When Todd McFarlane Could Have Saved Comics
The early nineties trumpeted a slump in sales which almost eliminated the comic book industry as we know it. Books were not being read, the quality of art and entertaining story were on the decline. There was hope. Todd McFarlane brought new readership to Spider-Man during his run. Then he unleashed Spawn. With this title, plus other great creator-owned titles, Image could have easily generated readership and generated new sales the industry desperately needed at the time. So what went wrong? Despite generating sales in terms of deluxe variant covers, new titles, and multiple #1 titles, this wasn’t enough to save Image, or its creators from themselves. Like the proverbial Dr. Frankenstein, they were so obsessed with their creations; they did not want to share. Lawsuits and litigation filled the air with bad blood as debates raged on between creators? Was this image or name created under a work for hire principle or was it created without the rights being sold? This time period led us to other questions as well. What’s more important story or art? Can one exist without the other? What it boils down to is the industry would have been in a much better state if these creators had played nicer. Image comics could have saved the industry and revitalized a dying art, if making millions had not gotten in the way, so today I pay homage to a time when Todd McFarlane could have single handedly saved comics and Spawn could have been the anti-hero the world would embrace.
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