I'm having trouble understanding how smaller publishers make money. I mean, I don't know anybody who reads Marvel or DC comic books, so the smaller publishers like Image and Dark Horse, I'm not even sure how they make enough money to stay in business.
Is Image financially healthy? If so, how?
The Waling Dead TV Show
There is your answer
It makes me sad that so few people are willing to pick up comics anymore. Of course I can't blame them, since they're sold in such few places and they're so pricy when you can find them.
>, since they're sold in such few places and they're so pricy when you can find them.
Amazon fixes both of those issues.
Amazon workers treat books like literal garbage. I saw it firsthand. Everything you get from Amazon has been unceremoniously dumped onto a filthy floor for inventory counting, multiple times.
every book i sold on ebay i read it first in the toilet FYI
same.
I consider it a form of baptism.
More of that black-on-israelite violence plaguing NY I see.
Whats the context? Or at least which episode?
If that scares you, you probably shouldn't read what they do with the meat, vegetables, and produce that they see on Amazon Fresh.
>Amazon Fresh
Do Americans really?
Some people are too lazy to do their grocery shopping themselves and prefer to order it online. Absolutely moronic.
Especially since it's more expensive due to delivery fees and tips.
and also theyre all really really bad
The only image comics I ever liked were kirkman ones, and ive tried so many man. Its just pathetic. I dont even like kirkman that much.
DC and Marvel capeshit might be terrible but majority of the indie comics are just as terrible if not worse.
A few years ago I would have said they made more than people realize from getting trades into libraries. But lately the trend in libraries (at least in my area) is stocking far fewer books, and much smaller graphic novel sections. So I’m at a loss.
>Is Image financially healthy?
Yes.
>If so, how?
With the Big Two, they own everything, and if they don't, it's a massive media property in its own right and they bought/rented the rights to it. They put together a team to make the product, market it, sell it, and reap the profits.
Image does things completely differently. If Image decides to publish your work, you don't get help. It's your problem to find your artists/writer/etc. It's your problem to hash out the contracts on how much each member of your team gets paid. It's your pleasure to keep the profits (if there are any). Image has a very, very simple role:
>decide if you're remotely likely to have a success on your hands
>give you some light legal feedback if your title/logo/etc is too close to something else
>handle the complexities of distributing the comic to merchants and collecting the profits
>take a flat fee out of it and then hand over everything else (if there IS anything else) to you
That's the rub. Image does not lose money on a comic if no one's buying. If you frick up your marketing and no one buys it, that's your problem. You're the one that wanted to own the property, so you get people to buy it or you own trash.
Dark Horse: They were one of the few publishers from the 80s that not only survived but also continuously imported manga. Manga (particularly Berserk) makes up most of their sales. Western side of publishing they also have licenses to Minecraft and Avatar the Last Airbender, which have been selling well for them. This in turn would allow them to put money into other comics that may not sell well.
Image: What said. The Image office have a small staff of like less than 20 people unlike other indie companies. It is also owned by people who either made a lot of money in the 90s and still have something going (some of the Image founders) or someone who has something going that's financially profitable (Kirkman) Image gets a cut from publishing (for example) Walking Dead and Spawn, but they don't get all the money from it (ie licensing, movie/tv deals); those would be going to Kirkman and McFarlane respectively. If Saga becomes a movie or TV show, Brian K Vaughn and Fiona Staples would get all the money from it but not Image.
>If you frick up your marketing and no one buys it, that's your problem
Isn't there also the responsibility of being able to ship one's own comic on time?
Early Image apparently had a notorious reputation with retailers for being late, which risked their distribution being jeopardized.
During the Peter David–Todd McFarlane Debate of 1993, Peter pressured the co-founder Todd, on the seemingly arbitrary double standards of comic book cancellations with non-founder IPs with the following question:
>what Image expected in terms of quality and sales (pertaining to non-founder IPs)
The answer given was that was:
>We expected when we hired these people — was that, they would come in there and be the anchor, because nobody was putting down any anchors for this company. We were floating around, we were putting on miniseries here, we were putting some out there, trying to feel our way around. We knew that we couldn't do it at that point because we were trying to handle the whole publishing, printing, advertising, and everything else.
>Wheat thins (weeks in? the audio is difficult to interpret), we had to bring in a couple books, that would then anchor us down and at least be our quote-unquote: Iron Mans, Captain Americas, and Thors.
>What we wanted from them, was not just 'good-looking books'. What we wanted from them was 'on-time books', because — and we told them "we turn out IPOs on best late-books in the business, so we don't need any more good-looking late-books, we do plenty of those books".
>We expected on-time performance from them, and we expect a certain sales level, and from non-founder books, because unfortunately, can Todd McFarlane still sell 5000 and not get fired? Yes, y'know why? Because unfortunately Peter, in most businesses the bosses can't get fired. We own the company we can't fire ourselves.
The Context :https://youtu.be/AYYsLflp9gU?t=2469
>Isn't there also the responsibility of being able to ship one's own comic on time?
Certainly, but that's an inevitability no matter who you get published through so I didn't mention it. A contract is a contract and you hurt yourself the most if you sign one you can't follow through on.
>What we wanted from them, was not just 'good-looking books'. What we wanted from them was 'on-time books', because — and we told them "we turn out IPOs on best late-books in the business, so we don't need any more good-looking late-books, we do plenty of those books".
This is fricking hilarious given a huge part of how Image started and what had happened just before Image really got its ball rolling and why.
They sell pilots to Netflix and Amazon which increase boom sales.
Image is financially healthy because we can see that actual comics come out that are not treated as slop but are actual projects produced by decent writers and artists with an actual idea of what they want to do with a finite story
the titles i've been picking up from Image are Monstress, The Forged and the The Sacrificers
>Image is financially healthy because we can see that actual comics come out that are not treated as slop but are actual projects produced by decent writers and artists with an actual idea of what they want to do with a finite story
You're naive if you think that's the reason.
How is Monstress anon?
Glad nobody bit on your weak bait.
They had the shitty Walking Dead show, and recently farmed out Invincible. Hasbro also basically absorbed them to farm out their IPs to them under "Skybound" so they have that plastic crack Transformers money.
I know what you mean. I can't even find other soups online that read the current Spawn books. I can't imagine ANYONE is reading these original mini aeries Image is always churning out. Full color print isn't cheap. How do they make the cost back?
https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-Image-Comics-charge-to-print-out-the-comic-since-I-heard-that-funding-comes-from-the-comic-writers-themselves
>Here are some additional details about Image Comics' printing costs:
>The $2,200 fee for the first issue includes the cost of printing, shipping, and handling.
>The $1,200 fee for subsequent issues includes the cost of printing and shipping.
>Image Comics does not charge any additional fees for marketing or distributing comics.
>Creators are responsible for paying for the printing costs of any variant covers.
>Creators are also responsible for paying for the printing costs of any promotional materials, such as posters or postcards.
Oh, so you image doesn't eat the cost at all.
So image is almost just self publishing.
no, image has a self-publishing scene that barely moves money, but it's intended to exist as "buffer" for the owner studio's products, which isn't very large and tends to have month-long gaps.
mcfarlane and kirkman are the two owners most active by far but if it wasn't for the vanity house publishing scheme image would basically look like a dead company.
Back in the early days (pre crash) you can see in
that the original intention was to run a normal company with a simply creator-owned scheme going on. Books had editors, deadlines, cancellations, etc. That's the system Dark Horse ended up running with. But Image lowkey-dropped it after the crash and it eventually mutated into vanity publishing.
definitely does.
That just makes me feel bad for all those originals no one cares about. Those creators aren't getting paid at all, they are literally losing money.
That's the gamble, but all things considered, blowing a few thousand bucks on a chance at instantly becoming a Hollywood bigshot is one of the best deals in the industry. Most self-publishers charge comparatively without handling distribution and without even attempting to gatekeep who they publish. Even if your Image comic is a total flop, the fact that you made it to that point is still something you can throw on a resume or use to get into the convention circuit.
The way you're explaining it, maybe I should write a comic for Image.
There's not really any harm in it. If you can rustle up a one-page description of the whole run you have in mind and 5 print-ready pages, they'll tell you whether to bother with the rest (or not, by ignoring you) for free.
Todd McFarlane had some really good advice where he’s like, y’know, all the major studios are looking for comics to adapt and they use sale charts to decide. Half the best sellers are Marvel who’s not for sale, the other quarter is DC who’s not for sale, and the other quarter is Spawn/Walking Dead (transformers now, they didn’t have an image book back then) and they’re not for sale so you don’t have to necessarily light the sales charts on fire to end up successful
>they'll tell you whether to bother with the rest (or not, by ignoring you) for free.
Someone should make a not-SavageDragon, not-Spawn and not-Invincible as a pitch to Image!
welcome to the mid 2010s TV pitch craze.
Dew it!
Meaning only upper class frickwads can afford to make a comic with these guys.
You could take out a loan. $2,200 isn't chump change but if you live in a decent town you could probably try and get some sponsorship if you're out an active. Probably easier in the pre-social media days though, if only because local economies are weaker.
Conventional wisdom in the indie movie scene is to ask local dentists to fund your projects. They're loaded enough to casually float you tens of thousands of dollars and insecure enough over not being doctors to jump at the chance of a producer credit.
Image is just a vanity publisher
ALL publishers have bestsellers that cover the rest, the thing is they never know which horse to bet on so they publish everything and anything
who knew that zombies would get a tv show or that millions of kids would love a dead policeman who got a dog's head sewn onto his headless corpse
>that millions of kids would love a dead policeman who got a dog's head sewn onto his headless corpse
Did I miss something I feel like I missed something.
dogman
My kid likes dogman, and cat boy too. It's the same captain underpants guy I think.
did you read his origin
Meant for you
Origin?
For?
Also, no I haven't. What's up?
scary
A tale of whatever is the 1st book? I never knew, I see now that the stitching on the neck is actually not a scruffy dog beard. It's kinda messed up but cartoonish enough to handwaive it away, I like it.
Is dark horse a part of image? I know dark horse does manga sometimes.
>Is dark horse a part of image?
No.
>Is dark horse a part of image?
wut
I get them confused almost all the time. I know one has an image of a horse and the other has a giant "I". It's just their stories kinda mesh together and I forget who is who.
Dark Horse has manga and if that infamous quote is accurate then theyll be fine.
I wouldn't be surprised if printing Peanuts covered most of Fantagraphic's costs.
hopefully
in the past they relied on porn
idw
dark horse
boom
all of them are money laundry except dark horse
proof/conspiracy theory details or GTFO
>I'm having trouble understanding how smaller publishers make money.
None of the comic book publishers make money, because none of them put out anything worth reading.
They don't need to sell as much to make a profit. Profit margin is probably not that much but it should be enough to keep everyone paid.
>Is Image financially healthy? If so, how?
adaptations
>spawn
>invincible
>walking dead
and others my memory doesn't hold to
are all Ips licensed from the house studios, not the vanity publishing. The payments all go to image then get divided among the owners.
John Prophet animated series when?
OK, but only if you mean 1990s Prophet, in the style of Stephen Platt's run.
what even ARE american comics anymore if not just rehashes from bygone times?
I'm an artist and i write and i've always wanted to do my own book but goddamn the american industry is THIN.
How do you even break in these days as a writer/artist???
You create something and publish it online, or seek a publisher. Same as everywhere else.
Ionically some fan comics I read on the furry porn site were some of the most kino shit I've seen that came from the western anglophone world when related to the medium of comics
Name some
Everything is like that, including Japanese stuff.
Impossible. Manga beats everything American. The only thing Amerimutts can do is cope.
manga is only popular because zoomers on social media reference it.
Real adults who speak proper English may be out numbered in the medium but don't delude yourself into think these 'men of culture' and jokes revolving around porn addiction being the dominant force.
>Real adults
Read manga. Comics are for manchildren.
>I'm having trouble understanding how smaller publishers make money.
They don't. They're probably money laundering schemes.
>They're probably money laundering schemes.
Why do you brainlets always come to that conclusion?
I dont question Image or Darkhorse. But all the other smaller or obscure ones are in question!
In the 90s a lot of Image creators became millionaires pretty much overnight because they got the bulk of their books' profits unlike creators at Marvel/DC.
However, this also led to comical situations like certain people fricking off to the Bahamas after 2 issues and not picking up Image's phone.
What's funny is that despite being small publishers most of them worship woke trash and puritanical dogma. I'm sure most of them will go out of business. Nobody needs them. See IDW.
Probably.
Big problme is direct market I put the blame on diamond, lunar and the list goes on.
A majority of books with image make no money, and the creative teams have to cover the cost if the book stays in the red. It's basically a high end vanity publisher.
Comics are niche you moron it's big enough to make money though.
Because comics cost very little to actually make, it's why DC and Marvel still in print even though they don't need to be.
If you think Image makes no money, you should see most of fantagraphics which has no footprint at all online in terms of discussion or scans.
Wrong.