Image Comics layoffs hit at least four staffers, including long-time and high-level employees.
Departures reportedly tied to fallout from Diamond Comic Distributors' recent bankruptcy troubles.
Publicist Cat Nuwer, Sales Manager Chloe Ramos, Marketing Designer Deanna Phelps and Inventory Manager Pat O'Connell among those exiting.
No official statement yet from Image Comics; details remain unconfirmed as of latest reports.
Bleeding Cool has heard from multiple sources about a number of layoffs at Image Comics. As of tonight they include Cat Newer, Chloe Ramos, Deanna Phelps and Patrick O'Connell.
Cat Nuwer has been a Publicist at Image Comics for just over a year, and before that was Publicity Manager at DC Comics, Director of Publicity at Modern Fanatic, Publicist at Heavy Metal, and Publicity Coordinator at DC. On LinkedIn she has set her Image position as concluding in June 2025.
Chloe Ramos has been at Image Comics for over ten years, first as Library Market Sales Representative for five years and then as Book Market & Library Sales Manager. She has also set her position on LinkedIn to end in June 2025.
Patrick O'Connell has been Image Comics' Inventory Manager for over a year, previously Senior Direct Market Sales Manager at IDW Publishing for almost three years until they issued a large number of layoffs, Sales Manager at Dynamite Entertainment for almost five years and Direct Sales Representative at DC Comics for seven years.
Deanna Phelps, had been at Image Comics for six years, Marketing Design Manager who designed Image's Previews catalogue, before that, Production Artist. And previously worked in finance for JP Morgan Chase and Texas Pacific Group and creating freelance graphic design for a variety of clients including Google Classroom, SF Digital Studio, Levi's, Banana Republic, The San Francisco Art Institute, and Portland Mercury.
While these have not been confirmed and no reasons have been given, it comes after Image Comics was heavily hit by the Diamond Comic Distributors Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the timing suggests they may be linked. No Image Comics representative replied to enquiries made yesterday.
Founded by seven of Marvel Comics' biggest artists in 1992, Image Comics is the third-largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the USA. Its best-known publications include Spawn, The Walking Dead, Youngblood, Invincible, Saga, Witchblade, The Department Of Truth, Savage Dragon, Saga, Radiant Black, Transformers, GI Joe, The Wicked + The Divine, Chase Variant and Stray Dogs. 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.
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/layoffs-at-image-comics-hit-at-least-four-staffers-gone/
>>149287571 (OP)Shouldn't have gone all in on woke slop
If the layoffs continue then I predict a swift end for Image sadly.
R.I.P. (1992 -2025 )Image
>>149287571 (OP)Cat just got there too
What does Image put out aside from Tynionslop?
>>149287845I happen to enjoy their books immensely. unironically I rather see Marvel Comics end rather then them the same goes for DC
>>149287571 (OP)Makes you wonder sometimes.
Cat Nuwer
>Publicity Manager>Director of Publicity>Publicist>Publicity CoordinatorBloat.
Chloe Ramos
>Sales Representative>Sales ManagerIs that not a mission critical role?
Patrick O'Connell
>Inventory Manager>Sales Manager (laid off)Aren't those mission critical roles? How do you go from Sales to Inventory?
Deanna Phelps
>Marketing Manager>Production Artist>"Finance">Freelance Graphic Design (digital?)Bloat.
>>149288706>Makes you wonder sometimes.That the whole staff needs to be replaced pronto? I reckon you are right.
>>149288706I’m guessing O’Connell took a job that was open and available, because comic jobs are hard to get and there was no guarantee a sales role was in his future. Sometimes you take a role just to fill the gap and get paid.
>>149288706This could be in part because of the rise of more imprints at Image. Each of those has its own representatives and other staff, and I imagine with more creators choosing to publish them instead of directly under Image it's taken a chunk of the workload from these positions.
>>149289268This. Tynion started a company that would handle everything from PR to printing, so Image paying people for those roles is less necessary when creators are handling it and paying Image for the ability to include their logo on a cover.
>>149288706>Bloat.>one person or preferably no people at all should publicise our product, the only thing that we sell, which is only sold within a dying physical market reliant on small businesses that are failing because nobody buys our productah I guess it doesn't really matter, this is the last year american cultural exports will have any relevance at all to the rest of the world
>>149287571 (OP)Whatever happened to the employees who wanted a say in approving which titles Images publishes?
>>149289467They disappeared after Mark Millar pulled out of the Image Co-op. Losing his business to Dark Horse must of hurt.
>>149289402Anon, it's not one person if the title says "Manager" or "Director" or "Coordinator".
Could you tell me what publicising the product involves that couldn't be done by the various chiefs, the president or the vice president? How did Image manage in its infancy to sell comics before it created all these excess roles?
>>149287571 (OP)It's almost like the industry should have stopped allowing a model that was dying 20 years ago continue to dictate how its business was run in order to promp up incompetent store owners too lazy to try or do anything new.
>>149290038People like you who say this should either kill yourself or fuck off back to /a/. You clearly don’t follow the industry. The idea that comics are only sold at LCS hasn’t been true for 15 years. Also ignores that three of these roles were focused on non-LCS markets.
For real, kill yourself and rid us of your autism.
>>149290420>The idea that comics are only sold at LCS hasn’t been true for 15 years.You're forced to pay the same price for a digital comic as you are for a floppy because when digital comics were first introduced they were at a lower price point until LCS owners threw a tantrum and the industry capitulated to appease them. Paying $4 or $5 for a DRM digital issue you can read in 8-10 minutes because of decompressed storytelling is a big reason comics don't sell anymore and that's on the publishers for giving in to whiny store owners.
>>149290660>because when digital comics were first introduced they were at a lower price point until LCS owners threw a tantrum and the industry capitulated to appease themFind a single case of this happening and link it.
>>149290420i mean if you are saying so by buying stuff online in amazon or instocktrades and shit, it still relies on the single issues market for most of its survival which sucks because you wait a long time for anything and there's no cheap option to check them online before buying so you either pirate or gamble and most of the times them books die before getting real good because of that.
>>149290717Learn English, I can barely understand your post.
You can buy digitally, there are streaming options and collected editions which obviously don’t hit the market until months later because there needs to be content to collect.
>>149290712Unsurprisingly it's hard to find examples from shit from 12-15 years ago when some sites, like Newsarama, are gone. Maybe DC and Marvel didn't offer cheaper prices but this shit definitely happened with Dark Horse where they announced cheaper day and date prices for digital, retailers flipped, and Dark Horse had to walk it back by gong "um, w-we didn't actually mean day and date we swear." Retailers also flipped out in 2010 when Marvel and DC price drops back to $2.99 for floppies were announced because they'd be making less money.
The "get a coupon for a free digital version of the comic you just bought" though was 100% an attempt to appease store owners as are recent shit Marvel's been doing like the QR code pages and Red Band books that are physical only. Companies have spent 15ish years propping up a dying business model run be retarded dinosaurs who are too lazy and autistic to ever change how they do business. Remember the freaking out over DC going from Wednesday to Tuesday? Or when Marvel switched from Diamond to Penguin Random House? The LCS and floppy model needs to die. Digital should be priced at $.99 per issue, there needs to be an actual good digital storefront to replace Comixology, and digital platforms need to go to a Mangaplus format of day and date, large back catalog, first few issues of a series free, and affordable price point. Tying everything into $3.99 and $4.99 floppies to prop up the LCS market isn't doing anyone any favors.
The comic book industry as a whole is a dead man walking. It's collapsing faster than anyone predicted just 5 years ago. What happened to Boom, and what is happening to Image now, is just the beginning. Soon, DC and Marvel will face massive layoffs, too. The situation will be worse than the comic book crash of the 1990s and the DC Implosion of the 1970s. We're talking about some seismic changes here: 80-90% of current publications getting canceled, with DC preserving 6 or 7 titles at most (Action Comics, Detective Comics, Batman, Superman, Justice League, and maybe Green Lantern), and Marvel about 10 titles (Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Wolverine, Daredevil, Spider-Gwen, Hulk, Black Panther, and maybe Star Wars). American comics will probably die withing the next 20 years, because people who buy them now will start dying out, and zoomers, as we all know, don't read comics and aren't interested in superheroes anymore, all they're interested in is playing video games and scrolling TikTok, they simply don't have enough attention span to read comic books anymore.
>>149291598Marvel and DC are making more money than ever but it's because their shit is overpriced to make up for not selling as many units.
>>149291598Marvel saved itself for the next 10 years with Marvel Rivals existing but the actual comics themselve ya
>>149291598This entire paragraph is damage control. Notice how it doesn't blame bad leadership and instead blames "video games" and "Tiktok".
How bout you just fire the executives making bad decisions? You know, like Sana Amanat, Tom Breevort, etc.
>>149291598I wouldn't mind if comic books died to transfer into something like digital comics or another similar format for mixed text and visual storytelling. Even though I have a modest collection of manga and comics I don't really value them aside from the autographed stuff I obviously won't be using to actually read. I also think talented artists CAN make it on their own without some big publication, but of course it's such a crapshoot with how many artists and how many works are getting pumped out there. Ironically it seems like a really bad time to be in or to get into the industry, but a great time to be someone with a passion and work output without credentials or a portfolio. I'll at least say it's a great time to be a consumer.
>>149287571 (OP)Now fire Erik Larsen and cancel Savage Dragon
>>149287571 (OP)A lot of these companies have jobs that just have to go. This doesn't spell doom for the company if anything it's good that they're cutting bloat and all of these publishers need to be cutting more. Image really doesn't need these people.
>>149294031You can’t fire one of the founders.
>>149287571 (OP)good riddance to bad rubbish
>>149291598If you think DC will be publishing anything other than Batman then you're delusional.
>>149291743Marvel is not a company. It is a branding owned by Disney. The comics publisher does not profit from a video game with the same branding.
>>149290660Digital comics cost as much because there is NO way that corporation will allow them not to.
>>149295058That's why sales are in the toilet though. Nobody wants to pay that much for floppies, especially when the reading time for a modern one is so short compared to one from the '80s or '70s due to decompression. The jacked up prices are the only reason sales, in terms of dollar amounts, are higher than ever. They're selling less but the price is offsetting it.
>>149294646He wasn’t paying employees and was poaching talent. Has Larsen done like that? Why do you even care if a book you don’t read gets published?
>>149287575Why do they list Saga twice?
>>149294646Liefeld was busy not working on his comics at Image, causing significant delays and ruining their reputation while also drawing shit for marvel. Image United is still in limbo after... 3 issues completed 15 years ago, because Liefeld was busy not working on it.
As idiotic Savage Dragon is nowadays, at least Larsen is putting out a regular comic book. One which also holds a world record for being the longest running comic book series made by the same person, as I recall.
>>149289502Why should they do somethign that isn't in the same job space as what they are actually there to do?
>>149296292>One which also holds a world record for being the longest running comic book series made by the same person, as I recall.There's plenty of manga which has him beat. Certainly Golgo 13 which was done by Saito from 1968 until his death in 2021. Shima Kosaku likely as well which has been published continuously since 1983 unless you want to asterisk it because technically each new part/promotion is a "new" series even if it's been telling one continuous story for 40+ years.
>>149296292I thought Gold Digger had the record for longest running comic book series made by the same person.
>>149291896have you met any zoomers? they're on track to be dumber than other generations. gen alphas are fucking cooked
>>149288260holy fuck gwenschizo the hell are you doing outside of spider-man thread?
>>149287571 (OP)do they even have any good ongoing comics?
Maybe they shouldn't have distanced themselves from Brandon Graham for being a chaser.
>>149287571 (OP)DC seems to be only ones at first who realized diamond was fucked even doing one shot reprints in gas stations and did Wal Mart stunt few years back, they seem to really want make comics like in regular places again even if it never works.
>>149296292Savage Dragon has letters and colorists.
>>149298706Yeah Gold Digger is not only longer, he actually did everything.
>>149298242I assume manga isnt included
>>149299514I heard Radiant Black or whatever was good
Just fire all the non-straight white males and you'll rebound in no time.
>>149287571 (OP)Rip. I thought invincible was a success.
>>149287571 (OP)They really Layoffs on that one, huh?
