Image United - Wow.

That sounds like a bad idea, even if it was better artists doing it.

The last time they did something like this, the comic came out three years late. I hope I live long enough to hold all six of these sweet babies in my hands.

Now cue me waiting for the trade...when it comes out in 2010.

Same old. Same old. What I don't understand, especially with Image's previous track record on projects like this, is why don't they wait until the project is, say 75%, complete (first 4-5 issues completed and waiting to be printed) before even announcing it? That'd really shock the fans - it'd show them Image wasn't dicking around this time, that they've learned from past mistakes, etc.

I'm also amazed any of the founders (or anyone) would ever want to work with Lefield again. Isn't he persona non grata at Image still?

Liefeld and Mark Millar are doing Youngblood together this fall. I don't care much for either of those guys, but I imagine it'll sell like crack.

They've made up. For some reason.

I'd be very surprised if it did. Ten years ago, yes, the demand would likely be there. Now, IMHO, not so much.

However, if Liefeld has somehow found the wherewithal to have studied anatomy, and mastered drawing feet, hey, that changes everything.

Is that guy in between Dragon and Witchblade someone I'm supposed to know, or is that maybe Silvestri's new character?

Yeah, this book is going to take forever.

The fact that Millar is writing it won't hurt. Those two guy were made for each other.

Very, very true. By the time this book comes out half of us will be dead.
I thought McFarlane in particular hated the fuck out of him. Maybe he'll just not include Youngblood(ug) in the issue he lays out.
You know, the issue he lays out after half of us are dead.

I'm still an Erik Larsen fan, I must admit. Haven't seen his art in years though. At the rate it was going, I wouldn't be surprised is people didn't have waists anymore, at all.

Finally, a comic book for the lowest level of comic book losers, the people who almost killed the whole industry ten years ago by overbuying books with shitty writing and horrific art.

You forgot about all those great, memorable, characters with Blood-, Death-, Dead-, Kill-, Black- in their names.

I can't believe there is that big of an audience for this. Are those creations )and their creators) still that popular ? I though that phase of comics had come and gone.

I'm suprised as you are that they actually completed some pages for this.
You get an OH FACE from each character on every amazing JAMMMMMMM page!

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=23121

And 6 alternate covers that fit together!

Plus this cover featuring even more OHHHHHHHHHH!

To be perfectly honest Image's output over the last few years - Age Of Bronze, Casanova, Jack Staff, Pax Romana, those awesome Popgun anthologies - is just about enough for me to forgive even the company's biggest crimes of the 90's, so there's something kinda cute about this, like they're reminding us that all this greatness can be traced back to a bunch of guys with really bad ideas deciding to make their own company.

Witchblade is straight-up Jessica Biel on that cover.

Larsen is really the only guy worth a shit. I honestly can't think of any good comics the other guys have produced since they started up IMAGE. As for Kirkman, I wouldn't say he's a bad writer, but he sure is overrated. I got bored with The Walking Dead's soap opera antics pretty quickly.

And I don't know if it's "widescreen", but everything I've read about Image United points to it being yet another end of the world EVENT comic.

McFarlane was definitely a pretty big douchebag back in the day, it's not surprising that people dislike him. I agree that the others aren't really worth moaning about...except...

What's funny about Image is that it helped and hurt the comics industry in almost equal measure. It provided a much-needed breakthrough in artist's rights and did eventually morph into a very cool, respectable company. However, the negative impact it had on the industry *is* still being felt today. They essentially turned comics into a big honking preview of the stock market and housing bubbles, hyping up increasingly worthless shit and undermining everything that would have kept comics as a more stable industry. When the bubble burst the only people left were the hardcore nerds, many of whom just didn't have the imagination and maturity to stop reading comics, and this of course is the audience with whom the industry is locked in a death-loop to this day. The Image people were absolutely guilty of exploitation of the gullible, which I wouldn't care about, except that they dragged the whole industry down with them.

I think if the comics industry ever recovers and thrives again, people will develop more distance. Which means the stuff that these guys did will mostly become a footnote in comics history, but there's nothing wrong with that.

I can understand repping for Image because - as I said previously - their current output is pretty top notch, but really, aside from Savage Dragon (which was decent, tho the art was never my thing), 90's Image stuff is pretty fucking dire all around - Liefeld's colleagues only look good in comparsion. The Alan Moore runs people big up are only really "good" in the sense that they're competently written and knowing enough to have fun with their own campyness (like at one point there's a Days Of Future Passed kinda thing, and one caption iirc correctly draws special attention to the WetWorks crew being deceased - like OH MY GOD PLEASE NO NOT WETWORKS!) Spawn and Witchblade are both nearly unreadable. Above all, none of these franchises has ever succeeded in creating a mythology that people care about - something Lee and Kirby did pretty much on a monthly basis. Kirkman's ok, yeah, but what is he gonna do with such fundamentally trite characters?

I don't really think you can apply the same standards. Most "brainy" superhero comics stillhave stuff in them that's as ridicolous as anything in GI Joe, a side-effect of the superhero genre's conventions being so preposterous in the first place. I assume most people's motivation for seeing GI Joe was that it delivered a bunch of things - over-the-top villainy, martial arts, explosions, all delivered without grimness or pretension - that you weren't getting too much of during this Summer; but those things are so omnipresent in superhero comics that they're hardly worth defending a book over. I mean, is there really something to expect from this that can't easily be found elswhere?

Alan Moore's run on Supreme was beyond "good", it was excellent. And his plans for Glory and Youngblood were really cool, too, based on the handful of issues that came out--in fact, I'm going to court blasphemy by saying that Glory probably would have been better than Promethea (its obvious antecedent). His little Liefeld-spawned superhero universe felt a lot more organic and coherent than the ABC universe he developed to replace it.

It is interesting to consider whether the Image characters could have any lasting impact. Savage Dragon obviously seems to be hanging around, I've heard people say Witchblade got pretty good post-90s, and Spawn at least is lingering in the cultural consciousness. Given the tendency for superhero characters to hang around forever--the last decade has seen TWO relaunches of the public-domain Nedor comics line, for Christ's sake (one of them by Alan Moore!)--I wouldn't be surprised if we do someday see someone "rebooting" these characters into something interesting.

But they STARTED that trend.

So Al Simmons is the bad guy. He's going to return from hell to take over the world.

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/10/...thing_cool.php

Holy fuck, i've travelled back to the 90s! I need a radio to get back!

I refuse to believe this. Al Simmons barely did much of anything in 180+ issues of "Spawn." Him taking over the world seems grossly out of character.

We're talking Image here, T&A was considered plot in this publisher...bet you that it ends up as a "Spawn changes reality by accident/return, heroes band together to fix it"

I think Jim Lee draws one line and calls it a day.

Is that Spawn who's strangling Ripclaw there?

hahahaha christ

"Guys, how can we make Spawn even shittier? I know, let's cross him with Tim Curry from LEGEND."

Or just get Kirkman to write him in his inimitable soap opera style!

Kirkman, Patron Saint of Mediocrity.

It's very weird how CHUD seems to be the only place that shares my lukewarm feelings towards Kirkman. Everywhere else I hear someone mention his name praise always follows.

Comic book readers aren't the most discerning of folk.

Yeah, more or less.

I mean, we live in a world where people are excited about a big Image Comics crossover story featuring their super interesting stable of characters like Pouch Guy and Bigger Pouch Guy.

Co-starring Badroc and Blackup!

Careful Brad, that kind of thinking could brand you "elitist" around these here parts. At least according to post one in this thread.

Oh no what-ever shall I do?

By ten copies of Haunt #1, on sale now. It'll be like the 90s never ended!

I thought the mask with the hair sticking out the top was a shitty '90s thing, but I guess it was a shitty Image thing. They really did suck all the charm out of comic books, didn't they?

Is HAUNT out already?
Have they explained the JIZZ HANDS??