Liefeld Returns to Marvel -- X-Force #1

[Villano]

McFarlane was the only Image head honcho that was able to keep hold
of his millions. Jim Lee went bankrupt (but was saved by DC) and Silvestri's
Top Cow Studios has been struggling.

What about Erik Larsen? Not sure how well he's doing financially, but, AFAIK, Savage Dragon is still being published.

It's funny looking back at Image. It's was supposed to be the next big company and they had cartoons, video games, and movies lined up for their characters. Flash forward and the company is gone, most of the side projects never materialized, and some of the creators are back working for Marvel & DC.

Has any comic company that was part of the '90s boom survived? Valiant (later Acclaim)? Chaos? Image? Defiant? Malibu? Broadway? Verotik? Milestone?

And, last I heard, the new "next big thing" Crossgen was failing.

 

[Chun-tzu]

It's funny looking back at Image. It's was supposed to be the next big company and they had cartoons, video games, and movies lined up for their characters. Flash forward and the company is gone, most of the side projects never materialized, and some of the creators are back working for Marvel & DC.

When Image started out, it seemed they were different from the big 2 in many ways, including style and the value of creator's rights. The creator's rights part definitely seems to have disappeared (Todd McFarlane is anything BUT a champion of creator's rights), and most of the original Image guys seem to have moved on to primarily directorial stuff, with rock solid Erik Larsen being the main exception. Image is still around, but many of the associated studios have gone their own way (Wildstorm, Top Cow, Awesome, and so on).

Has any comic company that was part of the '90s boom survived? Valiant (later Acclaim)? Chaos? Image? Defiant? Malibu? Broadway? Verotik? Milestone?

And, last I heard, the new "next big thing" Crossgen was failing.

Valiant/Acclaim is gone. Chaos is gone, with Lady Death having been sold off to CrossGen. Defiant is gone. Malibu was bought out by Marvel and it pretty much evaporated. Milestone is gone, although Static Shock is still around. I'm not familiar with Broadway or Verotik. CrossGen recently declared bankruptcy and has stopped production, and many of their writers and artists have moved on. They're desperately trying to restructure financially, and haven't given up yet, but it's really not looking good.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Image is still around, but the format has changed. The only artist studios
left are McFarlane's and Silvestri's (Top Cow). Image has basically changed
into a venue for people to publish their stuff. Most of the titles are fully
creator owned. Anyone can publish their stuff through Image, just as long
as one can get someone to sponsor oneself.

Larsen never had his own studio, his work has always been published through
McFarlane's imprint and while he's never been with the richer Image guys,
he's pretty well off.

Wildstorm studios was near bankruptcy, but Jim Lee sold it to DC. A great
turn of events, as the stuff they've been publishing since has routinely been
among the best comic books on the market. Sleeper, Ellis's Stormwatch,
Planetary, Stormwatch Team Achilles, Wildcats & Wildcats 3.0, The Authority
and it's spin-offs and Alan Moore's entire ABC line of comic.

The rest have vanished.

CrossGen is goin' under. They had great business ideas (but titles of varying
quality) on comic book publishing, but over-expanded. Too many titles at once.

Milestone and Malibu went under, but their estates and licences were bought
by the big two. DC (Milestone) and Marvel (Malibu).

 

[Villano]

Malibu was bought out by Marvel and it pretty much evaporated. Milestone is gone, although Static Shock is still around. I'm not familiar with Broadway or Verotik. CrossGen recently declared bankruptcy and has stopped production, and many of their writers and artists have moved on. They're desperately trying to restructure financially, and haven't given up yet, but it's really not looking good.

I knew about Malibu being bought out by Marvel, but I didn't know what exactly happened to it after that. They tried for a time to crossover some of the characters, but I guess that failed.

Jim Shooter started Defiant after being driven out of Valiant. After Defiant folded, he started Broadway. Don't ask me what comics they published because I never bought any.

Verotik was the company that heavy metal rocker Danzig started to publish comics based on Frank Frazetta characters. They had Death Dealer and Jaguar God comics. The art, by Simon Bisley and Mitch Bryd, was pretty good, but the writing was bad. I'm pretty sure Danzig wrote them all.

I don't think any of their series came out on anything resembling a schedule, so I'm not sure if they're still putting out comics or not.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I like old Liefield art. I don't know when but he got hooked on some overmuscled, cyber, guns, skin tight clothing with lots of pouches phase but it sucks. And he's still stuck in it aparently. It's like he saw some really bad anime and found inspiraiton to change his style, but couldn't do the transition right.

Heck he was fairly good even while doing the new mutants for a while. Canonball still looked like a scrawny geek all was good in the art world. Now I'm not a fan, but I'll check it out its only 6 issues at the moment.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Well it's an improvement over his Captain America at least
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Egrotesqueanatomy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/capnekkid.jpg
Back when Image was hot, Youngblood was new and I was 13, I sorta liked him. It has an intersting (and often emulated) style, but he just takes the anatomy waaayyyy outta proportion to the point of laughability. He seems to get worse all the time.

ARRRRRRRRRRGHHH!!!!!!

That cannot be a real drawing! It cannot be! Give this man a Gil Kane comic, give him some Sal Buscema, give him John Byrne! But most of all give him a book on anatomy and perspective!!!!!

Oh the horror!

 

[Desdichado]

I always quite liked Leiber. I have some of his older X-stuff (he did work on the Phalanx Covenant, IIRC) and one of his Avengers mags where Thor and Hulk are trashing the Avengers HQ is one of my favorites to trot out and reread.

I don't know why he's gettin' all the hate on this thread. He's one of the better guys in the business based on the books I have. Although based on that Cap'n America drawing posted above, I have to wonder...