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[…] Comics Beat has a great interview with Portland writer Greg Rucka. He talks creator owned, backmatter and more. […]

Some really impressive numbers in there -thanks for the analysis. And for Paper Girls fans – look for my interview with Cliff Chiang in my weekly column next Monday.

While I’m digging those 8house comics, the numbering and titling is terrible. Some ideas seem great when stoned, but in reality are pretty whack.

I’m really enjoying Paper Girls. Good characters, story and art. I feel like the creators are putting care and thought into this one, and I’m along for the (bike?) ride!

@Paul Houston: Brandon Graham and/or Image would seem to agree with you. The upcoming issues of 8House, subtitled Mirror, have been canceled and re-solicited under the simpler title of “Mirror,” now its own series, like From Under Mountains. It remains to be seen how (or perhaps if) the unconcluded 8House stories, Arclight and Kiem, will continue.

I hope the “So far no further issues have been solicited.” doesn’t mean we won’t see any more Manifest Destiny. It’s one of my favorite books being published right now.

Wow. Two things.

1) I had no idea there was a new series by Greg Rucka (!) and Nicola Scott (!!) – Massive PR fail. I’d have bought that book. Fail.

2) I loved Prophet by Graham. Hadn’t read any of his work before. I would have bought 8 House – but I could not figure out what the hell it was. Once those other books not by Graham , but still called 8 House started showing up, I decided not to bother and did not buy any 8 House. I’m looking at the Image site right now and I still don’t understand what 8 House is. Marketing Clarity Fail.

But seriously – Elevator Pitch answer this for me – What the hell is 8 House? Can anyone help when Image’s site can’t?

I agree re: 8House:Arclight. The branding is a bit confusing – made it seem to me like a sequel to something that I had missed? Still not sure.

In general I find there’s a lack of overall basic info in Inage solicits that would be helpful. Most of the solicit text is about the plot (I.e. “Steve and Bob are on the run from Jane but things are about to take a turn for the worse!”). I’m being a little facetious, but most of the solicits leave me wondering what the book is even about. Is it sci-fi? Horror? What’s the basic premise? If you happened to miss the solicit for issue #1 you’re out of luck. It’s not as much of an issue for the big 2 since their books feature mostly super-hero stories set in their universe – but Image publishes such a diverse array of stuff. Doesn’t help that lately so many of the titles sound the same – “Starve”, “Savior”, “Surface”, “Spread”

Overall tho – buying more Image books than ever. Loving Manifest Destiny and Rumble – hope their sales pick up or are stronger in digital & trades.

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I buy everything this guy writes. Love his stuff. I was very sad to see Umbral just kind of end.

[…] ITEM! UMBRAL / THE FUSE’s Antony Johnston interview on writing comics you want to write and letting the … […]

[…] ITEM! UMBRAL / THE FUSE’s Antony Johnston interview on writing comics you want to write and letting … […]

Everything about this interview makes me want to read Monstress even more. And considering that I still miss the X-23 ongoing now, I’m confident the team can deliver on all this promise.

“I said earlier I’ve been wanting to write an epic fantasy since I was sixteen and reading David Eddings ”

Ha! That’s pretty much me.

[…] of the upcoming Monster and one of my favorite people in comics, Marjorie Liu gave a must-read interview talking about the personal inspirations behind her upcoming work, being an Asian American creator […]

[…] reading this interview between Zachary Clemente of Comics Beat and Liu, I was left with a sense of how deliberate some of […]

Best enterprise publications.

McKeever actually did both Miniature Jesus in 2013 and The Superannuated Man in 2015 for Image. Check ’em out!

While Image’s biggest handicap is the lack of an editorial focus, their commitment to publishing comics can’t be denied. Hopefully, fans will respond, and the big two will have some market competition at last!

“Don’t Don’t Don’t Restart”

They Might Be Giants reference? Well played, sir. Well played.

Whoever thought that SEX could be boring? (but it is, in the comic book)…

I wish more people were buying so many of the excellent books by Image (I stopped buying overpriced Marvels nowadays, and fewer DCs).

Astronauts in Trouble, Thief of Thieves, They’re Not Like Us, Birthright, Savior, and Nailbiter are amongst the best adult offerings in comics! If you aren’t trying them, then look at them again PLEASE!

…which reminds me why I don’t read sales number columns: They’re too depressing. Things I’m learning, though:

$9.99 trades don’t always work. Someone posted recently about why his collection wasn’t going to be $10 and why others should consider a more profitable number for their first volume. I can see why now.

Some of my favorite books sell in painfully low numbers. (“Thief of Thieves” is that low? ::sigh:: “Shutter”? “Rumble”?) If I ever launched an Image book I’d name it “Secret Wars: Something or Other” just to stay over the 10,000 number. Marvel’s lawyers won’t notice, right?

And something Robert Kirkman has been preaching for years: A regular schedule is a big help in selling an on-going series. All those misses months and sporadic issues will kill you.

Great column!
I just don’t understand your remark on the no post-collectino bump for the 9.99$ trade. This price of 9.99$ is only for the first trades of almost all the Image titles. after that, the price is normal for all the others trades.
So if, in fact, the first 5-6 issues of the Image titles should sell less (because it’s way les expensive to buy the first arc in trade), there shoul dbe more people switching to the single format after that, because only the first collection is at a lower price. So pricing those first collections at 9.99$ should, on the contrary, help the single sales past the first issue arc.
I know that’s what I’m doing right now: waiting for the first trade and then, if I like it, switching to the singles. It’s especially easy with Image, as there is often a small gap beetween arcs in single issues.

What Image is probably lacking right now is labels. It seems like they are just launching as much series as they can, but it’s difficult to differentiate one from the other.
There should be some lines under the Image imprint. Probably not easy to do, but it would help. I gave their chance to randomly chosen first trade series, and some of them really lower my enthousiasm for the whole Image revival boost. The quality of the series published really goes from one extreme to the other, and there is almost nothing helping the reader to choose which titles are the most likely to please him.
And yes, the Skybound label, even with some glinches here and there (Invincible a little, Thief of Thieves a little more) has gained a standart for quality. I know, personnaly, that I can trust them almost with blind eyes. Thatmakes a difference.
Image needs something else like that, perhaps putting different series under an “editor”, who would only be the man chosing which serie he wants to see published under his small imprint.

Velvet, Fade Out, Lazarus, Saga, Drifter, They’re Not Like Us, Manifest Destiny, Outcast, etc. All amazing books. I mean, has anyone cracked open a copy of Drifter and looked at the art alone? It’s freakin’ gorgeous. Like, European comics gorgeous.

It’s nice to see that the fantasy about european comics being gorgeous is still quite vivid. Trust me, t’s only a fantasy. We have lots and lots of garbage also. :)

Jim Valentino has also a nice label, Shadowline, at Image. But I don’t remember if it’s written on the cover of books.
And I’m also surprised by the 9.99 comment for the same reasons as Xavier. I would like to add that first issues of Image series are most of the time are to find: speculation for one reason, limited printing for another. So when issue 6 is published, it’s very difficult to get issues 1, 2 and 3. Or really overpriced. A 9.99 price enables all readers to get the beginning of a series (without getting digital versions – which at the end is near 10$).

A couple of the post-trade jumps (and some first-issue-to-second-issue drops) you’re seeing are down to a program Image had (and technically still has) with retailers, wherein they would get a bunch of copies on consignment for a period of time.

And no, the $9.99 trade doesn’t always help the singles market – but a HUGE factor in that is retailers not utilizing the sales opportunity. I see a huge difference in attempting to sell a person on a volume one at $9.99 than I do for a book sitting at $14.99 – though a caveat: it’s been quite a while since the $9.99 scheme began, and I firmly believe that Image or whoever could adjust that to $11.99 with little change. Or more to wit, take a look at what places like Scholastic are publishing their serialized all ages books at for price points. They have the resources to have market tested the hell out of their price points, and have threshold-priced those books at a point where parents pick it up and don’t give the price a second thought. That’d be my advice.

Brandon, I can’t think of a returnable Image title that didn’t do the first THREE issues (so not a drop from #1 to #2)

One problem with the $9.99 trade is that there are SO MANY of them, and not all books are served by the “hand sell” equally. And, without that hand-sell, all the $9.99 trade does is reduce EVERYone’s income.

Ales Kot announced that MATERIAL was ending (early), and I would assume that at least some of that was due to the first trade being $9.99…. and only selling 1600 copies in month #1

-B

[…] NYCC '15: Wes Craig on “Deadly Class” – The Process and Perils of a Career … It's all traditional except for the occasional Photoshop touch-ups and I use Sketch Up a little bit because I hate drawing cars. I hate to admit that, but sometimes I cheat with the Sketch Up and the cars. And Saya's tattoos, too. After a certain … Read more on Comics Beat […]

I love Deadly Class! Hearing it ends in the mid-30s is a bit of a shame…but at least that means I’ll get about another 2-3 years of stories!

Wes Craig is a beast. One of the best artists working in comics today. World class work.

Wow, I totally missed that Erin is Asian-American. Yay, I’m color-blind! Or maybe just inattentive.

(Though I don’t thinks she’s given a last name, and Chiang’s art is subtle enough, and the issue isn’t raised in dialogue the way religious differences are….)

In any case, I’m glad she’s there for readers for whom this is a real concern.

[…] The first issue of Paper Girls by Brian Vaughn and Cliff Chiang.  I really liked it and am looking forward to future issues.  The main characters are a bunch of teen age girls who deliver the paper.  (Pretty much tells you in the title, duh.)  The story is set in the 80’s, so people still had the paper delivered to their homes.  The writing is exceptional as would be expected and I love Cliff Chiang’s art.  When he was on Wonder Woman it was one of my favorite comics, as for the art as well as the writing.   There’s an interview with him at the Beat. […]

Hey dear, please visit my blog..Here is plenty of comics available.

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1423/88/1423885063309.gif

The Shadow knows…

More people to be harassed in comics, more likely.

That’s a really good hire right there.

-B

Regarding variants, I liked Boom’s system: publishing variants covers in equal numbers. (I believe they were shipped 1:1 under the same order code.)
I would usually pick the most appealing cover. Some fans might buy both.

Do publishers ship out “thank you” variants, like Marvel did with the platinum edition of Spider-Man #1?

As for the retailer GN variants, I don’t know if that’s feasible for reprinting. Make the first printing (which is collectible by book collectors in general) a variant cover, then all subsequent reprintings would be of the trade cover. This reduces costs, especially for a title which might have a smaller second printing than the first. Of course, you could do what DC did with The Killing Joke… change the cover’s fifth color with each reprinting. http://www.comics.org/issue/43808/ (14 printings!)

I think today’s announcement from DC of polybagged secret variant covers should have everyone very very scared for the future.

-B

As the direct market eats its dead, the only tactic I’ve been able to find as a consumer is extreme indifference. It’s too bad though. Even in my cold, dead heart I still miss some of those characters but there’s no way I’m going to wade back into this madness. This stuff is a super turn-off. Life’s too short to be mad about it.

I have mastered my appetites such that I don’t HAVE to have anything from crackhead comic publishers running head long toward a fiery death. None of this ess is on me but it’s turned me into a voyeur when it comes to comics. It’s ironic, it seems like the only way to care is to abstain.

[…] Now, in a special push to celebrate Local Comic Shop Day on November 28th, DeConnick, De Landro, and Image Comics have partnered with ComicsPRO, a retail association comprised of comic book shops, to release a special limited hardcover edition of Bitch Planet‘s first volume. According to the Image press release, “participating retailers will have exclusive, and in some cases, limited items debuting from supporting publishers.” This special hardcover edition of Bitch Planet features cover art by artist Filipe Andrade and is limited to only 750 copies, so good luck in getting a copy; to quote another female-centric dystopian tale, “may the odds be ever in your favor.”  [Comics Beat] […]