Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times  Eric Stephenson, the publisher of Image Comics, prepared his booth last week for Comic-Con International in San Diego. He has had a front-row seat on the business since the companyâs earliest days.  Superman is way stronger than the Hulk.  Nowadays, the big debates revolve around the ideas espoused in the Creator’s Bill of Rights — officially, a Bill of Rights for Comics Creators. For instance, is it fair that writers and artists who dream up superheroes now starring at a multiplex near you don’t necessarily reap financial rewards from their creations?  It’s a discussion that takes a different tone at Image Comics, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In 1992, this publisher presented fans with Savage Dragon, Spawn, WildC.A.T.s, Youngblood and more, produced by seven artists who left Marvel in order to seize control — creative and financial — of their characters.  It was an unheard-of development, says Mark Evanier, a comic-book historian. “Suddenly the premise that you had to work for one of the two big companies took a hit because now you could become the company,” he said.  Today, Image, based in Berkeley, Calif., is having a creative renaissance rivaling the one that gave birth to the company. Though it ended 2011 with only a little more than a 5 percent market share, it ranks third in an industry dominated by Marvel, at 37 percent, and DC Comics, 31 percent.  Comic books, of course, are big business. Sales of single issues and collected editions totaled $640 million last year, according to Milton Griepp, publisher and founder of ICv2, an online trade publication that covers pop culture for retailers. Rounding out the top five publishers are IDW Publishing and Dark Horse Comics, both at just under 5 percent.  But Image has something that is harder to measure: buzz. It publishes series that are far removed from traditional caped-and-costumed adventures. There is Chew, about a detective who gets psychic impressions from anything he ingests; Saga, a science fiction fantasy romance; and, oh yes, a little book called the Walking Dead, about a world overrun with zombies. It has given life to a hit television show on AMC.  Eric Stephenson, Image’s publisher, has had a front-row seat since the company’s earliest days. He broke into comics through the fan press. When he interviewed Jim Valentino, a future Image founder, while he was working on Guardians of the Galaxy at Marvel, they became friends. Mr. Valentino called him when he and his fellow powerhouse artists — Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen and Whilce Portacio — talked about forming their own company.  Mr. Stephenson remembers his reaction: “That would be nuts, Jim.”  Mr. Valentino’s response: “It’s not a hypothetical.”  Mr. Stephenson came on board as an assistant to Mr. Valentino, and continued his streak of being in the right place at the most opportune time. He had an early conversation with Mr. Liefeld, creator of Youngblood, a team of heroes who were government agents and juggled crime fighting alongside endorsements and talk-show appearances.  “I was honest,” Mr. Stephenson recalls. “It didn’t live up to everything you talked about in the interviews. I was kind of disappointed.” Instead of bristling, Mr. Liefeld hired him to edit. Mr. Stephenson became director of marketing in 2001 and publisher in 2008.  IN the broadest of strokes, the comic book industry has three types of publishers: Marvel and DC control the marquee characters like Spider-Man and Batman. IDW and Dark Horse have a library of licensed properties that include Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And companies like Image are somewhere in the middle, with a slate of creator-owned characters.  The old-school thinking had largely been that creators were better off publishing through Marvel or DC, Mr. Evanier said, especially if you factored in their connections to the film and toy industries. “Even though you would lose ownership or partial ownership, you would have the support structure of an established company,” he said.  One of the first properties to break that mold was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, published by Mirage Studios, in 1984. It “came along without DC or Marvel behind it,” he said, “and its merchandising did not suffer one bit.”  Image’s founding created a big splash out of the gate because of the industry boldface names involved. “That someone like Jim Lee, Erik Larsen or Todd McFarlane was willing to walk away from Marvel instantly elevated Image to an important status and some stability,” Mr. Evanier says. “Of course, when the creators started fighting amongst themselves that deflated it just a bit.”  Indeed, the early years had feuding among the founders with Mr. Liefeld, and there was a sense, especially in retrospect, that some of Image’s superhero comics were more style than substance and broke no new ground.  Mr. Stephenson defends the early days. “They say ‘write what you know,’ and those guys were all familiar with superhero comics,” he said. “Todd doing a Western? Rob doing a romance comic? Who wants to see that?”
Image Comics, founded on the idea of artists having creative and financial control over their characters, is generating much buzz in its industry.