The Image Revolution

Ever find a documentary that reminds you how F!#$ing old you are? Thanks to Patrick Meaney and his documentary The Image Revolution, I have one! I. Am. Old. It’s official. For 81 minutes, I was intimately reminded just how old I am with this incredibly detailed deep dive into comic book history and the speculative boom and bust of the ‘90s. Now, I’ve been grabbing comics off store shelves since I was roughly five years old. I became a serious collector where I was actually careful about handling, putting the comics in bags and boards, and properly storing them when I was about 8 or 9  years old. I was snagging those Tod McFarlane Spider-Man issues. I was devouring Jim Lee’s run on Uncanny X-Men and X-Men. Rob Liefeld’s X-Force was wildly entertaining.

Then, all of a sudden, my favorite artists and my favorite writers disappeared from Marvel. One issue they were there, the next issue they were just gone - and Image Comics was born. Now, I don’t fully remember launch day for Image, but I remember the line. My then go-to comic shop in Ann Arbor, Dave’s Comics II, was atop a three-story downtown retail storefront, and I distinctly remember standing in line up that spiraling staircase for what felt like hours. Every time the line would snake up just one step, as some schmo squeezed down with his haul in hand, the excitement would build until I finally made it inside. From there, all I remember was just how loud it was inside that place and how many sweaty gentlemen with questionable hygiene habits milled about. But I got my launch comics, and they’re still in my collection!

This documentary was originally produced twenty years after that day, but watching The Image Revolution brought me right back to that experience. That was a huge day. I was still an avid X-Men, Batman, and Spider-Man reader at the time, but suddenly I had to make room in my meager monthly comic book budget for the likes of Spawn, Wild C.A.T.S, Savage Dragon, and the silver back-breaker Shadowhawk (I especially liked that mini-series run as a kid, main series wasn’t quite as exciting). Almost thirteen years have passed since this doc was released, and so much has happened that Meaney and his team could do a follow-up just on Liefeld’s career, let alone the rest of the founders and new partners. 

But speaking specifically of this documentary’s 20-year recap, I was pleased to see how even-handed it was. Often in a case like this, there’s a desire to drum up a certain personality as a villain, but in the case of Image Comics, the villain was the speculators and each individual and their own egos (or, in some cases, lack thereof). These guys were creatives. They were writers. They were artists. They weren’t businessmen and had no idea how far in over their heads they were. They quit Marvel and DC and jumped into the deep-end of the pool all on their own and had to figure it out from there. That created a lot of friction. 

At first, it was all high times, with books selling hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies regardless of quality, but then delays and printing errors mounted. The infamous return of Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to Marvel was another crack in the foundation. Marc Silvestri’s Top Cow comics exit. Liefeld’s imprint poaching talent from the others was a sour point. McFarlane became a businessman with his toys and films. Jim Valentino moved into publishing. About the only non-confrontational (and all-around cool dude from the times I’ve met him) was Erik Larsen, who was just happy to do his thing with Savage Dragon. – Side note: How hasn’t Dwayne Johnson done a Savage Dragon movie? It’s perfect for him. He’s huge, he’s bald. Just paint him green and add a fin, and you’re done! The movie is 90% in the can at that point. 

In just 81 minutes, this documentary tracks a course through 20 years of comic book collecting history. While that’s a long timeframe, I don’t feel like it shortchanges key events. We get the history of the major players, we understand the genesis of the Image brand, we see its rise and fall, and we see the label’s rebirth in the early 2000s with the next generation of writers and artists. While it made me feel old as hell, it was a fascinating way to reexperience the past without having to dig out all of my old Wizard Magazine issues, because God only knows where I put those. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
The Image Revolution arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of ETR Media and OCN Distribution. A Single-disc set, the Blu-ray is pressed on a Region Free BD50 disc and housed in a clear case with reversible insert artwork. If you were fast enough to order from Vinegar Syndrome before it sold out, you could score an exclusive slipcover. The disc loads to a basic main menu with standard navigation options.

Given that this documentary came out in 2014, we have an overall clean and clear 1080p 1.78:1 experience. We get a mix of old archival footage of the Image brand launch, with the various personalities talking to the press, spliced into newer Digital HD interview footage. Depending on who is talking, the visual panache of the interview is subjective. Liefeld and McFarlane are certainly more passionate and dynamic, whereas someone like Marc Silvestri is a bit more static and pragmatic, while Eric Larson just looks like he’s ready to get back to drawing another issue of Savage Dragon. Overall, a pretty typical appearance for a doc of this type, but thankfully, there’s enough visual trickery to keep it exciting and not just a flat series of talking head interviews. 

On the audio side of this experience, we have a nice DTS-HD MA 2.0 track. The artwork indicated it’s supposed to be Dolby Digital 2.0, but it is, in fact, encoded as a DTS piece. It’s a fine track for what it delivers. The interview segments and voices have the main stage, where incidental music and sound effects are pushed into the background. Not flashy, not overly aggressive, it just takes care of the key audio elements, and that’s all that’s necessary.

On the bonus features front, we have a solid assortment of extended interviews with the Image founders and other industry players, while there is a nice follow-up of sorts from Comic-Con 2025. The package is complete with an audio commentary for even more detail. The What Happened After and the sitdowns with Todd McFarlane and Robb Liefeld are a fun recap of where these guys are at, where, even through their ups and downs, they still have a passion for their material and the industry. 

• Audio Commentary featuring director Patrick Meaney
• Extended Interviews: 
• Founders (HD 45:03)
• Others (HD 15:34)
• Comic-Con 2025 Interviews:
• What Happened After (HD 9:59)
• Todd (HD 8:27)
• Robb (HD 9:19)

Just in my time as a collector, I’ve forgotten how many booms and busts the comic book industry has been through. There are bumper years when people devour every issue (and actually read them) and come back for more. There are lean years where folks just aren’t into it because the speculators snap up issues, and the industry gradually starts to cannibalize itself by overprinting to meet a false demand. The industry endures. Whether or not our favorite heroes are on theater screens or streaming services, the printed issues are still there. They’re still coming, and because Image is who they are, there’s still a demand for creator-owned content. The Image Revolution is a fitting and often exciting recap of the events that birthed the now-iconic company. That’s a lot of creative energy all under one roof, and this is a fascinating piece of work to see how these personalities came together and then pulled apart. The film scores a solid A/V experience and a great set of extras. The most recent “catch-up” interviews are great, but given all that’s happened in just the last 10-11 years, I think there’s already enough material for a sequel documentary. For aged comic collectors like myself who were there for the big launch day, this is a great watch. Recommended