The thing with Image is that unlike all the other publishers out there, they are not content creators, they are just a publishing house. They own none of it, it all belongs to the creators, so unlike say Marvel or DC if you don't like the creative direction of the book, Marvel is to blame because of editorial decisions including who is the creative team on the book, Image has no creative input into the titles they publish. Creators bring books to Image and Image publishes and distributes them. They don't assign books to creators or set editorial storylines into place, approve stories, etc. they just publish if you hire them and they think the book has a chance to be profitable. A lot of early Image felt samey because the Image founders studios were pretty much producing the same crap, but once other creators came in and Image ceased to be just a publishing house for the studios of Lee, Liefeld, LArsen, Valnetino, Silvestri, etc. there really was no merit to lumping Image books together content-wise the same way one does with Marvel, DC, Valiant, Archie, etc. If Image publishes something by Liefeld and you don't like Liefeld, the fact they publish his book has no bearing on any other book published by Image, unlike Marvel where if you don't like say Bendis and don't want to buy his stuff, you cannot escape his influence on much of the rest of the line because he writes events or defines large chunks of the Marvel Universe in his books.

Image functions much more like a book publisher.publishing a diverse slate of books by many creators whose function is to bring the books to market not create the books themselves, than a comic book company that produces and sells its own content.

-M

It's amazing how reviled The Image 7 were when they started the company. They weren't  the first company to offer the creator to keep their property but they broke the stronghold of the big two in that area.

Image didn't "force " or "cause" Marvel, DC or others to produce horrible comics in the 90s. Those companies did it on their own in the name of greed to jump on any bandwagon to make money. I was no fan of Image but they did have a few good books, such as The Maxx, Savage Dragon and Alan Moore written books like 1963

If you asked me who was the mosr reviled company at that time, it was most certainly Marvel for 2 reasons

1-It expanded it's line to a ridiculous number of titles to dominate the market, I believe reaching 120 monthly books at a certain point. They also adopted the old DC editorial model of separate editors overseeing their own books like little fiefdoms, uncommunicative with each other

2-Destroying the direct market distribution method by pulling out from Diamond, Capitol and other companies to set up their own exclusive company, Heroes World. The result being hundreds of people losing their jobs, distribution companies closing and the beginning of a trend to monopoly. 

Lets also mot forget their purchase of Malibu Comics just so their books could be cancelled and their characters shortly abandoned

I was quite happy when Marvel declared bankruptcy.Their owner Ronald Perelman had no love for the comics industry

The Image 7 produce the exact same type of books that they were doing for Marvel. The only difference was that they were getting all the money instead of the Marvel machine.

Initial sales for DC in Sept. 2011 surged and for about 2 years they sold better than they had in a long, long time. The lesson they learned is when sales sag, reboot. After 4 years sales sagged on the new52, so we got Rebirth which is seeing an initial sales surge. When those sales sag (which with double-shipping will speed up the attrition rate so likely in half the time, which they already anticipate calling Rebirth a 2 year project, after those 2 years what comes next?), you will see another reboot and if sales surge on that one, you'll see another when sales sag, ad infinitum. Readers jump on the shiny new and then abandon it for the next shiny new, so you get never-ending shiny new form the big 2 to chase those surges and consumers keep buying to form. If Rebirth's sales stay steady for longer than 6 months, maybe that will change, if sales on #25 is as good as #1, maybe it will change-but the likelihood of that happening in the current comic book market is pretty close to nil-the only books that have seen steady growth since launch in the last 10 years are 2 books you don't read-Saga and Walking Dead. Every other book on the market loses readers at an average of 3-6% per issue after issue #3 with #3 selling about half of what #1 did...exceptions being unexpected variants or event tie in issues that spike sales for only the duration of the tie in then they return to previous levels and keep declining.

So while you stopped buying in Sept. 2011, many others jumped on showing sales growth, but then over time lost interest with attrition.
Marvel saw this. DC saw this and thus began the cycle of Marvel relaunches every 1-2 and new publishing initiatives from DC every year or 2 (Zero Month, Villains Month, Convergence, DCYOu, etc.) to keep those sales spikes happening to battle attrition. Rebirth is another attempt to chase those spikes. How long it lasts is yet to be seen, but the buying pattern of comics fans will dictate that, not the content of the books. The buying patterns stay steady across publishers, genres and content with only a handful of exceptions (like Saga and Walking Dead).

-M


Edit to add-with doubleshipping, you likely won't see the 50% fall off until issue 5 or 6 on Rebirth because retailers will be ordering those before #1 shipped to see what sales actually are. The order adjustment that normally accompanies issue 3 on a monthly will come in the third month of the books, which will be issue 5 or 5 depending on release schedule.

Likewise here, Saga, Wicked&Divine, Sex Criminals, East of West, Brubaker&Phillips (basically any title they are working on),  Nowhere Men, Phonogram, whatever Casey is doing, Sunstone, Five Ghosts, Luther Strode, Ody-C, Velvet.

plus a lot of them in singles (Descender, Rat Queens (whenever it's coming back), Switch, Lazarus, Casanova, Monstress ,the Fix,  I hate Fairyland, Injection.

And I'm really hoping that some titles are coming back and am interested in more titles, but can't really afford them.