Image Comics’ Dream Team United Again?

Spotlight
Image Comics’ Dream Team United Again?
By Hervé St-Louis
July 26, 2009 - 08:43

Image United is a mini-series announced at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con that unites the original founders of Image Comics, Jim Valentino, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Wilce Portacio, Eric Larsen and Marc Silvestri. Each founder will draw the appearances of his own characters. Invincible writer Robert Kirkman, recently made an Image Comics’ senior partner, will be writing the mini-series. Jim Lee, the other Image Comics founder from 1993 will not participate in this event because of contractual obligations with DC Comics and the fact that his original creation, the Wild Cats have been incorporated as DC Comics’ core for its Wildstorm imprint.

The cynical part of this writer thinks that calling an event Image united without one of the core founders, probably the most popular one after Todd McFarlane is problematic. But then, Jim Lee did break his engagement with Image Comics when he accepted to work for DC Comics. This series will never quite feel the same without him on board, no matter what the reasons for his absence are. Of course, his absence has a reasonable explanation. He’s not with Image Comics anymore.

That Robert Kirkman has been casted as the series’ writer and organizer is a great gesture. As the last partner of the Image Comics’ team, and the only one who is primarily a writer, this is a sensitive and logical thing to do. Unfortunately, little has been revealed about the actual story of Image United. The draw of this series, as explained in to the media, is the artwork of the founders, not the story that binds everything.

That a story takes a back seat to artwork, in an Image Comics’ series is normal. That’s what Image Comics was founded for. The technical task of having all those artists work on the same comic book page should be a management nightmare. However, if they pull this out, it will be a treat for their original supporters and newer readers. I wonder if they contracted out a background artist to tie everything in and correct slight errors. For example, when one character, say Spawn, is drawn super-exposed on another character, like Shadowhawk, who will smoothen the compositing transition between the two sets of drawings? A non seamless transition could make the artwork look more chaotic than a standard Image Comics and defeat the purpose of this entire series.