founder todd mcfarlane jim lee whilce portacio marc silvestri erik larsen jim valentino rob liefeld country of origin united states headquarters location berkeley california key people todd mcfarlane president jim valentino vice president marc silvestri ceo robert kirkman coo erik larsen cfo eric stephenson publisher publication types comic books graphic novels imprints highbrow entertainment shadowline skybound todd mcfarlane productions top cow productions joe s comics mvcreations 1 official website http www.imagecomics.com image comics is an american comic book publisher . it was founded in 1992 by several high profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created as creator owned properties . it was immediately successful and remains one of the largest comic book publishers in north america . its output was originally dominated by work from the studios of the image partners but now includes work by numerous independent creators . its best known series include spawn savage dragon witchblade the darkness invincible the walking dead saga and chew . contents 1 history 1.1 founding 1.2 development 1.3 partial break up 1.4 diversification 2 current ongoing series 2.1 top cow productions 3 former notable series 3.1 top cow productions 4 see also 5 notes 6 references 6.1 inline citations 6.2 general references 7 external links history edit founding edit panel at comiccon 2007 on the 15th anniversary of the founding of image comics . from left jim lee todd mcfarlane erik larsen jim valentino marc silvestri rob liefeld and whilce portacio . in the early 1990s comics creators erik larsen rob liefeld and jim valentino had dinner with malibu comics editor in chief dave olbrich . malibu was a small but established publishing company sympathetic to creator ownership and he expressed interest in publishing comics created by them . 2 3 these and several other freelance illustrators doing popular work for marvel comics were growing frustrated with the company s work for hire policies and practices . their primary complaint was that the artwork and new characters they created were being merchandised heavily with the artists receiving only standard page rates for their work and modest royalties on sales of the comics . citation needed in december 1991 a group of these illustrators approached marvel president terry stewart and demanded that the company give them ownership and creative control over their work . accounts vary as to whom this group included but it is generally accepted that todd mcfarlane and liefeld were among its leaders . citation needed marvel did not meet their demands . in response eight creators announced the founding of image comics illustrators todd mcfarlane known for his work on spider man jim lee x men rob liefeld x force marc silvestri wolverine erik larsen the amazing spider man jim valentino guardians of the galaxy whilce portacio uncanny x men and longtime uncanny x men writer chris claremont . 4 5 this development was nicknamed the x odus because several of the creators involved claremont liefeld lee silvestri and portacio were famous for their work on the x men franchise . marvel s stock fell 3.25 share when the news became public . 4 image s organizing charter had two key provisions 6 image would not own any creator s work ; the creator would . no image partner would interfere creatively or financially with any other partner s work . image itself would own no intellectual property except the company trademarks its name and its logo 7 which was designed by writer hank kanalz . 8 each image partner founded his own studio which published under the image banner but was autonomous from any central editorial control . claremont was not part of the partnership and portacio withdrew during the formative stages to deal with his sister s illness 9 so image originally consisted of six studios todd mcfarlane productions owned by todd mcfarlane wildstorm productions owned by jim lee highbrow entertainment owned by erik larsen shadowline owned by jim valentino top cow productions owned by marc silvestri extreme studios owned by rob liefeld development edit spawn 1 1992 art by todd mcfarlane . their initial titles were produced under the image imprint but published through malibu comics which provided administrative production distribution and marketing support for the launch of the initial titles . 5 10 the first image comic books to arrive in stores were liefeld s youngblood larsen s the savage dragon mcfarlane s spawn and lee s wildc.a.t.s . youngblood and savage dragon were not entirely new creations having debuted in gary carlson s megaton an independent comic book title published from 1981 to 1987 . 11 propelled by the artists popularity and the eagerness of comic book collectors to get in on the next big thing these series sold in numbers that no publisher other than marvel dc or valiant comics had achieved in the years since the market s decline in the 1970s . citation needed the company experienced lesser successes with silvestri s cyberforce valentino s shadowhawk and portacio s much delayed wetworks . citation needed within a few months the image titles success led to malibu having almost 10 % of the north american comics market share 12 briefly exceeding that of industry giant dc comics . 13 by the beginning of 1993 image s financial situation was secure enough to publish its titles independently and it left malibu . 14 some of the founders studios came to resemble separate publishers each with several ongoing series set in a shared universe . at first there were indications of an image universe shared by all the studios but these decreased as the studios developed their own directions . the use of freelancers to write or illustrate series that were owned by the image partners led to criticism that some of them had reproduced the very system they had rebelled against but with them in charge instead of a corporation . 15 image partners such as larsen and valentino who did not take this approach assumed a neutral position on it in keeping with the requirement that none of them had any say in how the others studios were run . some of the image partners used their studios to also publish works produced independently allowing their creators to retain ownership and editorial control over those series an arrangement which was then uncommon among large publishers . these included sam kieth the maxx dale keown pitt 16 jae lee hellshock and the team of kurt busiek brent anderson and alex ross astro city . later some established self published series also moved to image such as jeff smith s bone and colleen doran s a distant soil . the partners had little business or management experience and many series fell behind their intended publishing schedule . 17 note 1 comparing them to vaporware one reader reported that 17 of the 36 delayed items in his december 1992 order were from image . 18 retailers orders of newly offered issues were typically based on the sales of recent issues but as the issues shipped weeks and even several months late fans interest tended to wane leaving retailers with inventory they could not sell when it arrived . in response retailers cut orders to reduce their risk . this significantly hurt the studios which were each responsible for their own cash flow and profitability . 19 in late 1993 the partners hired independent cartoonist larry marder to act as executive director for the publisher ; 20 valentino quipped in interviews that marder s job was literally to direct the executives i.e. the image partners . marder developed better financial planning and had some success in disciplining creators to deliver their work on time in part by insisting that retail orders for new issues would not be solicited until the books had been illustrated usually ensuring they would be ready to ship when promised . citation needed witchblade 80 . by the mid 1990s image series such as spawn and the savage dragon had proven themselves as lasting successes the former frequently topping the sales charts for months in which new issues came out while new series such as wildstorm s gen and top cow s witchblade and the darkness were also successful . image had become the third largest comics publisher in north america exceeded only by long established industry leaders marvel and dc comics . citation needed partial break up edit clashes between partners began to harm the company . several of the partners complained that liefeld was using his position as ceo of image to promote and perhaps even to financially support his own separate publishing company maximum press . citation needed silvestri withdrew top cow from image in 1996 although he retained his partnership in the company protesting that liefeld was recruiting artists from his studio including the highly popular michael turner witchblade . citation needed the other five partners discussed ousting liefeld from the company and liefeld resigned in september 1996 giving up his share of the company . 21 22 silvestri subsequently returned top cow to image . wildstorm s cliffhanger imprint established in 1998 was a commercial success launching high selling creator owned properties by humberto ramos j. scott campbell joe madureira and others . however jim lee sold wildstorm to dc comics in 1999 citing a desire to exchange his responsibilities as a publisher for the opportunity to do more creative work . diversification edit a panel of non founding image creators at the 2010 new york comic con l r tomm coker tim seeley ben mccool james zhang nick spencer and ron marz . the founders of image were best known for their dynamic and extravagant art and for character driven thinly plotted stories in the superhero genre . although the company published dissimilar works many readers came to perceive this as the image style of comics . valentino had become less active as a creator after the company s first few years and responded to this development in 1997 by using his position as a partner to seek out and publish a number of titles by other creators in distinctly different genres and styles in a deliberate attempt to diversify image s output and how it was perceived . although most of these series ironically dubbed the non line because of their lack of commonality did not sell well and were soon cancelled they introduced an increasingly important business model for the company offering other creators the same total ownership terms the partners enjoyed but taking a fixed fee upon publication for the company s administrative costs . this practice was later formalized as a function of image central a business unit independent of any of the studios . citation needed this focus on non studio comics increased when valentino took on the role of image s publisher assuming many of the responsibilities held by marder until he left the company in 1999 . the company s position in the north american direct market diminished in the 2000s challenged by dark horse comics and idw publishing for the position of third largest publisher after marvel and dc . 23 in february 2004 larsen replaced valentino as publisher largely continuing existing business practices . larsen stepped down as publisher in july 2008 and executive director eric stephenson was promoted to the position . 24 valentino returned to operating his own studio with his shadowline imprint . shortly after stephenson s appointment image added a new partner . robert kirkman whose black and white series the walking dead had emerged as a long running and popular series and whose invincible had become one of the longest running series featuring a newly created superhero in recent years became the first partner added since its founding . 25 in july 2010 he announced that he would create an imprint under his direction known as skybound . 26 starting in 2009 image entered a period of