Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Aug 4, 2017 18:33:29 GMT -5
Context : I got into buying comics at my LCS on a weekly basis because of pre-Vertigo Shade/Sandman/HBlazer. I used to be into tabletop roleplaying games (Warhammer, Amber, Call of Cthulhu, Nephilim being the main ones), and there was a communal youth center with a roleplaying club. I was one of the youngest there at 13-14 years old, and the only other person htere heavily into comics was the one who took me for the first time to a comic shop. He was heavily into Valiant and highly anticipating the first Image titles. Those already seemed supremely vain to me, and when he lent me the first few issues of Spawn and WILD Cats, it would be an understatement to say I was underwhelmed.
I hten had no idea of the back story of the company.
Yet came Spawn #8, with an Alan Moore script, followed by #9 and a Neil Gaimen one IIRC. But the art really didn't appeal to me, and I can't say I actually read those, not then at least, I just sampled through those. I also sampled through Cyberforce, Youngblood etc, but those made me even more doubtfull.
The first two Image titles I purchased came a little later : Deathblow #1 and The Maxx #1 (I got Image Dark #0 or whatever that was later). I got Deathblow because I found its visuals quite fascinating, and it seemed more than less self-contained. I saw everything I hated in Jim Lee's style turned into something way more baroque, less nerdy, even if heavily under Frank Miller influence. I remember hte colors also being spectacular, especially in their sparseness, which was rare for an Image title, but still more vivid than anything you could find at the Big Two. The story, I can't say it made any sense, it hardly felt whole. Yet, I would still buy the next issue, and the remaining of hte arc when Tim Sale took over. I must confess that outside its unsurprising and classic conclusion of good vs evil, christian redemption, it wasn't awefull, just very generic in too many ways.
The Maxx is a whole different story : I probably was interested in it because of the Sandman connexion, my then sole previous exposure to Sam Kieth, but more than anything, it was just very odd, seemd to tell a story, but one that felt quite cryptic and alien to me, so that kept me curious. I remained there till the end, and while I'm still not sure I ever really understood what it was all about, I really enjoyed the ride.
What really got me into Image though, I mean the real superhero stuff, what got me to accept it despite my disdain for the genre, was the solicitation for Stormwatch #38, advertising a new direction with new creative team, headed by this Warren Ellis guy. It seemed more or less self contained, so I decided I would try it out, as my first real forray into that Image superhero world. I guess I had good instincts since it proved to be the foundations of one of the greatest 90ies saga. But that was still a little a safe zone, I could still put a fence between myself and the dreaded 90ies Image stigmata. That changed when after six or seven issues of Travis Charest WILD Cats, entered my radar. I had by then read a couple of Alan Moore Image stories, which proved to be nothing I felt interested in - I decided that the Alan Moore I loved and Image Alan Moore were two different and opposing concepts - so that wasn't enough to drag me into a new title, and I wouldn't break my rule that I would never buy a book with the main reason being I liked the art despite the story : I was 100% a story type of reader.
Then came WILD Cats #25, and you could still see Travis Charest improving by giant leaps from issue to issue, and I decided I could'nt miss the ride, and I even tracked down all the previsou issues of the Moore run. I'm still not convinced by the story Moore told in this run, but it is far superior to anything he has previously written for Image, and I will gladly revisit it someday, with the constant pleasure of looking at some Travis Charest art, still IMHO the best modern age superhero artist ever (not necessarly my favorite, mind you).
In the past ten years, Image has largely become the company I buy the most from, the trend culminating some 3 years ago I'd say, when I could buy some 35 books a month from them. It is currently gone much below that, but it still is by far my company of choice, despite my initial disgust for it.
What's yours?
I hten had no idea of the back story of the company.
Yet came Spawn #8, with an Alan Moore script, followed by #9 and a Neil Gaimen one IIRC. But the art really didn't appeal to me, and I can't say I actually read those, not then at least, I just sampled through those. I also sampled through Cyberforce, Youngblood etc, but those made me even more doubtfull.
The first two Image titles I purchased came a little later : Deathblow #1 and The Maxx #1 (I got Image Dark #0 or whatever that was later). I got Deathblow because I found its visuals quite fascinating, and it seemed more than less self-contained. I saw everything I hated in Jim Lee's style turned into something way more baroque, less nerdy, even if heavily under Frank Miller influence. I remember hte colors also being spectacular, especially in their sparseness, which was rare for an Image title, but still more vivid than anything you could find at the Big Two. The story, I can't say it made any sense, it hardly felt whole. Yet, I would still buy the next issue, and the remaining of hte arc when Tim Sale took over. I must confess that outside its unsurprising and classic conclusion of good vs evil, christian redemption, it wasn't awefull, just very generic in too many ways.
The Maxx is a whole different story : I probably was interested in it because of the Sandman connexion, my then sole previous exposure to Sam Kieth, but more than anything, it was just very odd, seemd to tell a story, but one that felt quite cryptic and alien to me, so that kept me curious. I remained there till the end, and while I'm still not sure I ever really understood what it was all about, I really enjoyed the ride.
What really got me into Image though, I mean the real superhero stuff, what got me to accept it despite my disdain for the genre, was the solicitation for Stormwatch #38, advertising a new direction with new creative team, headed by this Warren Ellis guy. It seemed more or less self contained, so I decided I would try it out, as my first real forray into that Image superhero world. I guess I had good instincts since it proved to be the foundations of one of the greatest 90ies saga. But that was still a little a safe zone, I could still put a fence between myself and the dreaded 90ies Image stigmata. That changed when after six or seven issues of Travis Charest WILD Cats, entered my radar. I had by then read a couple of Alan Moore Image stories, which proved to be nothing I felt interested in - I decided that the Alan Moore I loved and Image Alan Moore were two different and opposing concepts - so that wasn't enough to drag me into a new title, and I wouldn't break my rule that I would never buy a book with the main reason being I liked the art despite the story : I was 100% a story type of reader.
Then came WILD Cats #25, and you could still see Travis Charest improving by giant leaps from issue to issue, and I decided I could'nt miss the ride, and I even tracked down all the previsou issues of the Moore run. I'm still not convinced by the story Moore told in this run, but it is far superior to anything he has previously written for Image, and I will gladly revisit it someday, with the constant pleasure of looking at some Travis Charest art, still IMHO the best modern age superhero artist ever (not necessarly my favorite, mind you).
In the past ten years, Image has largely become the company I buy the most from, the trend culminating some 3 years ago I'd say, when I could buy some 35 books a month from them. It is currently gone much below that, but it still is by far my company of choice, despite my initial disgust for it.
What's yours?
