BobBretall wrote:You can't measure Image on the same bar as Marvel or DC as to the # of books they put out.
Very true. Image operates under a very different approach than Marvel or DC.
Perhaps the way to measure Image is not by the number of first issues but by the number of second issues and the number of ongoing titles.
The Image line up is an ever rotating group of miniseries and a handful of ongoing titles. This is both a strength and a weakness. The constant variety is a good thing. The short term nature of the majority of the titles means that even if you love what Image is publishing, in a few months most of those titles will be gone.
My perception, and I have crunched the number on this to be sure I'm right, is that Image has a high percentage of #1s compared to the number of titles published each month than Marvel and DC typically do. Sure, there was the one month that DC had 52 #1s but that is insanely atypical for DC. Marvel does the relaunches more often than DC and probably has a higher percentage of #1s compared to what they published than DC has but it is still probably lower on average than Image. (Then again, given how often Marvel does relaunch titles, I'm really no positive about that.)
Image on the other hand is publishing half a dozen or more #1s every month. Sure, that is because of the business model they are using. Then end result is, regardless of why Image has some many #1s each and every month, those #1s need to be pitched and "sold" to readers and retailers each and every month. While Image is good at collecting the $2500 and publishing those #1s, Image is not making any serious and consistent effort to promote all or even most of those new #1s each and every month.
The bottom line is that it makes it both trivial and very likely for Image readers to be only temporary readers of Image titles because the majority of Image titles available end naturally. Unless a reader is actively looking for replacement Image titles each and every month, within six month to a year, an Image reader could find themselves only getting whatever ongoing Image titles they'd been getting simply because all of the other titles either concluded or simply vanished.
so, while the constant influx of new and different material is a strength for Image, it isn't one the publisher is leveraging as well as it could.
