Topic summary
Creator-owned comics
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Creator ownership in comics.
1990s
In 1992, a number of popular Marvel artists formed their own company, Image Comics, which would serve as a prominent example of creator-owned comics publishing. Propelled by star power and upset that they did not own the popular characters they created for Marvel, several illustrators, including the X-Men's Jim Lee, The New Mutants/X-Force's Rob Liefeld, and Spider-Man's Todd McFarlane formed Image, an umbrella label under which several autonomous, creator-owned companies existed. Image properties, such as WildC.A.T.s, Gen, Witchblade and especially McFarlane's Spawn provided brisk competition for long-standing superheroes. Many popular creators followed Image's lead and attempted to use their star power to launch their own series, ones for which they would have licensing rights and editorial control. Chris Claremont, famous for his long run as the writer of Uncanny X-Men, created Sovereign Seven for DC; Joe Madureira, also made popular by Uncanny X-Men, launched Battle Chasers for WildStorm Productions; and Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, and Brent Anderson created Astro City for Image.