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Boom Studios' CEO Agrees With Image Publisher About Publishing Fewer Comics

We've been telling you how Image Comics has been worried about the rise of rival Boom Studios over the last year and how Erik Larsen, one of Image's founders and current CFO, struck back rather publicly when ComicBook's James Viscardi suggested that Boom or IDW might overtake Image in the comic shop market.

Days later we saw all the new discussion around Boom drive a sell out of Alienated #1 from Si Spurrier and Christian Wildgoose . It continues the trend of talent from Image defecting to Boom and finding huge success, though Erik would no doubt point out that Cry Havoc, launched during Image's peak, ranks as Spurrier's biggest creator-owned launch. For now.

But today, the original Image comics defector to Boom unleashed a tweet thread that caught a lot of folks by surprise. That's right, Boom founder and CEO Ross Richie (co-creator of Image Comics' Dominion with Keith Giffen in 2003) finally broke his silence on the shots fired publicly from Image by…praising them?

In a series of tweets, Richie explained that Boom's success comes down to listening to comic shop owners which led Boom to cut down the amount of books they published to better serve retailers, customers and the industry. It's something Richie praises Image head honcho Eric Stephenson for doing as well…before seemingly inviting the rival publisher to form an alliance to challenge every other major publisher in comics to follow suit.

Of course, Richie also doesn't mention that Image cut their own line by 30%, as Stephenson recently revealed, nor does he point out that Image had the best selling creator-owned launch of the year in Undiscovered Country #1, but who am I to let that get in the way of a good Twitter thread?

This isn't the first time Richie has taken to social media to put comic shops first – in fact, he was the one behind the popular #BoostYourLCS movement in 2017.

We'll be watching to see what else Richie says and if Image responds – certainly this is the kind of message of solidarity that's in line with the values they espouse. But will they be open to teaming up with Boom…or will a different Image founder or partner take their war (that they publicly started) with Boom to the next level?

It's almost as if ComicsPRO's annual meeting is almost upon us…

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