Eric Stephenson, publisher at Image Comics, has become known in recent years for his speeches at events like Image Expo, which often attempt to rally the comic book industry towards a common goal — while also reminding people that Image is already achieving that goal, and is therefore the best.
Today at the Tenth Annual ComicsPRO Membership Meeting in Portland, Oregon, Stephenson spoke to the comics retailer community about concerns creators have over the health of the industry, and fears that publishers are chasing short term gain over long term growth.
Based on a trancript provided to ComicsAlliance by Image, Stephenson began his speech with a brief history of the industry, beginning in the 1950s when, in his own words, “Our industry was barely two decades old, yet it was on the brink of collapse.” His speech took stops at every point in the industry’s history where things became stagnant, and creativity struggled to break free from the tired ways of how things were done.
Stephenson makes the point that there have been numerous moments in history where it seemed the comics industry was doomed to fail, but instead new ideas broke through and reinvigorated it yet again, highlighting the works of creators such as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Forrest J Ackerman, Trina Robbins, and Los Bros Hernandez.
Arriving in the modern day, Stephenson’s speech could be summed up in a single quote, attributed to a colleague; “I’ve literally never liked working in comics less.” The bulk of the speech is a plea to publishers, creators and retailers to not fall into pitfalls that nearly destroyed the industry already, such as reboots, relaunches, double-shipping and variant covers.
[“Source-comicsalliance”]
