Splitting Image

Last updated
Cover of the first issue Splitting Image 01 cover.jpg
Cover of the first issue

Splitting Image is a 2 issue comic-book limited series created in 1993 by Don Simpson (though based on an idea from Image co-founder Rob Liefeld [1] ) and published by Image Comics. It satirizes the founders of Image and their initial titles such as Savage Dragon , Spawn , Youngblood , WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams , Cyber Force , Shadowhawk , Wetworks , and Pitt . Issue #2 ends with a cliffhanger ending featuring Megaton Man, Captain Everything from normalman , and Mr. Spook from Tales of the Beanworld which was continued in the Megaton Man/normalman Special. In 2017, to celebrate the publisher's 25th anniversary, Image released an 80-Giant Special collecting both issues of Splitting Image along with the Normalman/Megaton Man special and supplementary material. [2]

Related Research Articles

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rob Liefeld</span> American comic book creator

Robert Liefeld is an American comic book creator. A prominent writer and artist in the 1990s, he is known for co-creating the character Cable with writer Louise Simonson and the character Deadpool with writer Fabian Nicieza. In the early 1990s, Liefeld gained popularity due to his work on Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and later X-Force. In 1992, he and several other popular Marvel illustrators left the company to found Image Comics, which started a wave of comic books owned by their creators rather than by publishers. The first book published by Image Comics was Liefeld's Youngblood #1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comico: The Comic Company</span> Defunct American comic book publisher

Comico: The Comic Company was an American comic book publisher headquartered in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Its best-known comics include the Robotech adaptations, the Jonny Quest continuation written by co-creator Doug Wildey, and Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered and Grendel. Once considered a major contender on the American market, Comico went into bankruptcy in 1990, although it continued to sporadically publish books until 1997. In 2009, two of Comico's original founders launched an original webcomics site called CO2 Comics, which they explained was the reincarnation of Comico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Youngblood (comics)</span> Superhero team that starred in their self-titled comic book

Youngblood is a superhero team that starred in their self-titled comic book series, created by writer/artist Rob Liefeld. The team made its debut as a backup feature in RAMM #1 before the next month appearing in the one-shot Megaton Explosion #1 before later appearing in April 1992 in its own ongoing series as the flagship publication for Image Comics and the wider Image Universe. Youngblood was originally published by Image Comics, and later by Awesome Entertainment. Upon Rob Liefeld's return to Image Comics, it was revived in 2008, 2012, and 2017. In 2019, Liefeld revealed that he has not owned the rights to Youngblood for several years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Valentino</span> American comic creator

Jim Valentino is an American writer, penciler, editor and publisher of comic books, best known for his 1990–1992 work on Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel Comics, and for co-founding Image Comics, a company publishing creator-owned comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Larsen</span> Comic creator

Erik J. Larsen is an American comic book artist, writer, and publisher. He currently acts as the chief financial officer of Image Comics. He gained attention in the early 1990s with his art on Spider-Man series for Marvel Comics. In 1992 he was one of several artists who stopped working for Marvel to found Image Comics, where he launched his superhero series Savage Dragon – one of the longest running creator-owned superhero comics series – and served for several years as the company's publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Savage Dragon</span> Comic book superhero

The Savage Dragon is a superhero created by Erik Larsen, published by Image Comics and taking place in the Image Universe. The comic features the adventures of a superheroic police officer named the Dragon. The character first appeared as the Dragon in Graphic Fantasy #1 and first appeared as the "Savage Dragon" in Megaton #3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Simpson (cartoonist)</span> American cartoonist

Donald Edward Simpson is an American comic book cartoonist and freelance illustrator, most noted as the creator of the series Megaton Man, Border Worlds, and Bizarre Heroes, as well as the official comic book adaption of King Kong. He also freelanced for nearly every major comic book publisher. His most widely seen work are the illustrations he created for Al Franken's 2003 bestseller, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Kirkman</span> American comic book writer

Robert Kirkman is an American comic book writer, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for co-creating The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Invincible, Tech Jacket, Outcast, Oblivion Song, and Fire Power for Image Comics, in addition to writing Ultimate X-Men, Irredeemable Ant-Man and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics. He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megaton Man</span> Comics character

Megaton Man is a satirical superhero created by cartoonist Don Simpson. A parody of the superhero genre, Megaton Man is a gigantically-muscled but dim-witted oaf who starred in Simpson's cheerfully absurd stories.

Aardvark-Vanaheim is a Canadian independent comic book publisher founded in 1977 by Dave Sim and Deni Loubert and is best known for publishing Sim's Cerebus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Marder</span> American cartoonist and writer (born 1951)

Larry Marder is an American cartoonist and writer, best known as the creator of comic book Tales of the Beanworld, which began as an "essentially self-published title" in 1984. Beginning in 2009, Dark Horse Books began to reprint Tales of the Beanworld, in two volumes, and then went on to publish two more volumes of new Beanworld.

Renegade Press was an American comic book company, founded by Canadian Deni Loubert, that operated from 1984 to 1988. Notable titles published by Renegade included Flaming Carrot, Ms. Tree, and normalman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanguard (character)</span> Comics character

Vanguard is an alien superhero created by Gary Carlson and Erik Larsen for Carlson's self-published comics anthology Megaton. Vanguard is a white alien with small antennae who has been given the unenviable job of guarding Earth, which is viewed by the aliens as boring with little chance of anything happening. His sole companion is a sarcastic, hovering cycloptic robot and their morphing androids, though he quickly developed a relationship with a reporter Roxanne Wells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angel Medina (artist)</span> American comic book artist (born 1964)

Angel Medina is an American comic book artist known for his work for various comic book companies, including Megaton Comics, First Comics, Marvel Comics, and Image Comics.

The Image Universe (IU) is a fictional universe in which some of the stories published by Image Comics take place. It was introduced in the early years of the publisher, shared by the various creators who formed the Image partnership. The independent, creator-owned nature of their work led to limited interaction between their characters, and little coordination of the Image Universe as a shared setting, with the primary versions populated by a number of superheroes/villains, including Supreme, Invincible, Omni-Man, Spawn, Angela, Atom Eve, the Dragon, Gert, Bomb Queen, and Witchblade, as well as incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

normalman Comics character

normalman is a limited series of American comic books created by Jim Valentino. It began in November 1983 as a four-page story in Cerebus #56 before being launched as a full-color 12-issue series which was published by Aardvark-Vanaheim before moving to Renegade Press. There was also a crossover with Journey. The story of normalman concluded in normalman 3D Annual #1.

References

  1. Khoury, George (2007). Image Comics: The Road to Independence. TwoMorrows Publishing. ISBN   978-1893905719.
  2. "Image Comics to reprint hilarious company origin story—SPLITTING IMAGE".