I had lost interest in anything McFarlane was doing long before he left Marvel, I think I made it 2 or 3 issues into his Spider-Man as a writer and realized he had nothing to offer as a writer I was interested in reading. A friend who owned a shop let me skim the issue of Spawn Gaiman wrote but even Neil's involvement couldn't interest me in the character or anything McFarlane was involved with. I totally avoided buying anything Image for the first couple of years of their launch, and only broke down and bought an Image book when Grell launched Shaman's Tears there and Moore did his 1963 stuff. I did find a couple of copies of the Angela issue and the Angela mini in a quarter bin just before Marvel got the character and picked them up on a lark, but still haven't brought myself to read them. I still have never read any of the Image books launched by the founding Image boys in that first wave-though I have read some of the other creators runs on stuff stemming from those books. I was already at a point where I Was looking for comics of substance not flash when Image launched, so whatever appeal it had to a lot of buyers was lost on me, and I have never really felt a desire to go see if I missed anything-for too many other actual good comics I haven't read yet to explore to go seek that stuff out.

-M

I bought the first 4 issues of Spawn and was completely underwhelmed.

Later I picked up the Moore, Sim, Gaiman issues as well, and felt all of them were slumming it / phoning it in.

McFarlane's success certainly can't be denied, though he and Donald Trump sort of remind me of each other somehow.

Derivative is an understatement.

I remember reading a letter printed in The Comic Buyers Guide where the person was saying what they liked about the character was where Spawn had a limited amount of power, like a clock winding down, similar to the Silver Age Spectre, which appealed to me.

McFarlane, and Spawn, are vastly over-rated IMHO and I have zero interest in either. I applaud Todd rounding up the others and starting up Image.

The sales on those early Image issues were incredible. The month after that initial wave launched they edged out DC as the number two publisher in sales.

At the time, the only Image title I was close to liking was Whilce Portacio's Wetworks.

Over the years, my opinion of Erik Larsen and Savage Dragon has come around greatly, especially given how Larsen has stayed the course and been true to himself. I liked the mini and picked up the first 50 issues a few months back and am looking forward to reading them, maybe after I finish my Valiants.

I really like David Hine and if anything could get me to try Spawn, he'd probably be The One.

Uhm.. I have the Joe Casey issues of Haunt. Does that count?

I bought and read the Moore issue, but, not having read anything else, had no idea what was going on and it made no impression on me. (also, is there such a thing as a prestige format Spawn meets Batman? If so, I picked one up out of a quarter bin.)

I was never a fan of McFarlane, but his talk at the time of creating a character who would be as popular as Superman or Spider-Man just because he said so really bothered me. But, even though that talk and his track record at the time was enough to get TV and movie deals, I never felt Spawn was more than a niche character (that niche being "comic book fans" with the most negative connotation).

And it still was far better than the previous 7 issues of the run. It wasn't that un characteristic I thought, as it was almost a self contained story, a little twist story, even if you know the twist in advance.