The BIG TURNOFF! We Didn't Read Another IMAGE COMIC for YEARS After This One.

[@ChrisEliopoulos]

I actually lettered that book even though Mike Heisler was credited. I had to letter that entire comic in one day. By hand. At the time, Jim and Mark were paying royalties and the money I made off that one book, I was able use to put a down payment on my first house.

[@CartoonistKayfabe]

We need a full shoot interview in the future, Chris!

[@ChrisEliopoulos]

@@CartoonistKayfabe Any time.

[@ghazzter]

You helped bring in this abomination?! You monster! Anyway, that's amazing regardless, and I'm happy it was so successful for you. Can't wait to hear the interview.

[@jcandram]

I’m also happy you got paid $$ although for the wrong resonant. I would have do the same. Would love to get this story under the microscope in the future for sure.

[@GoShanePlays]

The various Image studios put out some real crap amidst the cool stuff, but one thing it's hard to fault them on is they were paying the talent.

[@escapee909909]

Was about to post my own "I checked out at" story related to this and decided to scroll down first only to find others saying they checked out at 92, 94 etc. I was going to say '93 - casualties of that era, yeah I was a direct hit. Had me in that mindfuck 100%, you should see my collection (I did quit completely but kept everything.) ~1983 or so to 1993, with the last chunk being variant after variant, pre-bagged etc one for each card. God. I happen to run across Jim Lee streaming a drawing a couple years ago and innocently asked him "Who do I blame for Deathmate?" It didn't occur to me that this might have followed him around, as I really haven't dipped back in til recently, but he gave a funny reaction and mused about how long-lasting grudges can be.

[@loganrun6633]

I was 20 years old and in art school when this came out. It was waiting six months for the next part that made me feel robbed, then I was done with image. The other one from around the same time was when spawn went from issue 16 to 25 . The art went from Todd to Greg Capullo and spawn shows up with a shoelace stitching his face together with no explanation. Done with the hype, done with the crap writing, done with not knowing if books came out and I missed it, or if they were six months late.

[@tm3489]

Same. The shoelace was a leftover effect from the first Spawn/Batman crossover in which the last panel had Batman splitting Spawn's face with a huge batarang. Todd championed that event as a form of 'consistent storytelling' for his Spawn universe, where a book outside of the Spawn continuity/main title had an effect with the continuity. Funny enough, people would point out how he'd draw Spawn with and without a mask in consecutive panels on a single page (clearly forgetting he was either wearing or not wearing his mask) and he'd just say "Spawn's mask appears and disappears randomly".

[@henryferkey4505]

I recently repurchased the first 100 issues of Spawn with the first two Spawn Compendiums, mostly for the Greg Capullo art. I love seeing him draw all the difficult stuff and finding a way to make it look interesting. Terry and Wandas house, interior view, little Cyan is in the foreground, her finger in her nose while watching television. His Sam and Twitch art is what made me look at Spawn comics 20 years after I sold my Spawn collection.

[@jeffreypittman2338]

I remember the Deathmate tour bus that hit stores across the county! It was amazing, giant line outside of my LCS, Silvestri, Scott Clark, Joe St Pierre and a few others appeared at my LCS. Good times!

[@itstravco]

10:12 warblade as a tortured artist made me think of Defcon 4 by Matt Broome. Had a warblade like character that was a tortured artist had this scene where he’s painting and starts writhing around (dancing, who knows) and ends up with paint in his dreads and I always just thought ‘that’s not coming out’.

[@ponyoak]

That's Whilce there at the end, with the Fairchild splash.

[@christopherallen7420]

Also: death, mate, is a big pile of poop!

[@evanlindsey1100]

I wasn't able to find any of that crossover except for the finale book, and I might have picked that one up on sale in some form. My memories of Image are kind of fuzzy in the mid 90s, as I remember getting Savage Dragon for a little over two years, was reading other stuff for a while, and then picked up two or three issues of the Hulk-inspired storyline where the Dragon had somehow possessed one of his co-workers, and the co-worker would transform at night into a slightly more muscular form and wore a ramshackle costume. I went without comics for close to a year from 98-99, one of the books that I picked up in 99 was The Authority, which led to several years of picking up Warren Ellis books from time to time. I think that the last monthly Image series that I was following was Rat Queens, but due to Diamond being a terrible distributor, I wasn't able to get all of it.

[@blaynelangille6328]

I cehcked out of comics in general in 92, I think Shadowhawk #1 was my final buy. A few titles over the years have peaked my interest like Gen13, WD and Spawn but these vids make me want to go back and check out all the stuff I missed.

[@natewatson6962]

So many words man. Y'all destroyed a lot of Chris Claremont stuff for me. As a kid I was eating up all the words but now i'm like... just get to the point. I started to learn you simply don't need it, comics work better when you just use the necessary amount of words and you can flow through the page. Also wanted to say 4:51 that double image of the lady grimacing looked like the two PANELS were done by 2 different artists so maybe it wasnt all the same team per page, maybe there were parts where they went panel by panel.

[@mrvic9395]

the end of the video is the best part when talking about who stayed and who didn't during this comic-book time.

[@MyargonautsJason]

on top of it being late and not delivering much, the comic also cost a cover price of $4.95, more than double a normal comic in the mid-90s. I know it was an extra long issue, but still - the money made on this one book must have been massive.

[@kevinbarry6441]

Probably my favorite comic when I was 12.🎉

[@TravelsTTG]

I have to admit when those came out I thought they where the dopest thing ever. But I was a valiant and image homer when I was 12.

[@scottjoyner9267]

would i be wrong to donate my image and valiant comics to the library or should they go to the landfill?

[@D_Fyre]

lol I have every issue of Spawn up to #300.

[@jesse412]

Have yinz done a Kayfabe Matt Bors interview?

[@justinandrews520]

Deathmate was such a letdown for a 10 year old boy

[@1971thedoctor]

Every page you flip to looks like a complete mess, it’s just all over the place.

[@TravelsTTG]

I feel like the Valiant ones actually had better writing but that’s not saying much I guess.

[@Azteca_X]

I started reading comics as a kid in the late 90s and Image was nothing but the barest sketch of a story or characters with grotesque caricatures with striations visible through their clothes. If they were female, they obviously had Barbie legs with volleyballs on their chests. It’s been interesting to learn about their early days and how it must’ve been a breath of fresh air. Glad to see you guys still see with clear eyes when it tanks.

[@enorb_art8211]

I would like to see the colors more desaturated

[@bloke1348]

It's a pity about image, the original aspiration was laudable...indie comics seem to have the vibrancy and energy these days

[@CottageOnChickenLegs]

I checked out by the end of 1994. It would be about 20 years before I picked up another Image title. For some of us, that bridge burned beyond repair.

[@NitroModelsAndComics]

By viryue of their company name alone we all knew what was coming. No real writers went with them. It was artists only and the writing was on the wall. I was already much older than you all so I was already jaded.

[@carlramos9445]

another banger

[@driver8sk]

Never bought an Image/Valiant/etc.. comic during the speculator boom, but it's impact on the big two chased me out of the hobby. Didn't read a superhero book for a solid decade (Usagi was my comic lifeline) and I've never collected one again.

[@NailsOeltjen]

I was disappointed with image from the get-go but Spawn, Maxx snd Savage Dragon were good enough that I kept going back hoping for a little gold in the dross. I still have all those early image comics. I should just get rid of them but can’t bring myself to throw them out for some reason.

[@D_Fyre]

The Maxx is the true diamond in the rough!

[@drawrobot]

Oh no dude, I bailed sooner than that on Image. When Image got rolling was exactly the same time I started art school. If it wasn’t for finding the Ogre, things were looking glib for my comic collecting. Marvel, DC and Image all screwed the pooch in my eyes.

[@officegossip]

It’s important to know about the failures and the bad stuff lol

[@fstgeorge]

I feel like my eyeballs were just raped with y’all just flipping the pages on this. 😵‍💫 The pencils might be okay, but the colors are too painful to handle. Thank you for the warning! ⚠️

[@officegossip]

This is the peak anus-end of Image comics. Everyone just statically posing, no visual storytelling and a buncha terrible “writing” 😂