Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, halcyon, image, jack staff, savage dragon

Bleeding I – Q&A With Image Publisher Eric Stephenson

Published Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:00:43 -0600

Last updated Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:51:41 -0600

Eric Stephenson subjects himself once more to the interrogation of Bleeding Cool readers and a couple from me too. If you have your own questions, add them to the comments or email me on richjohnston@gmail.com

5andman asks, regarding Eric's photo in the last Q&A, "That's not a real fur jacket is it?"

Yes, and I sewed it myself out of kitten pelts.

Seriously, though, it's not my coat, but I've been assured it's fake. I mean, only assholes wear real fur.

abcdiablo asks "What's the status of King City? If I remember correctly #12 hasn't been released yet. Not that I'm interested in #12 specifically, I'm interested more in when I can get my hands on a hardcover or tpb of King City. Any idea on when this could be a possibility?"

KING CITY #12 is actually in stores now. The collection… Well, that's kind of in TokyoPop's hands at this point. I know Brandon would love to have a collection out there, and we'd love to put it out, but TokyoPop controls the property and they seem to have other plans. I wish I could tell you more than that, but that's what I know as of this moment.

ShinAkuma666 has some very specific questions

"1. Will there be a second printing of The Roberts (with the correct page order) coming out any time soon? I hold off on that because of that mix up."

Not at present.

"2. More for Top Cow, but maybe the question can be relayed, will we ever see a complete collection of Soul Saga with the last issue (6) like they got in Europe ?"

The chances of a collection of that title are little to none, honestly. The creators don't seem terribly interested in putting out a collection in the U.S. When Jim Valentino was publisher, he and I actually tried to set that up, but we just never got anywhere with it. Stephen Platt emailed Erik Larsen about it when he was publisher, because I think Stephen actually would like to see the entire thing collected, but you know, there are only so many times you can try to work something out. The other creators involved don't see the value of putting the book out, so until that changes, there won't be a collection.

And his third question, "3. Would be nice if there was section on the Image Forum, a single place for updates on late books, or books on hold, it would help a LOT."

We're actually in the process of re-designing and upgrading our site, and that's something we plan to address.

is echoed by another user die-yng who asks "As far as I know, comics arriving late and/ or in irregular intervals are hurting sales. That's one of the problems Image seems to have. Would it possible for Image to keep the readers more up to date, as far as late comics or comics on hiatus are concerned? Maybe something like a news section on the homepage to give readers the latest information?"

I agree keeping readers and retailers informed as to the status of books is a good idea, but after poking around at other publishers' sites, I have to ask: Who else is doing this? Image is far from the only publisher with late books. It's an industry-wide problem, has been for years and years, and there are some very high profile books that ship late from time to time, yet this always seems to fall at our feet. I think everyone could do a better job of alerting the public to shipping changes, and like I said, we're planning to address that with our new Website.

I also note that the Image website said Velocity #3 and 27 #1 were out a couple of weeks. Even running a news story a few days before to say so. But they weren't. And Diamond's lists to retailer said they weren't, previously. How does this kind of thing happen?

27 #1 was printed overseas and there were some receiving issues in LA. The thing with printing books overseas, in China or Korea or Hong Kong, wherever, is all that stuff comes to the U.S. via boat and then has to go through Customs once it hits our shores. Much of the time, the books are in a container with other types of merchandise, and sometimes a container will be pulled aside by Customs because whatever else is in there needs to be checked. The entire container gets checked, even if the books aren't the problem, and how long it takes to sort through everything depends on Customs. And that's just one way books can be held up. Virtually everybody in comics or in print publishing could give you a different story about how a book that should have made its date was held up due to circumstances beyond his or her control.

The concept of paying Advances came up again. You said it would make no sense for Image to throw money at something it may never see. In book publishing, if a manuscript isn't delivered within an agreed time, to an agreed quality, the publisher gets its advance back. Couldn't Image adopt a similar practice?

Well, I think you misunderstood what I was saying. When I said it makes no sense for Image to fund something that we'll never see anything back on, I meant financially. If we're putting money into something without receiving some form of compensation in return, then we're essentially giving someone a no-interest loan. Who does that? At Marvel or DC, they have the deep corporate pockets of Disney and Warner Bros. to reach into, and they can pay writers and artists whatever they want, in hopes that even if the comic books don't earn out, they'll be able to make the money back through other media. Because they own the characters they're paying the writers and artists to work on those books each month. At Image, we don't own those characters. The creators own the characters. If the creators need to be paid up front to do the work, it's too large a risk for Image to fund that work unless we're guaranteed some return on the back end. Generally speaking, though, the creators who come to Image aren't looking for us to dip our hands in their pockets. The whole appeal of the Image deal is that the creators retain full ownership: That's how creator-owned comics work.

Emperor asks bluntly "How well do Image Comics titles do? Some people have suggested that some of the Image Comics titles just about cover the costs (is there not a set-up cost of something like $2,500?) which would make some comic books closer to vanity projects. Supplementary question: What kind of sales do you need to break even?"

The answer to both question is that it depends on the title. Some do very well, some don't. I'm not going to sit here and rattle off exact figures for you, because frankly, that's none of your business. That's between Image Comics and the respective creators. It would be akin to your boss going online and telling people what he pays you.

That said, many different factors determine the break even point on a comic book or graphic novel. Obviously, orders are a big part of that, but also there's page count, color, paper stock, cover stock, freight, where the book is printed… There's no one, clear cut number that works for every title or format.

He also notes "I suppose there is also a question to be asked about the comics Rich often flags as being underordered (although I am unsure if Rich flagging it actually has impact on this, making it a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy) and being flipped for large amounts on eBay. Have they identified this as a trend and do they think there is anything that can be done about it?"

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Is there something we can do to prevent comics from being flipped for more money on eBay? Yes, we could throw caution to the wind and overprint an even larger quantity for inventory, but the truth of the matter is, while we may think everything we do is fantastic and should be a hit, it doesn't always work out that way. I'm very careful to exercise prudence in setting print runs, because I don't want to be stuck with something we can't sell. When we set our runs, we look at what the demand is at the time we're going to press and make a decision based off that.

Is there something we can do about comics being under ordered? Well, we try to let people know what's coming, but ultimately, it's down to our retailer partners whether they stock something or not. With new material, there's always a certain amount of reluctance to order heavily, to take a chance on something that isn't Iron Man or Thor or Deadpool or any of these other books that are repeatedly being spun out of existing titles. There are retailers who have flat out told me, to my face, "Readers don't want anything new," but I'd personally counter that I think there's a segment of the retail community that just isn't very eager to support anything new, that is comfortable pushing whatever looks tried and true. So they constantly sell new material short, and in many cases, unless customers are coming into stores and saying, "Hey, I want a copy of this," there's no sense of the actual demand for something.

I'd also add that Image appealed to retailers over low orders on Marineman and Halcyon #2. In the same week, Dynamite suffered radically lower than expected orders on Raise The Dead II and Bring The Thunder. Are these blips or indicative of something wider?

I don't think retailers necessarily knew what to expect from Marineman. On the surface, I guess it might be mistaken for something like Aquaman, but it's actually so much more than that. Ian has put so much work in the book and there's such attention to detail, both in terms of the writing and the art, that I think anyone who picks it up is going to be impressed. There's a lot of heart in Marineman, and it shows on every page.

With Halcyon — I think there was some confusion over the title. The book was originally solicited as Utopian, and you know, I don't think anyone out there has ever heard of another book with that title, but surprise, surprise — there is one. So Marc Guggenheim changed the title to Halcyon, and I think that caused some confusion initially, but that seems to have been resolved and the orders are looking a lot better. I also think some retailers were under the impression that artist Ryan Bodenheim couldn't keep a monthly schedule, due to the extreme lateness of Red Mass for Mars #4, but Ryan's actually rock solid with his deadlines. He wasn't the hold-up with Red Mass for Mars, and he's not going to hold anything up on Halcyon. I think once the second issue shipped, there was a bit of relief — "Oh, this IS going to come out regularly…" But yeah, the book's out there and it's doing better and better.

I'd also like to ask, what are the upcoming Image books you think people might like to pay more attention to, that might otherwise pass us by?

I could go on for hours about all the books I think people should pay more attention to, but I think I'm actually going to limit myself to three titles, and the first one is Richard Starkings' Elephantmen. This book originally began life as Hip Flask, a beautiful book Richard put out on his own, with art by Jose Ladrönn. For the past four years, it's been coming out from Image as a (mostly) monthly series and has featured some fantastic art by Möritat, Marian Churchland, Boo Cook, Chris Bachalo, Ian Churchill… just a ton of fantastic people. Better still, though, is the story, which is actually quite unique. Nobody else is doing what Richard's doing here, the amount of world-building that has gone into this series is just phenomenal, and it's just an incredibly rewarding read. There are three volumes worth of trades out at this point, and it's something you can really sink your teeth into. We're actually highlighting this book with a special issue in March and if you haven't tried the book before, this special book — Elephantmen: Man and Elephantman #1 — is the perfect place to start.

Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower is another book completely unlike anything else on the market. It only comes out a few times a year, because Eric is so meticulous with the writing and artwork, the research, that it's impossible to do as a monthly, but man, what a book. Eric has won several Eisners for the series over the years, and the book does incredibly well outside comics, but for anyone looking for something that combines real history with action and genuine intrigue, it doesn't get much better than Eric's telling of the story behind the Trojan War. An absolute gem of a book.

Paul Grist's Jack Staff is another book that doesn't exactly keep a monthly schedule, but it's brilliant nonetheless. I first got into Paul's work back in the '90s when he was first doing Kane. Robert Loren Fleming turned me on to the book, and I was just blown away by what Paul was doing. His work looks deceptively simple, but he's an absolute master storyteller. He does things with page design, with panel layout that are just… I think he's something of a mad genius. Jack Staff has been Paul's main concern for the past 10 years or so, first through his own Dancing Elephant Press, and then through us, and for me, it's just one of the coolest superhero comics going. Each issue is filled from cover to cover, so every time a new issues hits the stands, it's well worth the wait. Mark my words, there's an alternate reality where Paul Grist is the biggest name in comics, because his stuff is that good.

Actually, you know what, I'm going to add one more, because I just read the latest issue of Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon, and it's just so damn cool. People tend to write Erik off, and I'm not sure why that is, because after Invincible, I think Savage Dragon is probably the best superhero comic on the market. More happens in this book during the current issue than happens in most superhero books over the course of a year. Erik's vision for this book is so singular and uncompromising… I think unless you just enjoy being pandered to in your superhero comics, you can't help but admire the fact that the guy is willing to take chances and effect real change within his stories. Maybe it's just because he's so outspoken? I dunno, but this book is better than it's ever been.