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…

We talked to Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare about their creator-owned, Kickstarter-funded one-shot Halloween Eve in an article that ran on the homepage Tuesday, and the duo had been waiting to announce a publisher for the book. The announcement is now official, and it’s a big one — the increasingly bustling Image Comics, who broke the news Thursday in a press release.

Some words from the creative team, courtesy of the release:

“Halloween Eve will break your heart and blow you away!” said Reeder. “I am so excited to be creating my own characters and story, and I’m glad it’s in the hands of what has lately felt like creator-owned central, Image Comics.”

“Working with Amy Reeder to co-create Halloween Eve was already almost too good to be true,” added Montclare. “Being at Image—without a doubt the place-to-be for creator-owned comics—is unbelievable.”

Check out the full Halloween Eve cover after the jump.

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You read about it before Comic-Con, and now you can actually contribute! Top Cow’s Cyber Force Kickstarter campaign is finally live:

For those who don’t remember, Top Cow is looking to launch its new Cyber Force ongoing series by releasing the first five issue arc for free in print and online; to do that, they want to raise $75,000. One day in, and they’re already above $10,000. Looks like a good start…

Tom Spurgeon has a quick conversation (part one, part two) with Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson about how things are going for the publisher, amid big-name creator signings and new hits like Saga and Fatale:

I see [the publisher's recent announcements] as a continuity in terms of what Jim and Erik were doing, and I see it as a continuation of the original purpose of Image was. That was to bring more people into the world of creator-owned comics. Those guys didn’t just set out to make a company for themselves. They very much wanted it to be a lot of people joining them. I feel like… until a couple of years ago there was a major focus on finding new talent. What we’re trying to do now is trying to get more well-known writers and artists to do work for us… I think the [Image Comics] package sells itself, and I think that having books like The Walking Dead and now Saga and things like that make it even easier for the package to sell itself. They’re sterling examples of successful books. On the other hand, I’m not bashful of talking about what our strengths are and why I think it’s important it’s important to do new, creator-driven comics. And I’m also not sorry for talking about that.

Image’s success – and the focus it puts on creator-owned comics – is spreading to the mainstream; the publisher got profiled in the New York Times this past weekend.

We all know that the 100th issue of The Walking Dead has been massively successful, but the level of success is underscored by a new press release from Image last night that revealed the (amazing) number of copies ordered of the landmark issue:

Robert Kirkman’s Eisner Award-winning The Walking Dead comic series for Image Comics/Skybound reached its milestone 100th issue and instantly sold out of its 383,612 initial orders on July 11th, the same day it was released, effectively becoming the best-selling comic book in initial orders for any publisher since 1997, when Image Comics/Top Cow’s The Darkness #11 was released.

383,612 copies. Congratulations, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard. For those curious, that is more than 10 times the number of orders for #99 (estimated at around 37,000). Guess having all those multiple covers paid off, huh?

On the plus side, having that exact figure will make it much, much easier for people to work out July sales estimates this time around, once the Diamond figures are released. I wonder what will happen to Walking Dead for #101 – After such impressively high sales for the centenary issue, will it go back to being a midlist book, around #47 on the sales chart?

Top Cow’s President Matt Hawkins explains the reward tiers for the Cyber Force Kickstarter, for those doubters in the audience (I’m one, I admit):

We’re doing a black and white variant of each issue of Marc’s covers that is only available through Kickstarter… Marc [Silvestri] is using the original art for the cover to #1 as a higher tier incentive. The moneymaker will be the $50 tier, which will be the only way to ever get the hardcover of the first volume. Hardcovers seem to be what people collect now, and we only need to sell 1500 of those at the $50 tier — where you also get all five sketch variants — to raise the $75k we need.

Contrary to earlier reports, the series will be an ongoing, with only the first five issues – the first arc – being made available for free if/when the Kickstarter becomes fully funded. The idea of essentially monetizing variants and collections to the point where the regular edition of a comic becomes a giveaway is a weirdly devious one, a way of exploiting the collector mentality potentially for a greater good. For that reason alone, I now find myself hoping this works…

I’ll admit, I haven’t picked up Jim Zub and Edwin Hoang’s Skullkickers before – but having received these teaser images for next week’s #14, I think that’s about to change (Click to embiggen):

Apparently, #13 – out now – and next week’s #14 are great jumping-on points for the series, and I’ll be trying out that theory for myself. What convinced me? It’s not wondering about the secret of the gun – although, I admit, I’m kind of curious now that I think about it – but the captions at the bottom of the full page. Something that knowing and parodic of comic book convention that still works? Yeah, I’ll check that out, definitely. Any Skullkickers fans out there want to tell me what I’ve missed so far?

Congratulations, Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard and The Walking Dead:

Even though the second season of the AMC adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead ended in March, the TV-drive sales of a phalanx of The Walking Dead graphic novels continued to dominate bookstore graphic novel sales in April according to a report from Nielsen BookScan.  Just as in March The Walking Dead took seven out of the top ten spots, though this time Kirkman’s collections swept the top four spots, whereas in March they just took the first and the fourth positions.

Overall, The Walking Dead has twelve of the top twenty spots on Bookscan’s graphic novel chart for April, which is just… amazing, really. The other spots are taken up by manga, the collected edition of Dynamite’s Game of Thrones adaptation, Gene Yang’s Avatar: The Last Airbender comic for Dark Horse and an Avengers Character Guide from DK Publishing that isn’t actually a comic; nothing from Marvel or DC at all. I love looking at the shape of markets outside the direct market, and seeing what they’re like, but… Man. Kirkman and Adlard, you’re doing well in bookstores…!

The numbers don’t lie: More people are reading Image comics every single week, and those numbers are going to increase, whether they get them from your stores or from someplace else, because no offense to everyone who made the last 20 years so vital and creative, but right now, we’re blasting headlong into the future and creating some of the best comics in history.

See – in the past, when everyone claimed the sky was falling, it was because we were losing readers in droves – and worse, we were losing stores – because our numbers had been inflated by speculation.

But the reason the sky isn’t falling now – the reason we’re actually skyrocketing – is because there are readers – real readers, the kind of customers we all want – in abundance.

It’s our job – yours, mine, and the creators we publish – to capture their attention and give them the kind of experience they’ll come back for again and again.

That’s Image’s Eric Stephenson, from his keynote address at the C2E2 Retailer’s Summit yesterday (as posted in full at iFanboy). The “we” that’s skyrocketing is, presumably, Image Comics and not the industry as a whole, but it’s worth pointing out that according to figures released the direct market is actually growing annually. Are comics better off now that during the boom years of the 1990s, in terms of the business as well as the quality of the comics themselves…?

This is a remarkable rundown of the legalities surrounding ownership of Miracleman/Marvelman, with a special focus (as you might expect) on the Todd McFarlane/Neil Gaiman legal battle over the character. Pádraig Ó Méalóid has been particularly thorough, and (accidentally?) makes a good case for Marvel actually not owning any part of the classic Alan Moore/Garry Leach/Alan Davis/Neil Gaiman/Mark Buckingham/etc. run, and it all being Neil Gaiman’s (with a little bit belonging to Mark Buckingham, too), unless I’m completely misunderstanding. Which, with this character, is entirely possible.

The question is, I guess, whether Marvelman is legally the same character and property as Miracleman at this point…? I mean, obviously, the former is based on the latter to such a degree that they are (and any legal battle trying to prove it would easily succeed, I suspect), but Marvel bought Mick Anglo’s ownership of his character, and the Moore/Gaiman/Eclipse run was always published/copyrighted in the U.S. under a different name, and I genuinely wonder whether that makes a difference. Lawyers in the audience, help me out here.

First a comic book, then a TV show, board game and video game — the next step for The Walking Dead is inside the pages of Playboy magazine, which will contain an exclusive feature titled “Michonne’s Story,” from the regular comic book series team of writer Robert Kirkman and artist Charlie Adlard. The story runs six pages, and tells Michonne’s origin for the first time. It’s in the April issue, making the wait brief — the magazine goes on sale tomorrow, March 16, for those of adult-magazine purchasing age. Insert your own “I’m literally buying Playboy for the articles!” joke here.

Also in Walking Dead news: Those attending WonderCon this weekend, running Friday through Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center, can leave with an impressive bonus on their mobile device: A free digital copy of the first trade paperback volume, “Days Gone Bye.” The first 5,000 folks at ComiXology’s booth (#107) will get a postcard with a free download code, for a book that normally retails at $8.99.

And in perhaps the most notable Walking Dead news of the week, the second season finale airs this Sunday night on AMC. Avoid Twitter spoilers accordingly.

Well, this is embarrassing. Turns out that, while advertising the upcoming DVD set for The Walking Dead‘s second season, AMC accidentally spoiled the end of the (still airing) show. Entertainment Weekly caught the mistake, and also took a screen capture (Spoilers for all those who click through) of the offending ad before it was pulled by AMC, who explained that the ad was “completely unauthorized,” and that “the matter is currently under investigation.” Whether or not that fact will make the spoilage of a character’s death more palatable for those who saw the original ad remains to be seen.

Yes, please:

If this really is a tease for a third Phonogram from Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson, I couldn’t be happier. Suddenly, I find myself looking forward to the news coming out of this weekend’s Image Expo just a little bit more…

Wondering what’s next from Jim McCann, writer of the Eisner-winning Return of the Dapper Men? Mind the Gap, his new Image Comics series with art from Rodin Esquejo and colorist Sonia Oback, is scheduled to debut in May, and McCann (a veteran of Marvel’s PR department) is already getting the promotional machine rolling, first by debuting one of two covers for the first issue on Thursday.

Read an interview with McCann on Mind the Gap here; full cover (by Esquejo and Oback) after the jump.

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In the midst of all the Before Watchmen noise yesterday – please, someone, tell me that I’m not the only person who’s already exhausted with that particular subject after one day of everyone talking about it – I entirely missed that February 1 wasn’t just the 20th anniversary of Image Comics, but also the 30th anniversary of Diamond Comic Distributors, two institutions that have done more than their fair share – positively and negatively – to shape the comics industry into what it is today (There’s probably some kind of irony attached to those two events being overshadowed by Before Watchmen, come to think of it). Image seems to be having a resurgence these days – deservedly, considering a lot of the projects it’s publishing these days – while Diamond’s future seems far more uncertain considering the threat of digital (Whatever happened to Diamond’s digital plans? Weren’t they supposed to go live last September…?), so it’ll be interesting to see how both anniversary years pan out for the respective companies; will either announce a big overhaul before its next birthday…?

The long-running legal battle between Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane is finally over, with a settlement that apparently closes the door on a case that had already seen Gaiman awarded co-ownership of Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cagliostro way back in 2002, and now co-ownership in Spawn #9 – the first appearance of those characters – as well as Spawn #26 (featuring the return of the Cagliostro character) and the three-issue Angela spin-off miniseries.

Talking to the Washington Post, Gaiman said that he was “delighted with the case… I’m delighted with the decisions. … And I’m delighted to put it behind me.” He went on to say that he thought that “an awful lot of good things have come out of it. I think the various decisions, particularly the [2002 Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer, and it’s of benefit to the creator.”

McFarlane has so far not released any comment.

That mysterious project that Bryan Hitch has been counting down to on his Twitter account has now been revealed, with the first teaser originally unveiled over at CBR:

As that image makes pretty clear, he’s teaming with famed UK talk show host Jonathan Ross — the writer of five-issue 2010 series Turf —for America’s Got Powers at Image Comics in April, and here’s how Ross described it on Twitter: “America’s Got Powers Full on superhero angst and action as Americas most gifted superpowered teen wannabes slug it out on tv for a place in the worlds only official super- team.” Keep reading Newsarama for more details as they come.

Talking of Robot 6, the blog also premieres Image Comics’ ad campaign for 2012, emphasizing creativity over intellectual property:

According to Eric Stephenson,

We’re doing one of these a week over the course of the year, each focusing on a different creator, and there will be some video components to the campaign as well.The message is pretty simple: Our business thrives on creativity.

Everyone else throws their weight behind characters, behind IP. We put ours behind the people create those characters and develop that IP. The men and women who write and draw comics are Image’s–and this industry’s–most valuable resource. It takes a certain amount of bravery to create something of your own and share it with the world. We support those people, and we salute them.

Considering some recent commentary by Stephenson, this definitely seems to be the Image branding for the year: Creation versus Maintaining Intellectual Property. It’s a bold, and smart, idea that definitely sets Image apart from Marvel and DC, even if it fudges some truths (Vertigo may not be creator owned, but with the exception of Hellblazer, all the series there are younger and more “newly created” than, say Spawn or Savage Dragon. And isn’t the revival of the Extreme line the kind of intellectual property development/renewal that this campaign is quietly condemning?), and I hope it pays off for them; anything that pushes the importance of new ideas and new stories is always a good thing.

Now this is something I can get behind. Joe Eisma, one half of the tag team that created critically-acclaimed Morning Glories, put this up over at his DeviantArt. It’s a nice little mash up of the Morning Glories gang with the Peanuts crew. ” Had this idea for awhile, but never got around to it until now,” Eisma stated on the post. “Would love to do more of these fun things with the Morning Glory Babies as time permits!”

Morning Glories is one of the most talked-about books on the market now. So if you’re looking for getting something for a person interested in getting into comics, but fear they might not be that into capes, I recommend this one.

The first issue is a double-sized, 44 pages of Fiona goodness for our regular ongoing price of just $2.99. I think people are going to love it so much they’ll want to forever tarnish their flesh with bad tattoos of our characters, but in the off-chance the book’s not for you, I’ll happily buy our first issue back from you (my address is included in what promises to be a trainwreck of a letter column).

That’s Brian K. Vaughan, talking about his new Image series, Saga, which launches March next year. I’ve really been looking forward to this since it was first announced – I’m a big BKV fan, with the exception of some of his Marvel work (Sorry, Ultimate X-Men, it’s probably me, not you) – but there’s something so charmingly old-fashioned about when a creator offers to buy issues back on their creator-owned books that would’ve won me over no matter what. Of course, judging by the Fiona Staples art from the book that’s been released, people might end up buying it for the visuals even in the unlikely possibility that they hate all the words.

It makes me wonder, though; Ed Brubaker offered to buy back issues of Criminal early in that book’s existence, didn’t he? What other creators have done the money back guarantee thing to promote their work?