Digital comics (also known as electronic comics , eComics , e-comics , or ecomics / ˈ iː ˌ k ɒ m ɪ k s / ) are comics released digitally, as opposed to in print. Digital comics commonly take the form of mobile comics . Webcomics may also fall under the "digital comics" umbrella.
112-641: With the growing use of smartphones , tablets , and desktop screen reading, major publishers began releasing comics, graphic novels and manga in digital formats. Declining sales and copyright violation have led some publishers to find new ways to publish their comics, while others are just adapting to the digital age while still having great success with the printed comic format. American publishers' attempts at creating digital publishing platforms for local comics and Manga have thus far been more successful than attempts with digital Manga publishing in Japan, which have lacked
224-400: A Comics Retailer interview, McFarlane blamed the industry downturn on greed, saying he hoped that retailers who over-ordered popular titles, including Spawn, went bankrupt. Based on public orders and shipping data, The Comics Journal and Thompson concluded that because Image titles accounted for such a large percentage of both late books and dollars spent, the company was more culpable for
336-411: A gyroscope , an accelerometer , and more ), and support diverse wireless communication protocols (such as LTE , 5G NR , Wi-Fi , Bluetooth , and satellite navigation ). In the mid-2020s, smartphone manufacturers have begun to integrate satellite messaging connectivity and satellite emergency services into devices for use in remote regions where there is no reliable cellular network . Following
448-692: A phone , is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing , email , and social media , as well as multimedia playback and streaming . Smartphones have built-in cameras , GPS navigation , and support for various communication methods, including voice calls, text messaging , and internet-based messaging apps. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems , access to
560-665: A " keyboard bar " form factor, like the BlackBerry line, Windows Mobile smartphones, Palm Treos , and some of the Nokia Eseries . A few hid their full physical QWERTY keyboard in a sliding form factor , like the Danger Hiptop line. Some even had only a numeric keypad using T9 text input , like the Nokia Nseries and other models in the Nokia Eseries . Resistive touchscreens with stylus -based interfaces could still be found on
672-504: A "devices and services" company. Despite the growth of Windows Phone and the Lumia range (which accounted for nearly 90% of all Windows Phone devices sold), the platform never had significant market share in the key U.S. market, and Microsoft was unable to maintain Windows Phone's momentum in the years that followed, resulting in dwindling interest from users and app developers. After Balmer
784-431: A 3.5" capacitive touchscreen with twice the common resolution of most smartphone screens at the time , and introduced multi-touch to phones, which allowed gestures such as "pinching" to zoom in or out on photos, maps, and web pages. The iPhone was notable as being the first device of its kind targeted at the mass market to abandon the use of a stylus, keyboard, or keypad typical of contemporary smartphones, instead using
896-534: A coherent strategy to create successful digital platforms in which to publish, and had revenue considerations from the impact of illegal scanlation . Some attempts in Japan have been made, but failed, such as JManga ; while others merged with larger worldwide distributors as in the case of Square Enix digital publishing joining the Hachette Book Group for distribution in over 200 countries. Some western notable platforms such as Graphicly have closed down due to
1008-773: A corporation. Many Image series quickly fell behind their intended publishing schedule (See " Controversies " below). In response, retailers cut orders to reduce their risk. In August 1993, Image cut back its line, citing lateness and a desire to focus on books by the founders. The company announced it had canceled Shaman's Tears , Stupid , Trencher , and Tribe and that several mini-series including 1963 and Pitt would not become ongoing series. Moore's Enemies of Mankind and Frank Miller's Big Guy were "indefinitely postponed." In late 1993, Image hired Larry Marder , an independent cartoonist and former marketer for Chicago comics retail chain Moondog, to act as "executive director" for
1120-545: A creator-owned title by Liefeld in 1991. In July that year he announced plans to publish an independent comic called Youngblood and in September advertised a title called The Executioners to be published by "Image Comics." Although Liefeld shelved plans for The Executioners after Marvel threatened to both sue him and fire him from X-Force (the characters later appeared in Youngblood and their own title as "The Berzerkers"),
1232-439: A dependence on third-party sources providing applications for multiple platforms. The advantages of a design with software powerful enough to support advanced applications and a large capacitive touchscreen affected the development of another smartphone OS platform, Android , with a more BlackBerry-like prototype device scrapped in favor of a touchscreen device with a slide-out physical keyboard, as Google's engineers thought at
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#17328514591661344-653: A dual five-megapixel rear camera setup for spatial imaging, among the earliest mobile phones with more than one rear camera . The 2012 Samsung Galaxy S3 introduced the ability to capture photos using voice commands . Image comics Image Comics is an American comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include Spawn , The Walking Dead , Kick-Ass , Invincible , Jupiter's Legacy , Witchblade , The Maxx , Savage Dragon , Bone , Saga , Radiant Black and Stray Dogs . It
1456-451: A few smartphones, like the Palm Treos , which had dropped their handwriting input after a few early models that were available in versions with Graffiti instead of a keyboard. The late 2000s and early 2010s saw a shift in smartphone interfaces away from devices with physical keyboards and keypads to ones with large finger-operated capacitive touchscreens. The first phone of any kind with
1568-433: A flat fee of $ 2,000 to Image and $ 500 to Shadowline for administrative costs and kept all other proceeds from their sales, as well as all intellectual property rights. After Marder left Image in 1999 to help run McFarlane Toys , Valentino was named the company's publisher. He later said he saw his time as publisher as an extension of what he had been doing with Shadowline. He is often credited for making Image Comics into
1680-404: A large capacitive touchscreen as the sole means of interaction, and led to the decline of earlier, keyboard- and keypad-focused platforms. Later, navigation keys such as the home , back , menu , task and search buttons have also been increasingly replaced by nonphysical touch keys, then virtual, simulated on-screen navigation keys, commonly with access combinations such as a long press of
1792-519: A large capacitive touchscreen was the LG Prada , announced by LG in December 2006. This was a fashionable feature phone created in collaboration with Italian luxury designer Prada with a 3" 240 x 400 pixel screen, a 2-Megapixel digital camera with 144p video recording ability, an LED flash , and a miniature mirror for self portraits. In January 2007, Apple Computer introduced the iPhone . It had
1904-464: A large touchscreen for direct finger input as its main means of interaction. The iPhone's operating system was also a shift away from older operating systems (which older phones supported and which were adapted from PDAs and feature phones ) to an operative system powerful enough to not require using a limited, stripped down web browser that can only render pages specially formatted using technologies such as WML , cHTML , or XHTML and instead ran
2016-455: A lesser extent, handheld video game consoles , e-reader devices, pocket calculators , and GPS tracking units . Since the early 2010s, improved hardware and faster wireless communication (due to standards such as LTE and later 5G NR) have bolstered the growth of the smartphone industry . As of 2014, over a billion smartphones are sold globally every year. In 2019 alone, 1.54 billion smartphone units were shipped worldwide. 75.05 percent of
2128-481: A limited amount of cellular Internet access. PDA and mobile phone manufacturers competed in reducing the size of devices. The bulk of these smartphones combined with their high cost and expensive data plans, plus other drawbacks such as expansion limitations and decreased battery life compared to separate standalone devices, generally limited their popularity to " early adopters " and business users who needed portable connectivity. In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released
2240-752: A major partnership with Microsoft, under which it would exclusively use Windows Phone on all of its future smartphones, and integrate Microsoft's Bing search engine and Bing Maps (which, as part of the partnership, would also license Nokia Maps data) into all future devices. The announcement led to the abandonment of both Symbian, as well as MeeGo —a Linux-based mobile platform it was co-developing with Intel. Nokia's low-end Lumia 520 saw strong demand and helped Windows Phone gain niche popularity in some markets, overtaking BlackBerry in global market share in 2013. In mid-June 2012, Meizu released its mobile operating system, Flyme OS . Many of these attempts to compete with Android and iPhone were short-lived. Over
2352-687: A new Masters of the Universe series in 2002, Udon Entertainment began publishing a series based on the Street Fighter video game franchise in 2003, and the imprint DB Productions began publishing an adaptation of George R. R. Martin 's The Hedge Knight , also in 2003. Image Comics hired Eric Stephenson , who had worked as an editor and writer for Liefeld's Extreme Studios in the early days of Image, as marketing director in 2002. In 2003, Image published Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore 's zombie comic The Walking Dead , which went on to become one of
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#17328514591662464-707: A new sub-imprint called Homage Comics under his WildStorm Studios label. Described as a "home for creator-owned material as well as a safe haven from an increasingly challenging comic book market," the initial line-up consisted of Astro City , Terry Moore's previously self-published Strangers in Paradise , and a new title called Leave it to Chance by James Robinson and Paul Smith . The Image founders also continued to produce new top-selling series, such as Gen from WildStorm Studios in 1994, and Witchblade and The Darkness from Silvestri's Top Cow Productions in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In 1998, WildStorm launched
2576-407: A non-returnable basis. Late books create cash flow issues for retailers, and in many cases, fans lost interest in late books by the time they shipped. Retailers estimated that late shipping could affect sales by as much as 60%, according to The Comics Journal . Late books also make it harder for retailers to plan purchases, because they have to order the next issues in a series before they see how well
2688-523: A redesigned user interface, support for gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, and a new web browser based on the same WebKit rendering engine used by the iPhone. The following year, RIM released BlackBerry OS 7 and new models in the Bold and Torch ranges, which included a new Bold with a touchscreen alongside its keyboard, and the Torch 9860—the first BlackBerry phone to not include a physical keyboard. In 2013, it replaced
2800-416: A rotary knob ring around the lens and a tripod mount. While screen sizes have increased, manufacturers have attempted to make smartphones thinner at the expense of utility and sturdiness, since a thinner frame is more vulnerable to bending and has less space for components, namely battery capacity. The iPhone and later touchscreen-only Android devices together popularized the slate form factor , based on
2912-468: A traditional portrait page layout, for ease of viewing on computer monitors (which are typically longer length-wise than height-wise). comiXology is a cloud-based digital comics platform that offers material from over 75 publishers and independent creators, which can be bought or downloaded for free. Its publishers' catalog includes both big US publishers such as Marvel Comics and DC; and translations of Manga through publishers such as Tokyopop . As of 2014
3024-571: A version of Apple's Safari browser that could render full websites not specifically designed for mobile phones. Later Apple shipped a software update that gave the iPhone a built-in on-device App Store allowing direct wireless downloads of third-party software. This kind of centralized App Store and free developer tools quickly became the new main paradigm for all smartphone platforms for software development , distribution , discovery, installation , and payment, in place of expensive developer tools that required official approval to use and
3136-525: Is a part of its company website. It got attention for selling comics digitally that are DRM-free, thereby allowing users to download their comics in PDF , EPUB , and the CBR or CBZ Comic Book Archive file formats to their various electronic devices. It also has exclusive digital releases on its website and offers 5-page previews of its comics online. Image Comics was the first big publisher to offer DRM-free digital comics in
3248-436: Is an employee of that publisher. Its output was originally dominated by superhero and fantasy titles from the studios of the founding Image partners, but now includes comics in many genres by numerous independent creators. In the early 1990s, artists Todd McFarlane , Rob Liefeld , and Jim Lee broke successive modern sales records at Marvel Comics with Spider-Man #1, X-Force #1, and X-Men #1 respectively. However,
3360-538: The J-SH04 , a Sharp J-Phone model sold in Japan in November 2000. It could instantly transmit pictures via cell phone telecommunication . By the mid-2000s, higher-end cell phones commonly had integrated digital cameras. In 2003 camera phones outsold stand-alone digital cameras, and in 2006 they outsold film and digital stand-alone cameras. Five billion camera phones were sold in five years, and by 2007 more than half of
3472-1028: The Japanese market , such as mobile payments and shopping, near-field communication (NFC) allowing mobile wallet functionality to replace smart cards for transit fares, loyalty cards, identity cards, event tickets, coupons, money transfer, etc., downloadable content like musical ringtones , games , and comics , and 1seg mobile television . Phones built by Japanese manufacturers used custom firmware , however, and did not yet feature standardized mobile operating systems designed to cater to third-party application development , so their software and ecosystems were akin to very advanced feature phones . As with other feature phones, additional software and services required partnerships and deals with providers. The degree of integration between phones and carriers, unique phone features, non-standardized platforms, and tailoring to Japanese culture made it difficult for Japanese manufacturers to export their phones, especially when demand
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3584-563: The Luna Brothers . In 2007, Liefeld returned to Image as a creator, as opposed to partner, to publish a new Youngblood series written by Joe Casey with art by Derec Donovan and Val Staples. Liefeld credited Kirkman for bringing him back to Image. Larsen stepped down as publisher to focus more on The Savage Dragon in July 2008 and Stephenson was promoted to the position. In 2008, shortly after Stephenson's appointment, Image added Kirkman as
3696-580: The Nokia 9000 Communicator , a digital cellular PDA based on the Nokia 2110 with an integrated system based on the PEN/GEOS 3.0 operating system from Geoworks . The two components were attached by a hinge in what became known as a clamshell design , with the display above and a physical QWERTY keyboard below. The PDA provided e-mail ; calendar, address book, calculator and notebook applications; text-based Web browsing; and could send and receive faxes. When closed,
3808-553: The Nokia N8 , Sony Ericsson Satio , and Samsung M8910 Pixon12 feature phone had 12 MP. The main camera of the 2009 Nokia N86 uniquely features a three-level aperture lens. The Altek Leo, a 14-megapixel smartphone with 3x optical zoom lens and 720p HD video camera was released in late 2010. In 2011, the same year the Nintendo 3DS was released, HTC unveiled the Evo 3D , a 3D phone with
3920-551: The OmniGo 700LX , a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with a Nokia 2110 mobile phone piggybacked onto it and ROM -based software to support it. It had a 640 × 200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to place and receive calls, and to create and receive text messages, emails and faxes. It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows . In August 1996, Nokia released
4032-553: The Pre 3 and HP TouchPad tablet. As part of a proposed divestment of its consumer business to focus on enterprise software, HP abruptly ended development of future webOS devices in August 2011, and sold the rights to webOS to LG Electronics in 2013, for use as a smart TV platform. Research in Motion introduced the vertical-sliding BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry OS 6 in 2010, which featured
4144-627: The exponential scaling and miniaturization of MOS transistors down to sub-micron levels ( Moore's law ), the improved lithium-ion battery , faster digital mobile data networks ( Edholm's law ), and more mature software platforms that allowed mobile device ecosystems to develop independently of data providers . In the 2000s, NTT DoCoMo 's i-mode platform, BlackBerry , Nokia 's Symbian platform, and Windows Mobile began to gain market traction, with models often featuring QWERTY keyboards or resistive touchscreen input and emphasizing access to push email and wireless internet . In
4256-479: The installed base of all mobile phones were camera phones. Sales of separate cameras peaked in 2008. Many early smartphones did not have cameras at all, and earlier models that had them had low performance and insufficient image and video quality that could not compete with budget pocket cameras and fulfill user's needs. By the beginning of the 2010s almost all smartphones had an integrated digital camera. The decline in sales of stand-alone cameras accelerated due to
4368-413: The internet , business applications, mobile payments , and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming , radio , and television . Smartphones typically contain a number of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips, include various sensors that can be leveraged by pre-installed and third-party software (such as a magnetometer , a proximity sensor , a barometer ,
4480-475: The " Pocket PC " versions of what was later Windows Mobile , and the UIQ interface that was originally designed for pen-based PDAs on Symbian OS devices resulted in some early smartphones having stylus-based interfaces. These allowed for virtual keyboards and handwriting input, thus also allowing easy entry of Asian characters. By the mid-2000s, the majority of smartphones had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Most used
4592-495: The 1990s, or lithium-ion batteries used in modern smartphones. The term "smart phone" (in two words) was not coined until a year after the introduction of the Simon, appearing in print as early as 1995, describing AT&T's PhoneWriter Communicator. The term "smartphone" (as one word) was first used by Ericsson in 1997 to describe a new device concept, the GS88 . Beginning in
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4704-635: The Comics Industry Person of the Year in 2012 for what editor-in-chief Heidi MacDonald described as Stephenson's "creative revitalization" of Image. MacDonald cited the publication of Saga and other new titles from popular creators like Grant Morrison, Jonathan Hickman and Ed Brubaker, along with "homegrown hits" from Image like Chew , Mornings Glories , and Thief of Thieves and Stephenson's own Nowhere Men among his accomplishments. Saga creator Brian K. Vaughan explained that while he loved
4816-545: The Marvel/DC crossover The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans was published in 1982. Some of the founders' studios came to resemble separate publishers, each with several ongoing series set in a shared universe . The use of freelancers to write or illustrate series that were owned by the Image partners led to criticism that some of them had reproduced the very system they had rebelled against, but with them in charge instead of
4928-472: The North American comics market share thanks to Image, briefly exceeding that of industry giant DC Comics . In early 1993 Image left Malibu and established itself as an independent company, hiring Tony Lobito as full-time publisher. Image became the first publishing company to challenge Marvel and DC's dominance since the establishment of the direct market . Portacio was the only founder not to deliver
5040-577: The U.S., stating that it believes that consumers should be able to own what they have bought in the case of a platform having major technical problems or leaving the market altogether. It also stated that it does not see infringement as a big problem as most consumers will buy comics that are of high quality. The website Humble Bundle was originally created in 2010 for selling time-limited pay-what-you-want indie game bundles. Since 2012 it has been putting up pay-what-your-want book bundles, which now and then featured comics. The first fully dedicated comic bundle
5152-461: The Year three years in a row between 2013 and 2015. By the company's 25th anniversary in 2017, the majority of titles Image published in a given month were not affiliated with the founding partners. Meanwhile, McFarlane's Spawn and related titles, his McFarlane Toys line, Silvestri's Top Cow imprint and Kirkman's various series remained a substantial segment of Image's total sales. As of 2020 , McFarlane's Spawn and Larsen's Savage Dragon were
5264-454: The big internet giants in the country have created platforms for anyone to submit their own works and read many titles for free, "U17" being an example. Thanks in part to free access to these comics and most being in color, the manhua industry has seen a surge in revenue and production in both China and Taiwan. On those platforms, there are comics created by so-called "Platinum Authors" who have over one million "Paid Subscription/Views" and one of
5376-462: The big publishers have also launched digital magazines and websites where web manga get released alongside traditional print works. Unlike digital comics in other Asian countries, web manga are almost always released in black-in-white rather than color despite being released digitally in contrast to titles released in nearby countries. The South Korean manhwa industry created their own original format for comics called webtoons which helped revitalize
5488-430: The commercially successful Cliffhanger sub-imprint to showcase created owned titles from a new generation of popular artists, starting with Humberto Ramos , J. Scott Campbell , Joe Madureira . After a peak in early 1993, the comics market experienced a steep downturn as the speculative bubble burst . Around 20% of all comic book stores went out of business in 1993, industry analyst Mel Thompson estimated, compared to
5600-483: The company announced that it would also exit the hardware market to focus more on software and its enterprise middleware, and began to license the BlackBerry brand and its Android distribution to third-party OEMs such as TCL for future devices. In September 2013, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Nokia's mobile device business for $ 7.1 billion, as part of a strategy under CEO Steve Ballmer for Microsoft to be
5712-674: The company as a creator, as opposed to partner, in 2007. Jim Lee sold WildStorm and its characters to DC Comics in 1998, citing a desire to exchange his responsibilities as a publisher for the opportunity to do more creative work. Image continued to diversify, adding titles such as Brian Michael Bendis 's Jinx and Matt Wagner 's Mage to the company's line-up in 1997, while Valentino's Shadowline imprint published more than 12 black and white titles, including his own A Touch of Silver , James A. Owen 's Starchild , Zander Cannon 's The Replacement God , Mike Baron 's The Badger , and Michael Avon Oeming 's Ship of Fools . Creators paid
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#17328514591665824-536: The company's first new partner since its founding. Stephenson cited Kirkman's commitment to publishing through Image and his strong vision as reasons for the decision. In 2010, Kirkman founded his own imprint called Skybound . Under Stephenson, Image began to greatly expand both the types of comics it publishes and the types of creators drawn to the publisher, beginning a period of critical acclaim. An influx of Marvel- and DC-associated creators began publishing creator-owned work with them. The Beat named Stephenson
5936-427: The course of the decade, the two platforms became a clear duopoly in smartphone sales and market share, with BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and other operating systems eventually stagnating to little or no measurable market share. In 2015, BlackBerry began to pivot away from its in-house mobile platforms in favor of producing Android devices, focusing on a security-enhanced distribution of the software. The following year,
6048-403: The creators became discontented. Liefeld worried that their success actually made their positions at Marvel precarious. "We had become too big for the system," he said in 2000. "Marvel didn't want a star system." McFarlane and Lee, on the other hand, felt undervalued at Marvel, where they were not paid when their art was reused for merchandise such as t-shirts. Malibu Comics agreed to publish
6160-418: The creators getting hired by the self-publishing platform Blurb. Some comics are initially available as "Digital First" or "digital first" publications. These offerings usually contain only about half or a third of the content of a printed magazine issue, though these "chapters" have correspondingly lower price points than full magazine issues. Many "digital first" comics are presented horizontally, with half of
6272-462: The device could be used as a digital cellular telephone. In June 1999 Qualcomm released the "pdQ Smartphone", a CDMA digital PCS smartphone with an integrated Palm PDA and Internet connectivity. Subsequent landmark devices included: In 1999, Japanese wireless provider NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode , a new mobile internet platform which provided data transmission speeds up to 9.6 kilobits per second, and access web services available through
6384-402: The diverse publisher that it is seen as today. Sacks wrote that by the end of 1999, Image had bolstered its reputation "as the place to find the highest quality creator-owned material." In the early 2000s, a number of imprints not owned by the Image partners began publishing licensed material through Image. Devil's Due launched a new G.I. Joe series via Image in 2001, MVCreations launched
6496-553: The earlier issues sold. "When books start shipping late, you end up ordering four, five, six issues before you see sales, and that's where the greater danger is," Hanley's Universe owner Jim Hanley told The Comics Journal in 1994. Todd McFarlane told The Comics Journal that the blame for the market collapse should not be pinned entirely on Image. He argued that the company shared responsibility with other publishers, distributors, and retailers alike, saying that Image shipping books on time wouldn't "stop retailers from being stupid." In
6608-474: The early 1990s, IBM engineer Frank Canova realised that chip-and-wireless technology was becoming small enough to use in handheld devices . The first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as a "smartphone" began as a prototype called "Angler" developed by Canova in 1992 while at IBM and demonstrated in November of that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show. A refined version
6720-501: The editorial, production, sales and accounting staff formed Comic Book Workers United (CBWU), a trade union affiliated with the Communications Workers of America . The union published nine goals, including salary and workload transparency, improving staff morale, and improving career mobility. Image did not voluntarily recognize the union. The unionization drive was met with praise from many industry professionals. However,
6832-413: The first DRM-free, pay what you want comics by high caliber creators. In Asia, digital comics have become very popular due to readers mostly reading titles on their smartphones and the lower barrier to create their own comics. In some countries, digital comics have revitalized the industry or even created them where they didn't exist before. In China, digital comics are known as " web manhua " and many of
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#17328514591666944-504: The first issue of Liefeld's on-going Brigade series shipped before the concluding issue of the Brigade limited series, and Spawn #21 shipped before issues #19 and #20. Deathmate Red , Liefeld's portion of the inter-company crossover with Valiant Comics, became emblematic of Image's problems. The book shipped four months late, well after the release of the series epilogue. Retailers typically order comics two months in advance, on
7056-568: The first issue of his own series in 1992. Initially, Portacio was reported to be working on a title called Huntsman with Chris Claremont , but opted instead to create his own title called Wetworks (the Huntsman character later appeared in issues of WildC.A.T.S and CyberForce written by Claremont). However, work on the series was significantly delayed due to the death of Portacio's sister and he decided to resign as an Image partner. In 2022, former Incredible Hulk artist Dale Keown said that he
7168-466: The iPhone; Palm unveiled a new platform known as webOS for its Palm Pre in late-2009 to replace Palm OS , which featured a focus on a task-based "card" metaphor and seamless synchronization and integration between various online services (as opposed to the then-conventional concept of a smartphone needing a PC to serve as a "canonical, authoritative repository" for user data). HP acquired Palm in 2010 and released several other webOS devices, including
7280-713: The incident only further motivated him to pursue independent publishing. Liefeld soon invited Amazing Spider-Man artist Erik Larsen , Guardians of the Galaxy artist Jim Valentino , and McFarlane to join Image Comics. McFarlane then recruited Jim Lee at the Sotheby's auction in New York in December 1991. Wolverine artist Marc Silvestri, who was also in town for the event, was also invited. Lee invited Uncanny X-Men artist Whilce Portacio shortly after. These seven creators became
7392-526: The increasing use of smartphones with rapidly improving camera technology for casual photography, easier image manipulation , and abilities to directly share photos through the use of apps and web-based services. By 2011, cell phones with integrated cameras were selling hundreds of millions per year. In 2015, digital camera sales were 35.395 million units or only less than a third of digital camera sales numbers at their peak and also slightly less than film camera sold number at their peak. Contributing to
7504-414: The largest-selling African-American-created comic, with more than one million copies sold to comic shops. Moore went on to work on several Image series, including Spawn , WildC.A.T.S , The Maxx , and Supreme . Also in 1993, Image and Valiant Comics began publishing the inter-company crossover Deathmate , which comics historian Jason Sacks described it as the first major comic universe crossover since
7616-533: The legacy BlackBerry OS with a revamped, QNX -based platform known as BlackBerry 10 , with the all-touch BlackBerry Z10 and keyboard-equipped Q10 as launch devices. In 2010, Microsoft unveiled a replacement for Windows Mobile known as Windows Phone , featuring a new touchscreen-centric user interface built around flat design and typography, a home screen with "live tiles" containing feeds of updates from apps, as well as integrated Microsoft Office apps. In February 2011, Nokia announced that it had entered into
7728-543: The longest-running creator-owned titles published by Image, with over 300 and 250 issues, respectively. The company's headquarters moved from Berkeley, California to Portland, Oregon in 2017. The following year, Stephenson became an Image partner, board member, and chief creative officer. Prior to Berkeley, its headquarters was located first in Anaheim, California and then in Oakland, California . In November 2021, members of
7840-535: The main image with a macro focus shot . In 2007 the Nokia N95 was notable as a smartphone that had a 5.0 Megapixel (MP) camera, when most others had cameras with around 3 MP or less than 2 MP. Some specialized feature phones like the LG Viewty , Samsung SGH-G800 , and Sony Ericsson K850i , all released later that year, also had 5.0 MP cameras. By 2010 5.0 MP cameras were common; a few smartphones had 8.0 MP cameras and
7952-521: The manhwa industry in the country. Before, the industry had difficulty taking off and becoming popular among readers due to the popularity of translated manga and lack of support for local titles. Webtoons have brought in new readers and fans of manhwa, both in South Korea and around the world. The popularity of webtoons has even led to other countries adopting the format to release their own comics. Smartphones A smartphone , often simply called
8064-661: The mid-2000s as the imprints Devil's Due, Dreamwave Productions , MVCreations, Udon Entertainment, and DB Productions departed the company and Dark Horse Comics surpassed Image to become the third largest comic book publisher. Larsen took over as publisher in 2004, intending to publish more mainstream comics. Valentino returned to running the Shadowline imprint. Titles launched during Larsen's tenure include Ellis and Ben Templesmith 's Fell ; Casey and Tom Scioli 's Godland ; Richard Starkings 's Elephantmen ; Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie 's Phonogram ; and The Sword by
8176-526: The mid-to-late 1990s, many people who had mobile phones carried a separate dedicated PDA device, running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS , Newton OS , Symbian or Windows CE / Pocket PC . These operating systems would later evolve into early mobile operating systems . Most of the "smartphones" in this era were hybrid devices that combined these existing familiar PDA OSes with basic phone hardware. The results were devices that were bulkier than either dedicated mobile phones or PDAs, but allowed
8288-678: The most successful one is "端脑" (the English version is valled "Die Now"). This single comic series has over 2,109,000,000 (2.109 billion) views. The team of authors for this web manhua earned over ten times the US national average salary. In recent years, several web manhua have been adapted into animated series , with some in co-production with the Japanese animation industry . In Japan, web manga have started to pick up steam as many manga artists choose to upload their own original works on image hosting sites and social media forgoing traditional publishers. Many of
8400-473: The original founding partners of Image Comics. Image's organizing charter had two key provisions: The founders' initial titles were produced under the Image name, but published through Malibu Comics , which provided administrative, production, distribution and marketing support. The first Image comic published was Liefeld's Youngblood #1 in April 1992. Pre-orders for the book reached 930,000 copies, beating
8512-403: The other companies he had worked with, he wanted to maintain 100% control over the series to ensure there would be no content restrictions or interference and Image may have been the only publisher that still offered a fully creator-owned contract. Image's sales grew significantly during this period to a market share of around 10% in 2015. Image was voted Diamond Comic Distributors' Publisher of
8624-421: The platform is owned by Amazon.com . Marvel Comics launched Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited , a subscription service allowing readers to read online many comics from Marvel's history, on November 13, 2007. The service also includes periodic releases of new comics not available elsewhere. With the release of Avenging Spider-Man , Marvel also became the first publisher to provide free digital copies as part of
8736-671: The platform such as online shopping. NTT DoCoMo's i-mode used cHTML , a language which restricted some aspects of traditional HTML in favor of increasing data speed for the devices. Limited functionality, small screens and limited bandwidth allowed for phones to use the slower data speeds available. The rise of i-mode helped NTT DoCoMo accumulate an estimated 40 million subscribers by the end of 2001, and ranked first in market capitalization in Japan and second globally. Japanese cell phones increasingly diverged from global standards and trends to offer other forms of advanced services and smartphone-like functionality that were specifically tailored to
8848-478: The previous record for both the top selling creator-owned comic and top selling independent comic of all time. The second Image title, McFarlane's Spawn #1, debuted with a print run of 1.7 million copies in May 1992. Larsen's The Savage Dragon , Lee's WildC.A.T.S , Valentino's ShadowHawk , and Silvestri's CyberForce followed, all with strong sales to comic shops. Within a few months, Malibu had almost 10% of
8960-446: The print copy of the comic book. Dark Horse Comics launched its online digital store in 2011 which supports both computers, iOS and Android devices. The site allows over 2,000 comics to be previewed. Since 2012, DC Comics has offered to sell its comics through all three major E-book stores: Amazon Kindle Store, iBookstore and Nook Store, as well as through the site www.readdcentertainment.com and through comiXology. DC Comics
9072-500: The publisher, ranking above Lobito and reporting directly to the partners. McFarlane told The Comics Journal that the founders had ignored Lobito's advice in the past, even when he was correct, because they didn't have confidence in his guidance due to his age and relative inexperience. Despite the scaleback in 1993, Image continued to publish creator-owned comics by a variety of creators. Though many Image titles sold more than 500,000 copies per issue in 1992 and 1993, by mid-1994 only
9184-509: The request was not an effort to dictate the content of Image publications, but to create a process to ensure a safe working environment. The union was certified by a vote in January 2022, becoming the first of its kind in the American comics industry. Prior to the vote, most Image comics, apart from those published by Todd McFarlane Studios, included the names of Image staffers in the credits. After
9296-518: The rest of the world. Phones that made effective use of any significant data connectivity were still rare outside Japan until the introduction of the Danger Hiptop in 2002, which saw moderate success among U.S. consumers as the T-Mobile Sidekick. Later, in the mid-2000s, business users in the U.S. started to adopt devices based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile , and then BlackBerry smartphones from Research In Motion . American users popularized
9408-583: The return of Superman less than six months after the Death of Superman , as the moment the speculative bubble burst. Khoury concluded that everyone in the industry was to blame for the comics market crash, including publishers, speculators, readers, retailers, creators, and editors. "Many consider Deathmate the comic book that singlehandedly put an end to the industry's prosperous times and the biggest reason why so many comic book stores closed its doors for good," comics historian Jason Sacks wrote in 2018. "In truth, there
9520-412: The rise in popularity of smartphones being used over dedicated cameras for photography, smaller pocket cameras have difficulty producing bokeh in images, but nowadays, some smartphones have dual-lens cameras that reproduce the bokeh effect easily, and can even rearrange the level of bokeh after shooting. This works by capturing multiple images with different focus settings, then combining the background of
9632-660: The rising popularity of the iPhone in the late 2000s, the majority of smartphones have featured thin, slate-like form factors with large, capacitive touch screens with support for multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards. Most modern smartphones have the ability for users to download or purchase additional applications from a centralized app store . They often have support for cloud storage and cloud synchronization, and virtual assistants . Smartphones have largely replaced personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, handheld/palm-sized PCs , portable media players (PMP), point-and-shoot cameras , camcorders , and, to
9744-484: The situation than the Image partners were willing to admit. In 2007, comics journalist George Khoury wrote that Marvel's decision to distribute its product exclusively through its own distribution subsidiary beginning in 1995 had a bigger long-term impact on the comics industry than Image's business practices. Diamond Distributors founder Steve Gepp told Khoury that Image helped expand the market for comic books, and Mile High Comics proprietor Chuck Rozanski pointed to
9856-555: The standalone handset can when necessary be inserted into a tablet -sized screen unit with integrated supportive battery and used as such. In 2013 and 2014, Samsung experimented with the hybrid combination of compact camera and smartphone, releasing the Galaxy S4 Zoom and K Zoom , each equipped with integrated 10× optical zoom lens and manual parameter settings (including manual exposure and focus) years before these were widely adapted among smartphones. The S4 Zoom additionally has
9968-538: The summer of 1996, shortly after the incident with Turner and Hawkins, Silvestri announced that he would leave Image Comics, citing irreconcilable differences with a then-unnamed Image partner. Liefeld resigned from Image Comics in September 1996 shortly before a vote to force him out of the company. Silvestri reversed his plans to leave Image shortly after. Liefeld filed suit against Image in October 1997 for wrongful termination and breach of contract for money he claimed
10080-542: The task key to simulate a short menu key press, as with home button to search. More recent "bezel-less" types have their screen surface space extended to the unit's front bottom to compensate for the display area lost for simulating the navigation keys. While virtual keys offer more potential customizability, their location may be inconsistent among systems depending on screen rotation and software used. Multiple vendors attempted to update or replace their existing smartphone platforms and devices to better-compete with Android and
10192-467: The term "CrackBerry" in 2006 due to the BlackBerry's addictive nature. In the U.S., the high cost of data plans and relative rarity of devices with Wi-Fi capabilities that could avoid cellular data network usage kept adoption of smartphones mainly to business professionals and " early adopters ." Outside the U.S. and Japan, Nokia was seeing success with its smartphones based on Symbian , originally developed by Psion for their personal organisers, and it
10304-432: The time that a touchscreen could not completely replace a physical keyboard and buttons. Android is based around a modified Linux kernel, again providing more power than mobile operating systems adapted from PDAs and feature phones. The first Android device, the horizontal-sliding HTC Dream , was released in September 2008. In 2012, Asus started experimenting with a convertible docking system named PadFone , where
10416-685: The top-selling comics on the market. Valentino originally rejected the title, fearing the premise was too familiar. Kirkman lied and said he planned to reveal that the aliens were behind the zombies, a premise Stephenson found interesting enough to encourage Valentino to accept. Kirkman later admitted that he never planned to include aliens in the comic. Other titles published during Valentino's tenure include Kirkman and Cory Walker 's Invincible ; Bendis's Powers ; Garth Ennis , Jimmy Palmiotti , and Amanda Conner 's The Pro ; Jay Faerber 's Noble Causes , and Warren Ellis and Chris Weston 's Ministry of Space . Image's market share declined in
10528-535: The top-selling titles reached 250,000 in sales. Marder determined that Image needed to publish at least 30 comic books per month to stay in business. "And if the partners did not provide those books, I had to get those books wherever I could find them," Marder explained in 2007. Titles added in the mid-1990s included Hellshock by Jae Lee , Groo by Sergio Aragonés , Bone by Jeff Smith, A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran , and Astro City by Kurt Busiek , Brent Anderson and Alex Ross . In 1996, Lee founded
10640-537: The typical attrition rate of around 10% in prior years. Many comics industry professionals blamed speculators for the market downturn, but many retailers cited Image's erratic publishing record as a key cause of fiscal strain for stores. Every single Image comic scheduled to ship in the first quarter of 1993 shipped late. In April 1993, only 15.3% of the company's titles shipped on time, compared with 90.1% shipped on time by DC, 79.2% by Marvel, and 100% by Valiant. Some titles ended up shipping out of sequence. For example,
10752-472: The union's ninth goal of establishing "a collective voting option to immediately cancel publication of any title whose creator(s) have been found to have engaged in abuse, sexual assault, racism and xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, ableism, etc.” proved controversial. Vice reported that this goal was "read as a demand for a censorious panel to ensure that upcoming comics adhere to diktats of political correctness." CBWU told Vice that
10864-905: The vote, those names were removed from titles published under Valentino's Shadowline imprint. CBWU filed suit against Image Comics in February 2022, alleging retaliation against union members and interference with bargaining efforts. CBWU ratified their first union contract with Image Comics in March 2023. The union filed an additional lawsuit against Image Comics in May 2023, alleging further "anti-union discrimination." This list also includes studios and partners. Image considers these studios as separate publishing companies that operate in concert with Image and each studio as fully autonomous from Image Central . Image Comics titles have garnered both comics and mainstream critical acclaim. Image Comics titles boast multiple award nominations and wins across all categories in
10976-415: The world population were smartphone users as of 2020. Early smartphones were marketed primarily towards the enterprise market, attempting to bridge the functionality of standalone PDA devices with support for cellular telephony , but were limited by their bulky form, short battery life , slow analog cellular networks, and the immaturity of wireless data services. These issues were eventually resolved with
11088-426: Was announced, he had described it as an imprint for non-superhero titles, such as the science fantasy Warchild . Liefeld proposed a merger between his Extreme Studios imprint and Silvestri's Top Cow imprint in 1996, according to Matt Hawkins, who worked for Liefeld's studios from 1993 until 1998 and has been president of Silvestri's Top Cow Productions since 1998. Hawkins said that when Liefeld realized that Silvestri
11200-785: Was approached in 1992 about taking Portacio's place, but declined because his criminal record made it difficult to travel outside his home country of Canada. Keown still became the first non-founder to publish a creator-owned title with Image. The first issue of his series Pitt sold more than one million copies to comic shops. It was originally scheduled for November 1992 but shipped several months late. Image continued to expand in 1993 with new titles from both founders, such as Liefeld's Bloodstrike and Lee's StormWatch , and non-founders, including Sam Kieth 's The Maxx , Larry Stroman 's Tribe , Keith Giffen 's Trencher , and Mike Grell 's Shaman's Tears , and 1963 by Alan Moore , Steve Bissette , and Rick Vietch . Tribe became
11312-409: Was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-owned properties, in which comics creators could publish material of their own creation without giving up the copyrights to those properties. Normally this is not the case in the work-for-hire -dominated American comics industry, where the legal author is a publisher, such as Marvel Comics or DC Comics , and the creator
11424-411: Was going to reject his offer, he decided instead to try to recruit some of Top Cow's artists, including Witchblade artist Mike Turner. At one point Hawkins called Turner about working on an Avengelyne project for Maximum Press, but Silvestri took the phone and yelled at Hawkins. Meanwhile, Liefeld moved some of his titles from Image Comics to Maximum Press, escalating tensions within the company. In
11536-544: Was in April 2014, hosting material from Image comics . The Humble Comic Bundles are digital rights management -free and support charities. The website has hosted comic bundles from some publisher such as Dark Horse Comics , Top Cow , Oni Press , Boom! Studios and Valiant Comics , among others. The idea behind the bundles from publisher standpoint is to try to find new audiences for their products at heavily discounted prices. In 2013, Panel Syndicate received critical acclaim and media attention for its role publishing one of
11648-401: Was manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric , which integrated features with its own cellular radio technologies. It featured a liquid-crystal display (LCD) and PC Card support. The Simon was commercially unsuccessful, particularly due to its bulky form factor and limited battery life , using NiCad batteries rather than the nickel–metal hydride batteries commonly used in mobile phones in
11760-435: Was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator . In addition to placing and receiving cellular calls , the touchscreen-equipped Simon could send and receive faxes and emails . It included an address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock, and notepad, as well as other visionary mobile applications such as maps, stock reports and news. The IBM Simon
11872-413: Was owed to him. Image countersued, claiming Liefeld had misused Image funds and staff resources for his Maximum Press titles and failed to repay an overpayment made by the company. The suits were settled in February 1997. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Marder and Valentino claimed Liefeld repaid the company the money he owed. Liefeld later reconciled with the Image partners and returned to
11984-421: Was plenty of blame to go around." There were tensions between the Image Comics founders from the very beginning, according to Liefeld, as the founders competed with each other for sales and talent. Liefeld founded his own separate company, Maximum Press , in late 1994 largely in response to those tensions and a realization that he wouldn't always be a part of Image, he told CBR in 2001. At the time Maximum Press
12096-536: Was so high in Japan that the companies did not feel the need to look elsewhere for additional profits. The rise of 3G technology in other markets and non-Japanese phones with powerful standardized smartphone operating systems , app stores , and advanced wireless network capabilities allowed non-Japanese phone manufacturers to finally break in to the Japanese market, gradually adopting Japanese phone features like emojis , mobile payments, NFC, etc. and spreading them to
12208-663: Was succeeded by Satya Nadella (who has placed a larger focus on software and cloud computing) as CEO of Microsoft, it took a $ 7.6 billion write-off on the Nokia assets in July 2015, and laid off nearly the entire Microsoft Mobile unit in May 2016. Prior to the completion of the sale to Microsoft, Nokia released a series of Android-derived smartphones for emerging markets known as Nokia X , which combined an Android-based platform with elements of Windows Phone and Nokia's feature phone platform Asha , using Microsoft and Nokia services rather than Google. The first commercial camera phone
12320-471: Was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210 , released in Japan in May 1999. It was called a "mobile videophone" at the time, and had a 110,000- pixel front-facing camera . It could send up to two images per second over Japan's Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) cellular network , and store up to 20 JPEG digital images , which could be sent over e-mail . The first mass-market camera phone was
12432-411: Was the first to offer readers multiple formats to download and digital issues releases on the same day as their printed counterparts. The company stated that it sees the future in digital comics, but its digital sales also help the printed books. DC also offer a similar service to Marvel Unlimited, namely DC Universe Infinite . Image Comics launched its 'Image Digital Comics Store store' in 2013 which
12544-646: Was the most popular smartphone OS in Europe during the middle to late 2000s. Initially, Nokia's Symbian smartphones were focused on business with the Eseries , similar to Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices at the time. From 2002 onwards, Nokia started producing consumer-focused smartphones, popularized by the entertainment-focused Nseries . Until 2010, Symbian was the world's most widely used smartphone operating system. The touchscreen personal digital assistant (PDA)–derived nature of adapted operating systems like Palm OS ,
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