Desperado Publishing leaving Image Comics

By Karl Schneider     March 15, 2007

Desperado Publishing has announced that their two and a half year publishing partnership with Image Comics will come to an end this summer. Black Mist #4, solicited for May 2007, will be the final co-publishing venture between the two publishing companies. Desperado Publishing will begin publishing under its own banner with eight solicited titles this coming July.

³It was just time,² noted Desperado founder and President Joe Pruett. ³I want to publicly thank Image Comics for their faith in our company and the enthusiasm that they¹ve shown for our line over the last few years. I have no doubt in my mind that the decision to partner with them at our onset has allowed us to survive the turbulence of being a small, specialty press in today¹s marketplace. That being said, I¹m excited about the possibilities that lay ahead for us.²

³Some people may feel that we¹re being overly aggressive with our upcoming publishing schedule (8-10 titles per month), but the fact is that we¹re not really a new company‹we¹ve been publishing for over two years now‹but rather an existing company that is expanding by just a few titles per month. We¹re just not going to be listed under the Image banner any longer.²

Pruett continued, ³We¹re trying to ensure that we¹re not just throwing unknown commodities out there either. Each title we introduce has an identity about it, whether it¹s the creative team or the series itself. Fans will have an idea of what the series is about (such as Negative Burn, Deadworld, Sabre or Dr. Syn) or what the creators have done in the past (such as Ron Marz, P. Craig Russell, Bryan Talbot or Brian Stelfreeze). I think this is what separates Desperado from other companies of similar size as we¹re dealing with known commodities for the most part.²

³People have asked what our identity is as a publisher. We believe in providing a home for top writers and artists, with a few talented newcomers mixed in, and allow them to create those personal projects that they¹ve been dying to do. I¹d like to think everything we do is of the highest quality, but quality is subjective, that¹s understandable. The key word I would like to focus on is diversity. The market needs to be diverse if it is to grow in all of the exciting new avenues that are presenting themselves to our industry. We plan to be a part of that movement by allowing our creators to be as diverse with their projects as they need to be, as long as the quality remains high."