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by Matt O’Keefe

Welcome to Six In Six, where I ask comic folk six questions and get my answers in six minutes or less. Here at NYCC 2012 I’m asking creators about their experience with and opinions on Image Comics. Here’s my interview with Brandon Seifert.

Image clearly had a big year. Name one thing you think helped make their 20th anniversary such a success.
Image just owned the announcements. Marvel has Marvel NOW, the DC New 52 is still going, but as far as new interesting books with big creators, they wiped the floor with everybody else. They owned Comic Con, and I think they’ll own this show too.

What does Image do better than any other publisher?
We got a lot of interest in Witch Doctor from publishers. We got interest from IDW, we got interest from Dark Horse, and interest from some smaller publishers. But what we kept hearing in 2008, right after the recession hit, was that it wasn’t a good time to launch a new creator-owned book. Then Image came along and said, “That’s all we do, is launch new creator-owned books.” Image Central especially is the place to go for authentically creator owned comics, that represent a pure version of the creator’s vision.

What Image title should more people be reading?
Phonogram, definitely. It’s one of my favorite comics of the last ten years. It’s great, it’s critically acclaimed, and its sales are depressing. I really hope that Phonogram 3 sells better than the first two volumes because it certainly deserves to.

Pitch Witch Doctor to audiences in one sentence.
A horror medical drama, sort of like if Dr. House investigated supernatural diseases like demonic possession, vampirism, stuff like that.

What do you have coming up?
We have a new Witch Doctor miniseries starting at the end of November, Witch Doctor: Mal Practice. I’ve got a four issue Hellraiser miniseries, the first issue coming out on Halloween. I’m doing two issues of the Doctor Who series for IDW starting in November. And I’m also doing a creator-owned book called Spirit of the Law, which is kind of a pulp heroine’s secret origin told from the villain’s point of view. That’s coming out exclusively from comiXology from Monkeybrain Comics.

Favorite thing comics related you did in the last month?
Getting the final colored pages for Spirit of the Law. They really blew me away. It originally just seemed like a fun little thing I was doing, but then the artist [Michael Montenat] completely owned it. Getting those pages just made me think, “I am so glad I have this job.”

Matt O’Keefe is a writer based out of Minneapolis. You can check out some of his works and musings at MattWritesStuff.com.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Brandon is one of the up and coming writers that deserves a lot of attention. He’s sharp, he does his research and puts it all together into the comic medium that creates a compelling read.

    It’s worth noting that he’s not only with Image Central, he’s with Robert Kirkman’s publishing arm, Skybound.

  3. I’ve been lucky enough to see Spirit of the Law … and it left me wanting more :) If everything Monkeybrain does is as good as SotL they’ll make a serious impact in the digital field.

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