ICV2 has Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson’s keynote speech from yesterday’s Diamond summit in Chicago, in which he positions the publisher as “the revolution” that the comics industry needs:

If you’re one of the stores that has helped The Walking Dead become a worldwide phenomenon with trade paperback sales in the millions, give yourself a hand.  The Walking Dead did not exist at this point in 2003. It is just shy of 10 years old, and the success of that title–a black and white creator-owned comic about the survivors of a zombie apocalypse–owes as much to your support as it does to Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard’s talent as storytellers.

If you’re one of the stores that made Saga an instant success, that helped us sell 100,000 copies of the first trade paperback in six months, give yourself a hand.  Saga didn’t exist until this time last year. It’s only a year old, and while it may have been Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples writing and drawing those comics, it was you and your shops that were turning readers on to one of the best comics this industry has seen in years.  It was you who chose to recognize something brand-new as worthy of virtually unprecedented support.

Like I said, we are each other.  We wouldn’t be here without you, you wouldn’t be here without us, and we all suffer when we’re not focused on making this business the absolute best it can be.

Much more in the link.

The 20th Century Danny Boy blog shares a little piece of comic history with the publication of Larry Marder’s testimony at the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane trial over the rights to Angela and Miracleman:

Q: Did you ever speak with him in person since then?

A: Yes.

Q: When was that?

A: San Diego comic book convention, 1999.

Q: And just tell me as best you can recall about that conversation?

A: I was — I ran into Neil on the escalator in the mezzanine area on the way to a panel and I said hello to Neil and we stopped and we talked.

Q: Did you talk about issues relating to Mr. McFarlane?

A: Yes.

Q: Tell me as best you can recall the conversation that you had?

A: I was saying hello to Neil and he was very angry.

Q: And -

A: And he said that — he had a large group of people with him, none of whom I knew, and they sort of formed a circle around us.

Q: Who is “us”?

A: Neil and I.  And Neil was saying that this needs to be solved.

Q: Did he say what “this” was?

A: No.

Q: Did you know what this was?

A: I could figure it out, yes.

iFanboy’s Ron Richards… isn’t iFanboy’s Ron Richards anymore:

Since 2001, iFanboy has been a passion and the focus of much of my dedication. Teaming up with two of my best friends to create something out of nothing was fun. To see what heights we’ve reached since then has been mind boggling. So you can only imagine how it is with a heavy heart that I’ve come to this decision. It was not an easy one to make, but given where I’m now headed, unfortunately there would be no way for me to do what I’ve done at iFanboy, on a daily basis, for the past 12 years.I’ve accepted a position at Image Comics.

For years when asked if I ever wanted to work in comics, I’ve laughed off the question, stating that I’m neither a writer nor an artist and would probably not do well as a creator. But, I’ve said, if there was one aspect of comics that interested me it was the publishing and business side. That was something that I find infinitely interesting (I published my own magazine in college) and that is exactly what I will be doing at Image Comics. I will be joining the Image team as the Director of Business Development, working closely with Publisher Eric Stephenson and Marketing & PR Director Jennifer De Guzman and the rest of the amazing staff at Image Central in Berkeley, CA. I will primarily be focusing on sales and marketing as I work to help Image continue the amazing success that they have been experiencing.

Really good news for a good guy. Best of luck, Ron.

UPDATE: Here’s the official PR from Image.

Is Robert Kirkman scaring showrunners away from AMC’s The Walking Dead? That’s one of the theories the Hollywood Reporter shares, concerning Glen Mazzara’s December exit from the show:

Several insiders confirm that Kirkman, whose detailed graphic novels form the basis of the series, is “very proprietary,” as one puts it. One adds, “I believe Robert wants to maintain a certain amount of his control, and AMC needs Robert for the fan base.” But despite the vitriol, some sources involved with Walking Dead say Kirkman was one of several producers on the show who had issues with Mazzara and his vision.

Whether the problem is with Kirkman or other AMC producers, the fact that the show has lost two showrunners in the space of just three seasons is a sign that someone, somewhere, has a problem relinquishing control to the people who are theoretically supposed to be in charge of the series…

Congratulations, Robert Kirkman:

Image Comics’ The Walking Dead #100 was the bestselling comic book published in 2012 based on total unit sales to comic book specialty shops, according to Diamond Comic Distributors, the world’s largest distributor of comics, graphic novels, and pop-culture merchandise.

Diamond’s 2012 year-end rundown also reveals that Marvel was the top publisher of the year in both dollar and unit share, a fact that’s underlined by looking at the top 10 most-ordered books of 2012: Walking Dead #100 aside, it’s all Marvel titles (Including, in an unexpected moment, Avengers #1 making it in at the tenth spot. I didn’t expect that book to have done that well, but I find myself surprisingly glad that it did).

Never mind Amazing Spider-Man or Justice League, the big release of this week may be a new issue of Richard Starkings’ Hip Flask, with full-issue art by the incomparable Ladronn. How much of an event is this, for fans? Starkings gave some sense of that while talking to Multiversity Comics:

I launched [spin-off series] ELEPHANTMEN because I had a lot of ideas for the HIP FLASK characters begging my attention and I couldn’t wait on Ladrönn. I met with him recently and pointed out that I completed 50 issues of ELEPHANTMEN in the time it has taken him to finish this 4th issue of HIP FLASK!

The fourth issue is the penultimate one; it’ll be interesting – and somewhat tortuous – to see how long it takes for the final issue to be finished.

What do readers expect from first issues of comics, these days?

When Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson was talking about response to the first issue of Nowhere Men, a series he co-created, he told iFanboy, “I’m not real sure when this trend of expecting the first issue of a comic to explain every single thing about where a series is going started, but it’s not something I’m particularly into as a reader or a publisher.” It was something that resonated with writer and critic Abhay Khosla, and not necessarily in a good way:

No.  There’s no such “trend”— there’ve been any number of hit comics that didn’t “explain every single thing” with sales and critical success ensuing.  Even if there were such a trend, audiences are allowed to expect things— those are called audience expectations, and understanding and manipulating those is a normal and understood part of the job of a creative artist; that’s on the job description.

But even if we assumed arguendo that audiences have complained in a clumsy way about unrealistic expectations not being satisfied, audiences are allowed to say things in a clumsy way.  They’re the audience not James Walcott; their job isn’t to be the editor while a professional editor is in absentia, carefully articulating the deficiencies of their experiences.  One needs only to look past the clumsiness, and the sentiment he’s complaining about is invariably the oldest one there is:  ”The first issue has to give me a reason to buy the second issue, and it didn’t.” Yeah: that’s not a “trend” or a “meme” or a “fad”— that’s the job.  That’s always been the job.  That “trend” started at the dawn of the enterprise.

Ales Kot, writer of Image’s Change and Wild Children, disagrees, somewhat:

Stephenson isn’t talking about that, is he? It seems like you’re putting your own words (i.e. ideas on how his brain operates, also know as assumptions, which are often derived from expectations) into his mouth. Stephenson is the publisher of Image Comics, the company that gave 2012 more interesting first issues than any other this year as far as I’m concerned – and I’m saying that as a reader and the guy who is making comics that Image publishes. So what? I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t see it that way. Are there duds? Fuck yes there are. But there’s also way more interesting, exciting stuff than anywhere else at the moment except for Koyama Press and Fantagraphics, two companies that are not really in the #1 business anyway.

First issues are becoming increasingly common (and important, in some way) to the mainstream side of the industry in recent years, and they’re often sales crutches and tools as much as – if not more than – they’re true beginnings or restarts of series. The above conversation feels like the start of something that may not be necessary, but would be nice to see more of throughout 2012: People actually trying to work out that the point of a first issue is, and what it’s actually supposed to do.

Well, that didn’t last long. A couple of days after announcing that it wouldn’t be reprinting Saga #7, nor any other single issue that it believed had been under-ordered by retailers originally, Image Comics announces a reprint of Saga #7:

Image has reversed its no-reprint decision on Saga #7 and will be offering the second printing at promotional discounts to encourage bigger orders, Image publisher Eric Stephenson announced today.  Retailers ordering over 25 copies of the second printing will receive an 80% discount, and orders under that quantity will receive the normal max discount on Image titles.  Stephenson also said that if Saga #8, which has already passed the Final Order Cut-off Date, also sells out, it will also be reprinted.

If this sounds like a complete reversal based upon the reaction of retailers to the initial announcement… Well, it is:

He apologized for the tone of the original announcement that reprints would be curtailed.  “For those of you who found the tone of that newsletter condescending or abrasive–you have my apologies.  In communicating my frustrations to Jen, that inadvertently got passed down to you, and that shouldn’t have been the case.”  He also apologized for the lack of notice on the new policy.  “We also should have given you more of a heads up on how we were handling this, so that you weren’t completely blindsided by a sudden change in policy and again, that’s on me,” Stephenson said.

With the book’s creators now fully-fledged superstars at Marvel, iFanboy talks to Rick Remender, Tony Moore and Jerome Opena for an Oral History of Fear Agent. Here’s Remender explaining the early appeal of doing the series:

The idea was to just be untethered in imagination and to be able to do something that was grounded in a character that you cared about. The adventures that he would go through would be any amazing, cool, science fiction ideas that we had. We wanted to work in time travel and dimension hopping, doppelgangers, and every kind of wonderful sci-fi trove we could. We understood the important thing had to be Heath and his story and who he was.

The second installment (of three) is due to run today. It’s a great format for a classic series; I hope to see more of this kind of thing for other books soon.

Image Comics wants retailers to go bigger on initial orders for books:

We have decided to cease second printings of single issues of titles that are known over-performers in hopes that it will help initial sales find their proper level. That’s marketing-speak for “You know this sells, so you’d better make sure you order enough!”This isn’t meant as a punishment or some weird scheme to drive up prices of single issues on eBay. The weeks of delay in waiting for the second printing cost you sales. Knowing you can count on reprintings has encouraged caution when none is called for, and that hurts you as much as it does us.

I find myself torn on this. On the one hand, framing it, as Image’s email does, in the example of Saga – which is on #7 and a proven hit – makes a lot of sense to me. The demand for this series is proven, and I’m sure orders can be bumped up at least a little to meet demand the first time around. So, you know, sure. But then the announcement suggests three books that retailers should consider bumping their numbers, and they’re all second issues:

CHANGE #2 — Orders presently are 38% lower than orders for the debut issue. If you haven’t read CHANGE #1 yet, please give it a look. Its writer Ales Kot had a breakout hit with WILD CHILDREN this year, and CHANGE taps into the same sensibility.

THE LEGEND OF LUTHER STRODE #2 — Orders are 21% less than orders for #1, which has sold out. This is a known seller by creators whose traction in the industry is growing — Justin Jordan, who also writes Shadowman for Valiant and Tradd Moore, who has drawn a variant Deadpool cover for Marvel and a story in the digital Legends of the Dark Knight for DC.

NON-HUMANS #2 — I know. It’s late, and lateness is a death knell for sales numbers. But! This is the return to Image by Whilce Portacio, and a 33% drop in orders seems a mite steep, considering that NON-HUMANS #1 sold out.

They’re second issues! There isn’t the sales pattern for these books that there is for Saga, and in one case – Change – the first issue hasn’t even been released yet (It’s out today), so retailers don’t have any real idea what sales are like. How do any of these titles meet Image’s own criteria as “known over-performers” with only one issue (or less) of sales to go on? What if that issue was a fluke?

File under “Zombies really are unstoppable, after all,” as ICv2 measures the success of The Walking Dead in bookstores last month:

Not content to hold the top two slots on the November according to the ranking of “Top 20 Graphic Novels” sold in the book channel provided exclusively to ICv2 by Nielsen BookScan, Robert Kirkman’s zombie drama also shows up in positions 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, and 19 for a whopping eight titles in the top 20.

The rest of the top 5 bookstore releases are Building Stories (the new Chris Ware release), Superman Earth One Volume Two and, in a surprise appearance, a Marvel book: Avengers Vs. X-Men. Wonder if this bodes well for the Marvel NOW! future for Marvel’s bookstore fortunes…?

Hey, remember when I wrote

Please, please, someone at another publisher add “Uncanny” to titles of your series come February; maybe you’ll be able to get some shared heat, somehow

back when Marvel teased Uncanny X-Men Volume 3? Take a bow, Jim Zubkavich and Edward Huang. The two are behind the February Uncanny Skullkickers from Image. In fact, take two bows, because look at the cover:

Spectacular.

October seems to have been a good month for… well, everyone, as far as Diamond orders are concerned:

Due to the happy confluence of the end of its successful Avengers vs. X-Men event and the debut of its Marvel NOW! line, Marvel placed five titles in the top ten compared with four for DC and one for Image. Regaining some dominance at the top of the comic book chart was crucial in allowing Marvel to recapture the marketshare crown decisively in October. In addition to the previously mentioned Uncanny Avengers #1 variants, Marvel also utilized the technique on a number of other titles, some of which got “Final Issue” variants, while others received pink “Susan G. Komen” variants.

Even though most of DC’s top titles dipped slightly from their “0” issues in September, many of them posted gains over their #12 issues in August. With Jim Lee no longer penciling Justice League, Scott Snyder’s Batman is easily the publisher’s top title, and the strong debut of the “Death of a Family” storyline in issue #13 indicates that the situation is not likely to change anytime soon. Also showing great promise in October was Green Lantern #13, which actually posted a gain over its “0” issue thanks to the start of the “Rise of the Third Army” saga in issue #13. John Layman (Chew) took over as the writer of Detective with issue #13 and his tenure is off to a strong start.

Overall five titles in the top 25 showed growth in circulation in October (seven if the DC “0” issues are disregarded), while sixteen posted declines (there were four #1’s in the top 25).

Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead #103, the title that posted the biggest circulation increase from September to October, also cracked the top 10 for the first time (with the obvious exception of its #100 issue, the bestselling comic of the year so far). Aided by the debut of the new season of The Walking Dead on AMC, the black-and-white Image comic moved up from #24 in September to #9 in October as it posted a 28% increase in sales, which grew to 74,378.

Brandon Seifert is talking Image’s Witch Doctor: Mal Practice to Diamond, of all people:

At this point, I’ve got a massive, massive list of story ideas. (How massive? This summer I went through it and selected just my favorite ideas, the ones I really want to get to. Then I did some math. If we did Witch Doctor as an ongoing monthly comic, and did all of my favorite story ideas, and did each one as just a done-in-one, single-issue story… that’s still three years’ worth of stories!) So at this point, the question isn’t “What should our next story be?” It’s “Which of these story ideas should we use next?”

The idea of Witch Doctor as an ongoing monthly series… Man. That’s just a cruel, cruel tease. I know that Siefert’s been picked up by Boom! for some books (and has a new Monkeybrain title out right now), but I’m constantly surprised that he’s not popped up at either Marvel or DC yet. I, for one, would like to see him reboot Dr. Fate for DC Universe Presents, if anyone’s listening over there…

Someone’s going to have to help me with this. Here’s the latest promo art from Matt Fraction and Howard Chaykin’s 2013 Image series, Satellite Sam (yanked from their Tumblr, yesterday):

So: Retro fetishism and a woman in lacy lingerie and suspenders. So far, so Chaykin, right? Here’s my question: Why does it look as if both characters are floating and weightless? Is it because of the coloring, and the way the shadows are done (Note the fact that the lighting on the woman suggests the light source is to the left of the reader, but the shadows suggest the light source is behind the reader)? Is it the angle of the shot (Either the woman is standing on the man’s hand, or that’s crazily bad perspective, and I can’t tell which was intended)? It’s a really problematic image, and I can’t work out why. Help?

Sorry, Brits: You won’t get a chance to buy Black Kiss 2 legally as a print comic after all, it seems. As Bleeding Cool reports, Howard Chaykin’s follow-up to his original porn comic has been banned by Diamond UK, with this letter to British retailers explaining the situation:

Retailers will be aware that the first issue of Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss II was rather explicit compared to other comics distributed by Diamond UK. We at Diamond have now had the opportunity to review the second issue and the explicitness has not diminished at all! In fact there are scenes depicted which may fall foul of UK Customs’ regulations on the importing of indecent and obscene material. Consequently Diamond has taken the decision not to distribute any further issues of Black Kiss II in the UK.

Had Diamond UK continued to import this title and encountered problems with Customs, it could have had a knock-on effect on the timely distribution of all titles in the UK. A situation wanted by no one.

All orders for Black Kiss II #2  along with Black Kiss II #1, have been cancelled by Diamond UK. Black Kiss II #1 will be made returnable at a later date. Please look out for details in Discussions.

Retailers wishing to read more on Customs’ regulations should check the HMRC website:

I am sure there will be fallout from this decision. Part of me wonders whether it’ll mean an increase in digital sales, while I also find myself wondering whether or not there could be enough demand in the UK for the title that a British edition could be printed by a publisher there, a la Alan Moore’s Lost Girls. Is there even a Diamond alternative/rival that could carry the original…?

Still, at least future issues of the series can rightfully plaster “Too Hot For The United Kingdom!” on their covers.

Abhay Khosla has a really interesting essay on Brandon Graham et al’s recreation of Prophet up at Savage Critics:

But so, PROPHET: space opera– guys with swords fighting it out in a conveniently monster-filled expanse of outer space, plus the requisite amount of used-bookstore paperback covers sexuality (e.g. the last issue featuring one of the he-man protagonists straddled by some kind of cross between a salamander and a girl from the Freek-A-Leek video).

I’d throw on the word biopunk– not 100% sure if I’m using that term correctly, though. By biopunk, I just mean to say it’s more interested in wet things than sleek hardware, organic slop more than the ergonomic, erotic plugs and silicon ports of a William Gibson novel (the Sharper Image future Marc Laidlaw satirized in Dad’s Nuke way back when, before he became the Half Life 2 guy). (Yay, obscure references to books I read in high school! I’m building to a Robert Aspirin Phule’s Company monologue).

PROPHET’s built more on clones, monsters, slime, muck, decay, body horror than tech. The engine of each issue so far has tended to be a manipulated clone struggling to survive a hostile, alien environment. Actual, purposeful antagonists have tended to be rare– the only one that springs to mind had motivations as inscrutable as its surroundings; simple survival’s made for enough drama.

I found earlier issues of the relaunch to be too dry SF for my tastes, but this essay makes me want to go back and see what I missed.

Image Comics’ Glory is going up in price from $2.99 to $3.99 with #29, according to the solicitations. When asked about the increase on Twitter, writer Joe Keatinge explained the reality of comics:

Attn: Folks Asking About Glory Price Hike. Word from @imagecomics was that we either raised the price or ended the series prematurely. I personally want to see Glory to its natural end. If you have any other questions about it, send ‘em straight to the source, @imagecomics. Glory’s end is currently ‘to be continued’. Word on that will come when word on that is ready to come. The extra $1 ensures we get there.

When asked if readers “should be worried” about his creator-owned Image series, Hell Yeah, Keatinge offered a simple “Nope.”

And this is what happen when you publish a hardcore porn and try to ship it to other countries with all your other comics, it appears:

I have been told by a number of UK stores that the new Black Kiss comic by Howard Chaykin, Black Kiss 2, due to be published tomorrow by Image Comics, has not arrived – although other Image comic books have.

Asking around, I am told by Diamond Comic Distributor representatives that the comic book in question has been held by UK Customs, who are concerned by its rather intense sexual content.

Judging by comments from those who’ve actually seen Black Kiss 2 – I haven’t – the book doesn’t shy away from scenes that could be described as “graphic,” and not in the traditional “graphic novel” sense. I am curious and worried about what the feedback will be from retailers in more conservative parts of the US when this hits shelves tomorrow.

This may be my favorite product update in recent memory:

SPAWN #222 – which was solicited as having a parody cover based on The Walking Dead #1 – was incorrectly printed with the cover solicited for SPAWN #223. The contents of Spawn #222 are as solicited. The Walking Dead parody cover will now be the cover to SPAWN #223.

Is this the first time cover images have been accidentally switched for consecutive issues of a series, does anyone know? For the curious, that means that Spawn #222 now has this for a cover:

While I’ve really enjoyed the Spawn homage covers to date, I have to admit that I’m not so sure about homaging yourself…