guess Rob's not coming."

570
00:28:21,327 --> 00:28:24,795
They all kept waiting
for me to come into the room,

571
00:28:24,830 --> 00:28:27,964
but I thought this would be
an honest assessment, you know,

572
00:28:27,999 --> 00:28:32,903
and I hear Todd and Marc and Jim
and Erik and Jim Lee discuss me.

573
00:28:32,904 --> 00:28:38,008
Valentino is reluctant,
Erik Larsen's pissed off at me,

574
00:28:38,043 --> 00:28:40,277
Todd's like, "We've got to do
what we've got to do,"

575
00:28:40,312 --> 00:28:45,215
Jim Lee is quiet,
and I was like, "Yeah, we're done."

576
00:28:45,250 --> 00:28:48,085
Right before
we were going to vote him out,

577
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,921
Rob faxed in his resignation.

578
00:28:50,956 --> 00:28:54,191
When the news broke
that Rob was leaving Image Comics,

579
00:28:54,226 --> 00:28:56,159
it was like the Beatles breaking up.

580
00:28:56,194 --> 00:28:59,029
You really got a sense that they
were all the best of friends,

581
00:28:59,064 --> 00:29:01,732
and, you know, this was
kind of the first indication

582
00:29:01,733 --> 00:29:04,401
that that wasn't true.
It was kind of heartbreaking.

583
00:29:04,436 --> 00:29:06,203
I don't think
any of those decisions

584
00:29:06,238 --> 00:29:08,305
were made lightly by any of us,

585
00:29:08,340 --> 00:29:11,441
and, actually, he and Todd
were super close as friends,

586
00:29:11,476 --> 00:29:14,144
and I'm sure that impacted
their friendship for a bit,

587
00:29:14,179 --> 00:29:16,379
and it impacted
my relationship with Rob.

588
00:29:16,414 --> 00:29:18,815
I didn't talk to him
for years after that.

589
00:29:18,850 --> 00:29:21,384
I'm not proud
of that moment in our history.

590
00:29:21,419 --> 00:29:24,254
We had success hard and fast.

591
00:29:24,289 --> 00:29:26,123
The money came, you know...

592
00:29:26,158 --> 00:29:31,453
It was just...
It was overwhelming.

593
00:29:31,530 --> 00:29:34,798
The sales slump which
threatens to engulf the comic world

594
00:29:34,833 --> 00:29:38,401
could be the one enemy
its superheroes cannot defeat.

595
00:29:38,436 --> 00:29:41,371
Since peaking in the early 1990s,

596
00:29:41,406 --> 00:29:45,308
over half of America's comic shops
have gone out of business.

597
00:29:45,343 --> 00:29:51,081
About 1995, the speculator
boom crashed, as they do.

598
00:29:51,116 --> 00:29:53,784
When the guys
who were planning to cash in

599
00:29:53,819 --> 00:29:56,987
went into their local comic
book store and tried to cash in,

600
00:29:57,022 --> 00:30:00,357
found out their store was gonna
give them 10 cents on the dollar,

601
00:30:00,392 --> 00:30:02,559
then the bottom fell out.

602
00:30:02,594 --> 00:30:04,394
Every year, the numbers were falling.

603
00:30:04,429 --> 00:30:05,863
Every month,
the numbers were falling.

604
00:30:05,864 --> 00:30:07,331
Every week, sometimes,
numbers were falling,

605
00:30:07,332 --> 00:30:09,399
and nobody could really stop it.

606
00:30:09,434 --> 00:30:13,403
The business was seemingly
kind of falling apart around us,

607
00:30:13,438 --> 00:30:15,238
and also, I was just burned out.

608
00:30:15,273 --> 00:30:18,509
That kind of got me thinking
about what it would be like

609
00:30:18,510 --> 00:30:21,878
if I took WildStorm and
partnered with a bigger company.

610
00:30:21,913 --> 00:30:26,316
Jim Lee took his company, WildStorm,
to DC Comics and sold it,

611
00:30:26,351 --> 00:30:29,319
and eventually
became an executive there.

612
00:30:29,354 --> 00:30:33,390
That was a shock.
When Jim sold to DC, that was a shock.

613
00:30:33,425 --> 00:30:38,061
Rob's leaving, I think,
just leaves a bitter taste,

614
00:30:38,096 --> 00:30:41,298
but Jim Lee was a bigger punch.

615
00:30:41,333 --> 00:30:44,067
You know, Jim was Jim.

616
00:30:44,102 --> 00:30:46,436
WildStorm was a massive studio.

617
00:30:46,471 --> 00:30:49,005
They were our largest
market share within Image.

618
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:51,041
It was a big blow to us.

619
00:30:51,076 --> 00:30:54,144
We were worried for a minute,
you know, would we survive?

620
00:30:54,179 --> 00:30:57,727
and I think a lot of us
got kind of scared.

621
00:31:06,291 --> 00:31:07,958
I think Image floundered for a bit

622
00:31:07,993 --> 00:31:11,294
at the end of the '90s
and into the early 2000s.

623
00:31:11,329 --> 00:31:15,298
Jim Lee leaving
sort of forced us to take on books

624
00:31:15,333 --> 00:31:17,000
that we normally wouldn't.

625
00:31:17,035 --> 00:31:21,205
We had lost some of the business
dealings with our distributor,

626
00:31:21,206 --> 00:31:24,407
so we needed to get
our market share back up.

627
00:31:24,442 --> 00:31:28,879
At first, we were taking on stuff
that we weren't overly proud of...

628
00:31:28,914 --> 00:31:31,281
I volunteered to take over.

629
00:31:31,316 --> 00:31:35,999
My idea was to get rid
of all the books, the ones

630
00:31:36,034 --> 00:31:38,622
that I just thought
brought the company down,

631
00:31:38,657 --> 00:31:41,057
and I told the guys,
"We can do better than this."

632
00:31:41,092 --> 00:31:44,227
We started thinking in terms
of "we need to diversify."

633
00:31:44,262 --> 00:31:46,997
You know, there's a market that's
not being catered to out there.

634
00:31:47,032 --> 00:31:48,932
It's the "indie market."

635
00:31:48,967 --> 00:31:53,470
Image started to take
a lot of chances artistically.

636
00:31:53,505 --> 00:31:55,171
It wasn't always superheroes.

637
00:31:55,206 --> 00:31:58,208
They were starting to find
new genres and new ways to go.

638
00:31:58,243 --> 00:32:00,510
One of the guys
that walked in the door

639
00:32:00,545 --> 00:32:03,480
- was a guy named Robert Kirkman.
- At that point in my career,

640
00:32:03,481 --> 00:32:06,316
I had never done anything at all
that was successful,

641
00:32:06,351 --> 00:32:08,618
and I wanted to do a zombie comic,

642
00:32:08,653 --> 00:32:11,054
because I had been watching
tons of George Romero movies

643
00:32:11,089 --> 00:32:13,855
and I'd fallen in love with
that genre, and I was like,

644
00:32:13,890 --> 00:32:15,659
"Ah, there's so much more
you can do with this genre

645
00:32:15,694 --> 00:32:17,327
that hasn't really been explored."

646
00:32:17,362 --> 00:32:21,665
He pitched what he called
"Planet of the Zombies" to me,

647
00:32:21,700 --> 00:32:25,001
and I was like,
"Oh, Robert, that's just horrible."

648
00:32:25,036 --> 00:32:26,303
You know, and I said,

649
00:32:26,304 --> 00:32:30,006
"Look, zombie books have never,
ever sold in this business.

650
00:32:30,041 --> 00:32:33,443
I know their movies do okay, and I know
they're a niche thing and all that..."

651
00:32:33,478 --> 00:32:34,712
Jim was basically
turning down the book,

652
00:32:34,713 --> 00:32:37,981
and he said, "Unless you can
tell me how this is different

653
00:32:38,016 --> 00:32:39,716
from every zombie book
that's ever been done,

654
00:32:39,751 --> 00:32:41,518
there's no reason to do it."

655
00:32:41,553 --> 00:32:45,121
There just was nothing
that would've given you the idea

656
00:32:45,156 --> 00:32:46,357
that, like,
"Oh, we should do this book

657
00:32:46,358 --> 00:32:48,024
because it's going
to be a huge success,"

658
00:32:48,059 --> 00:32:51,728
especially from somebody
who had, you know, not...

659
00:32:51,763 --> 00:32:54,064
a great track record up to that point.

660
00:32:54,099 --> 00:32:55,599
And so, in the moment, I just go,

661
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,502
"Well, you know, there's, it's, I...
I didn't put it in the pitch,

662
00:32:58,503 --> 00:33:00,537
'cause, you know, I wanted
to surprise you guys,

663
00:33:00,572 --> 00:33:02,572
but the whole thing,
it's an alien invasion.

664
00:33:02,607 --> 00:33:06,443
There's spaceships,
and they've created the zombies,

665
00:33:06,478 --> 00:33:08,712
and they're trying to weaken
the world's infrastructure

666
00:33:08,747 --> 00:33:10,080
so that they can take over,"

667
00:33:10,081 --> 00:33:12,983
and I would later find out
that that is apparently the plot

668
00:33:12,984 --> 00:33:14,551
from Plan 9 from Outer Space.

669
00:33:14,586 --> 00:33:16,020
I didn't know that at the time,

670
00:33:16,021 --> 00:33:17,221
and they didn't know that
at the time,

671
00:33:17,222 --> 00:33:19,122
but they're like, "Yeah, no,
that's cool, that's... yeah!

672
00:33:19,157 --> 00:33:20,257
Hey, that's the hook we're looking for.

673
00:33:20,258 --> 00:33:23,360
Yeah, it's a good-looking book."
Done. Accepted.

674
00:33:23,395 --> 00:33:26,396
The book's doing great,
and I'm loving it.

675
00:33:26,431 --> 00:33:29,499
I'm reading every issue and,
at some point, I say,

676
00:33:29,534 --> 00:33:30,568
"Robert," you know,

677
00:33:30,569 --> 00:33:32,635
"You said you were salting
in all of this stuff

678
00:33:32,670 --> 00:33:34,671
about the alien invasion.

679
00:33:34,706 --> 00:33:37,340
Like, can you, like, point
out any of those things?"

680
00:33:37,375 --> 00:33:41,378
So I just said, "Eric, I lied to you.
There's no aliens in this book,"

681
00:33:41,379 --> 00:33:45,713
and he goes, "Oh, okay...
Meh. Probably better for it."

682
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,454
Walking Dead
has been a runaway success.

683
00:33:51,489 --> 00:33:54,257
I mean, that comic book
started off with low numbers

684
00:33:54,292 --> 00:33:57,528
and just kept building and building
and building ever since then.

685
00:33:57,529 --> 00:33:59,864
There was really no...
no stopping it.

686
00:33:59,865 --> 00:34:02,298
Spawn was always
the number-one book,

687
00:34:02,333 --> 00:34:04,434
and then Walking Dead
kind of was getting there,

688
00:34:04,469 --> 00:34:07,203
and I was like, "Oh, my god,
is this gonna happen?

689
00:34:07,238 --> 00:34:08,405
Like, I don't know
what's gonna happen,"

690
00:34:08,406 --> 00:34:10,440
and then, all of a sudden,

691
00:34:10,475 --> 00:34:12,742
there was one month
where it was like, boop...

692
00:34:12,777 --> 00:34:13,877
boop... boop. You know?

693
00:34:13,878 --> 00:34:16,112
And it kinda like...
and then it... and it kept going,

694
00:34:16,147 --> 00:34:19,494
and I was like, "I can't believe it.
I can't believe that

695
00:34:19,555 --> 00:34:22,788
Walking Dead is outselling Spawn now.
This is crazy."

696
00:34:22,821 --> 00:34:26,757
It became Image's best-selling
book in probably a decade.

697
00:34:26,758 --> 00:34:28,325
I don't think you can overstate

698
00:34:28,326 --> 00:34:29,693
the importance of the Walking Dead.

699
00:34:29,694 --> 00:34:33,596
I think that it revitalized us, and
it's not just the book on its own,

700
00:34:33,631 --> 00:34:36,332
but I think what it said about Image.

701
00:34:36,367 --> 00:34:37,634
So then Robert Kirkman

702
00:34:37,635 --> 00:34:40,603
becomes a partner
of Image Comic Books.

703
00:34:40,638 --> 00:34:43,807
We needed to show that we were willing

704
00:34:43,842 --> 00:34:48,611
to add to our ranks of partnership,
if you were loyal to us,

705
00:34:48,646 --> 00:34:50,747
and you didn't
have to be an artist.

706
00:34:50,782 --> 00:34:54,317
Becoming a partner
at Image Comics is probably...

707
00:34:54,352 --> 00:34:56,887
you know, aside from my
children being born and meeting

708
00:34:56,888 --> 00:34:59,422
my wife, like, the best thing
that ever happened to me.

709
00:34:59,457 --> 00:35:01,691
The Walking Dead show is nice,

710
00:35:01,726 --> 00:35:04,794
and it does very well,
and I'm very proud of it,

711
00:35:04,829 --> 00:35:09,732
but I had dreams as a child of
being at an Image Comics meeting,

712
00:35:09,767 --> 00:35:13,236
and then I became an Image partner,
you know, as an adult,

713
00:35:13,238 --> 00:35:15,238
which is the stupidest
thing in the world.

714
00:35:17,342 --> 00:35:19,375
I have to tell everyone
in the audience right now,

715
00:35:19,410 --> 00:35:24,881
I love the gentlemen on this couch.
They were...

716
00:35:25,216 --> 00:35:29,285
the most arrogant,
reckless maniacs,

717
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,455
who decided that they were gonna
start their own company,

718
00:35:32,490 --> 00:35:34,791
and they were gonna build it
all around themselves,

719
00:35:34,826 --> 00:35:37,560
and they were gonna do
whatever they wanted,

720
00:35:37,595 --> 00:35:40,396
and for whatever reason, they were like,
"You know what?

721
00:35:40,431 --> 00:35:43,666
Let's build a company
for all creators.

722
00:35:43,701 --> 00:35:47,237
Let's make the deal
that we create for ourselves

723
00:35:47,272 --> 00:35:50,540
that is the absolute
best deal in comics

724
00:35:50,575 --> 00:35:53,510
and let's make it available
to everyone."

725
00:35:53,545 --> 00:35:55,512
My kids now have the opportunity

726
00:35:55,547 --> 00:35:58,381
to grow up
and be completely pampered,

727
00:35:58,416 --> 00:36:01,384
and that is because of you guys.

728
00:36:01,419 --> 00:36:02,920
Everything was going great,
I couldn't be more excited,

729
00:36:02,921 --> 00:36:06,590
but there was one thing that
just wasn't sitting right with me

730
00:36:06,591 --> 00:36:09,070
that I felt needed to be fixed.

731
00:36:14,799 --> 00:36:17,600
Comics aren't a genre.
Comics are a medium.

732
00:36:17,635 --> 00:36:19,435
One of the things
that Image has done, I think,

733
00:36:19,470 --> 00:36:22,705
spectacularly well
in the last half-dozen years

734
00:36:22,740 --> 00:36:25,275
is demonstrate
the strength of the medium.

735
00:36:25,310 --> 00:36:28,244
I think for me, their legacy was... balls.

736
00:36:28,279 --> 00:36:30,714
In American culture,
"to have balls" means

737
00:36:30,715 --> 00:36:32,582
that you don't care what people think

738
00:36:32,617 --> 00:36:35,685
and that you are willing
to express in all honesty

739
00:36:35,720 --> 00:36:37,887
whatever it is that's on your mind,

740
00:36:37,922 --> 00:36:40,290
and I think if there's
any legacy for Image,

741
00:36:40,325 --> 00:36:44,194
it'll be that, that they were
balls-to-the-wall with it.

742
00:36:44,229 --> 00:36:46,563
What they did
for the business for comics,

743
00:36:46,598 --> 00:36:49,699
how they disrupted the way
things had always been

744
00:36:49,734 --> 00:36:53,736
and who got to make the rules was
nothing short of revolutionary.

745
00:36:53,771 --> 00:36:57,540
One of the things that Image brings
is a creator ownership deal

746
00:36:57,575 --> 00:37:01,744
that is, in my opinion,
right and fair and proper.

747
00:37:01,779 --> 00:37:03,613
They keep
the other publishers honest.

748
00:37:03,648 --> 00:37:05,381
Everyone's page rates went up,

749
00:37:05,416 --> 00:37:07,617
and then exclusive
contracts happened,

750
00:37:07,652 --> 00:37:11,788
so now freelancers had security
and stability in their income.

751
00:37:11,823 --> 00:37:14,325
The success of Walking
Dead took everyone by surprise,

752
00:37:14,326 --> 00:37:16,827
myself included, and it
made people think, like,

753
00:37:16,828 --> 00:37:19,630
if a weird black-and-white
zombie book can find success,

754
00:37:19,631 --> 00:37:20,831
the sky is the limit.

755
00:37:20,832 --> 00:37:23,700
There are a number of titles
that have come through Image

756
00:37:23,735 --> 00:37:28,972
that could not possibly
have existed anywhere else.

757
00:37:29,007 --> 00:37:30,807
Image Comics publishes Saga,

758
00:37:30,842 --> 00:37:34,477
which is a romance story
set in a sci-fi universe

759
00:37:34,512 --> 00:37:39,682
that is completely adult and
has people with TVs for heads,

760
00:37:39,717 --> 00:37:41,951
but, you know, rivals
Walking Dead in popularity.

761
00:37:41,986 --> 00:37:43,853
It's a massively successful book.

762
00:37:43,888 --> 00:37:47,523
Pretty Deadly
is a mythological western.

763
00:37:47,558 --> 00:37:50,293
It is not an obvious commercial success,

764
00:37:50,328 --> 00:37:56,366
and they let us do it anyway,
which is... not capitalism.

765
00:37:56,401 --> 00:37:58,501
I did a book called Sex Criminals

766
00:37:58,536 --> 00:38:00,937
which literally could not exist
anywhere else but Image Comics.

767
00:38:00,972 --> 00:38:03,406
This is the part of the show
where, like,

768
00:38:03,441 --> 00:38:05,608
you can show different stuff
that I've done

769
00:38:05,643 --> 00:38:07,644
and just the pages
will be completely pixelated

770
00:38:07,679 --> 00:38:09,912
and pixelated and pixelated.

771
00:38:09,947 --> 00:38:11,481
Literally, they said
I could do all that.

772
00:38:11,482 --> 00:38:15,451
It's ironic that a
company that was founded

773
00:38:15,486 --> 00:38:20,357
on bulging veins and pouches
and ammunition and women as props

774
00:38:20,358 --> 00:38:23,811
is now publishing easily
the most progressive

775
00:38:23,812 --> 00:38:27,264
and politically provocative
books on the scenes.

776
00:38:38,876 --> 00:38:44,380
I met Robert Kirkman
at the 2003 Chicago Comic-Con.

777
00:38:44,415 --> 00:38:47,483
You know, we start talking, next
thing I know, he's like,

778
00:38:47,518 --> 00:38:49,319
"I gotta come to my room.
You want to come to my room?

779
00:38:49,354 --> 00:38:50,520
I got to get something real quick,"

780
00:38:50,521 --> 00:38:51,521
and we're chatting in his room,

781
00:38:51,522 --> 00:38:52,923
and he's like, "I got to go
to the bathroom,"

782
00:38:52,924 --> 00:38:55,592
and he goes to the bathroom and
leaves the bathroom door open,

783
00:38:55,593 --> 00:38:58,594
and so I'm, you know,
a childhood fan of Rob Liefeld,

784
00:38:58,629 --> 00:39:00,396
having known Rob Liefeld
for an hour.

785
00:39:00,431 --> 00:39:03,633
I'm like, "I can't believe Rob Liefeld
is peeing four feet away from me,

786
00:39:03,668 --> 00:39:05,635
and then he's like, "Oh,
you want to go to the movies?"

787
00:39:05,670 --> 00:39:07,970
I'm like, "Yeah, I want to go to the
movies with Rob Liefeld." Let's do that.

788
00:39:08,005 --> 00:39:11,808
And then we became
happy friends for 48 hours.

789
00:39:11,843 --> 00:39:13,643
I think we did dinner.
We did breakfast.

790
00:39:13,678 --> 00:39:15,545
We had another breakfast,
another dinner.

791
00:39:15,580 --> 00:39:17,880
We were inseparable.

792
00:39:17,915 --> 00:39:21,718
Rob had just rebooted
Youngblood with another publisher.

793
00:39:21,753 --> 00:39:23,653
Youngblood is the first Image comic.

794
00:39:23,688 --> 00:39:25,421
It's the first thing
that had the Image "I,"

795
00:39:25,456 --> 00:39:27,056
and there's a connection
between Youngblood and Image

796
00:39:27,091 --> 00:39:29,793
that, as a fan, you know,
it just irks me a little when

797
00:39:29,794 --> 00:39:31,962
there's a Youngblood comic
that doesn't have an Image "I" on it.

798
00:39:31,963 --> 00:39:34,831
Robert and I kind of had
to sell the other partners on,

799
00:39:34,866 --> 00:39:37,033
"Hey, we want Rob to come back again."

800
00:39:37,068 --> 00:39:41,371
We all kind of go, "You know what?
We all did this together.

801
00:39:41,406 --> 00:39:43,940
Whatever the water was
that went under that bridge,

802
00:39:43,975 --> 00:39:45,641
it is under the bridge,

803
00:39:45,676 --> 00:39:48,611
and we did something special
together 25 years ago."

804
00:39:48,646 --> 00:39:51,547
Did it take time to heal?
Yeah, sure it did.

805
00:39:51,582 --> 00:39:54,517
Was I hoping that that healing
process would eventually come?

806
00:39:54,552 --> 00:39:56,386
Sure, 'cause Rob is a good dude.

807
00:39:56,421 --> 00:39:59,789
At his core, he just makes you laugh.

808
00:39:59,824 --> 00:40:01,991
And it was like,
"Sure, with open arms.

809
00:40:02,026 --> 00:40:04,727
Come back in.
Publish your books through us."

810
00:40:04,762 --> 00:40:07,568
You know? It's like a version
of the old days, you know?

811
00:40:07,603 --> 00:40:11,501
- And it's been great.
- And I'm like, "I can't believe

812
00:40:11,536 --> 00:40:12,803
I'm gonna be doing this
with Image again.

813
00:40:12,804 --> 00:40:14,537
This is fun,"
and I remember I called Robert.

814
00:40:14,572 --> 00:40:17,351
- I go, "Is everyone okay?"
- "Everyone's okay."

815
00:40:18,743 --> 00:40:23,613
So here we are, 25 years later,
and I am so proud

816
00:40:23,648 --> 00:40:29,419
of all that Image Comics has
accomplished, and I love these guys.

817
00:40:29,454 --> 00:40:32,222
We've been through a
lot, all of us, all the partners.

818
00:40:32,223 --> 00:40:34,157
I don't believe any of us
would trade anything,

819
00:40:34,192 --> 00:40:37,827
even with headaches,
even with disappointments.

820
00:40:37,862 --> 00:40:39,862
That's what we signed up for
25 years ago.

821
00:40:39,897 --> 00:40:43,800
I'm now...
got gray hair

822
00:40:43,835 --> 00:40:45,535
and I'm a little bit older.

823
00:40:45,570 --> 00:40:49,205
I went from being the cool brother
to, like, that fun uncle,

824
00:40:49,240 --> 00:40:52,041
to, like, now I'm just, like,
that dad,

825
00:40:52,076 --> 00:40:53,377
and pretty soon I'll be,
like, "Grandpa."

826
00:40:53,378 --> 00:40:55,578
"Oh, yeah, that's right, he's
the guy that sorta started it."

827
00:40:55,613 --> 00:40:58,080
I could get hit by a bus tomorrow,

828
00:40:58,115 --> 00:41:03,587
and it won't really matter.
Image... is here.

829
00:41:03,821 --> 00:41:06,857
If it all went away
tomorrow, to be able to say,

830
00:41:06,858 --> 00:41:10,193
"Oh, I only got to do
everything I ever wanted to do

831
00:41:10,228 --> 00:41:12,995
for 25 years, and that was it..."

832
00:41:13,030 --> 00:41:15,965
It's, like, that's still
a hell of a run, you know?

833
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,167
It was an exhilarating time
in my life.

834
00:41:18,202 --> 00:41:20,002
We were doing what we wanted

835
00:41:20,037 --> 00:41:23,739
and having tremendous success
at changing the industry.

836
00:41:23,774 --> 00:41:25,041
I wouldn't trade it for the world.

837
00:41:25,042 --> 00:41:26,843
I know that
there's a version somewhere

838
00:41:26,878 --> 00:41:28,978
of a guy that did all this
and he's bitter.

839
00:41:29,013 --> 00:41:31,015
That's just not me.
There are bands,

840
00:41:31,016 --> 00:41:33,583
and you hear the story
of how a song came to be,

841
00:41:33,618 --> 00:41:34,718
and all that matters in the end

842
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:36,486
isn't how great
your guitar riff was

843
00:41:36,521 --> 00:41:38,885
and isn't how great your lyrics were.

844
00:41:38,984 --> 00:41:41,257
It's how they work together
to create immortality,

845
00:41:41,292 --> 00:41:44,386
and that's what Image Comics is.

846
00:41:47,241 --> 00:41:52,606
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