While Bryan Hitch’s high-profile departure from Marvel has been grabbing headlines lately, he’s not the only artist whose exclusive contract with a publisher has just ended, as Jamal Igle has announced that he’s no longer a DC Comics exclusive creator:
Frankly, this has been a long time coming,While I was very happy for many years to be exclusive, There comes a time when you’re ready to move on. There’s no animosity, in fact just the opposite. I’ve never been calmer or more centered than I have since I made this decision. I was forced to turn down a lot of outside opportunities while I was exclusive because I was so busy that I couldn’t take them on or contractually unable to do them.
So what does this mean?
Well, for one I already have a some comics work coming up, which will be announced soon, as well as securing other work in and out of the industry. I’m also available for work as well. I’ll be taking private commissions and developing some projects and pitching some of the creator owned concepts I’ve been working on over the last few years.
He adds that this doesn’t mean he’ll never work for DC again, although he adds that he’s not been offered anything beyond the end of the current Ray series. Weirdly enough, I was just wondering why we’ve not seen any Igle work at Marvel recently… Perhaps it was some strange premonition; I can see him paring well with Mark Bagley on an Avengers book or something.
January 3rd, 2012 at 11:52 am
Jamal is a good guy and a true talent. DC did their best to screw him every which way (Birds of Pray anyone?). I can’t wait to see Marvel make him the huge star that he deserves to be.
January 3rd, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Jamal is a great artist. I always look forward to seeing what he does next.
January 3rd, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Jamal Igle is a phenomenon. He’s good, fast, adaptable, and as far as I know has never had a bad word said about the man personally. Marvel would be insane not to scoop him before someone else (Dark Horse, IDW, Boom) scoops him up.
January 3rd, 2012 at 8:27 pm
There are a number of creators (Jamal is certainly one of them) that I would like to see take this opportunity of moving away from the Big 2 and start something new. Something big. Something creator driven, but unified. And maybe that’s a little too “Crossgen” in thought, but I can’t imagine a better time for it than now, with digital being a great equalizer for distribution and publishers being less of a necessity (in that market, at least).
Otherwise, creator-owned stuff through Image would be good enough.
But yeah, either way, Jamal is a great talent, and I look forward to what he does next. I just want to see him get more control of his destiny. Not saying anything bad went down between him and DC (because I have no knowledge if anything did or didn’t), but I just want to see him get on a project he can do from start to finish. I think he’s capable of being a huge name, but hasn’t gotten the recognition yet he deserves, but this could change that.