This is the first in a planned series of articles about the “Image Effect.” Over the past 20+ years Image Comics has grown from a vanity publisher for the top talents of the 90s into a trendsetter and home to a diverse range of popular titles and creators. How did they accomplish that? Image’s well-known […]
10 Comments on THE IMAGE EFFECT: Are Editors Outdated?, last added: 9/3/2015
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This is a great peek behind the curtain, thank you for this.
To work totally editor free is an awesome experience, to do whatever you want feels nice….. and scary.
the truth is I like working with editors, I learned a LOT working with them, When I was in Image, even Jim Valentino and Erik Larsen gave us great advice. Then with Scott Allie I learned (and keep doing so) great things and made me a better storyteller.
Having that outside eye is really important, and making changes are not a bad thing at all, we creators sometimes are so in love with what we’re doing that we cannot separate ourselves from our work to find the flaws, and an editor definitely can.
I think Editors will stay for as long as there are comics.
Editors thriving?
Hahahaha! Oh good one.
Good editors are often like good bartenders, to be friends and confidants, sounding boards and in some cases uncredited co-writers. Every creative team and project is different. Approach on a corporate owned project is completely different to a creator owned one. So many variables and you have to be able to handle all of them.
Like the big publishing houses, the comics editors have been viewed as not integral to the end product by the bean counters like Ike Perlmutter. Many traffic managers have been allowed to assume the ‘Editor’ title in lieu of a pay rise.
DC’s best editors were Archie Goodwin and Andy Helfer. Marvel had people like Ann Nocenti and Louise Simonson. Image don’t have any editors but they do have some great production people who read most of what they handle and pass on any mistakes they just happen to catch.
That’s not to say good editors aren’t at these companies but they’re usually overworked, underpaid, and told not to upset the talent by interfering.
Rewrite someone’s script? Most creators used to get the opportunity to rewrite their own unless they were unwilling to do what the publisher wanted or went awol (it happens), but if you don’t get the approval or acknowledgment of the creator good luck surviving the next month on social media.
Then there were the Marvel years where artists would get plots and then drew whatever they felt like drawing. Writer gets three or four issue ahead before he sees pencils to dialogue and can’t find his story in there beyond page three. Realizes his other scripts are now useless.
Ah, editors. Last out the office, first to be shit on.
What Dave Elliott said. Exactly.
Editors definitely seem to be underappreciated, which I explained in the article. But they’re increasingly in-demand amongst creators at publishers like Image, so in creator-owned comics at least I think they’re being viewed as increasingly important.
This post is terrible.
Dustin, be prepared to support your answer!
Reading article it seams that that today’s editors are simply focusing on production and financial matters rather than on the actual editing.
“Over the past 20+ years Image Comics has grown from a vanity publisher for the top talents of the 90s into a trendsetter and home to a diverse range of popular titles and creators. ”
I don’t think Vanity Publisher is an apt description of Image at it’s outset, unless of course you’re John Byrne. They’ve also been trendsetters, for better and worse, for most of the time since their inception.
Heidi this post needed… an editor. Backing up the “editorial interference is often overstated” subhead with a scoffing Nick Lowe tweet is not exactly digging into a topic. Nor is the rest of the post, which seems more like a long commercial for whatever Andy Schmidt is selling. Whatever the role of or possible need for editors might be in today’s comics landscape, I know exactly 0% more than I did when I started reading this, but I do know a ton more about Andy Schmidt. Andy Schmidt. Andy Schmidt!