Image Comics Reportedly Moving to Portland

FROM SAGA VOLUME 3, ART BY FIONA STAPLES

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According to reliable comics industry site The Beat, Image Comics is planning a move to Portland.

...At San Diego I started to hear a few whispers that Image Comics might be leaving its Bay Area headquarters for the cheaper and even more comics friendly environs of Portland, OR. Based on what I’m hearing, this is actually happening in the nearish future. Image is currently located in Berkeley, CA, a once reasonable college town type area in the East Bay that, like all of the Bay Area, is now insanely expensive. The Image staff is fairly compact, around a few dozen people, so moving shouldn’t be that difficult and probably would be welcomed by everyone looking to escape the birthplace of commuting to the suburbs and artisanal toast. (Via.)

(Uh... they might be in for some bad news. And some more bad news.)

Originally founded in 1992 by some of Marvel's biggest creators, Image was positioned as an independent alternative to mainstream superhero comics. And it was, for a while—before settling into a loooooong period of stasis. But something interesting started happening a few years ago: Following smash hits like The Walking Dead, Image became the place for comics' top talent, leaping over more established publishers to put out inventive, daring, creator-owned work. Too look over Image's current publishing lineup is to see an embarrassment of riches: There's still The Walking Dead, sure, but there's also Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, and Sex Criminals and Pretty Deadly and Bitch Planet and ODY-C from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction, plus the ongoing collaborations of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus, Joe Keatinge and Leila Del Duca's Shutter, Kurt Busiek and Benjamin Dewey's The Autumnlands.... I'm leaving out a lot.

Image's move would add even more comics to a city that's already rich in the art form—alongside publishers like Oni Press and Dark Horse Comics, Portland also has some of the best comics shops in the world, the insanely popular Rose City Comic Con, and a bunch of resident writers and artists (if my count is right, seven of the creators I mentioned above are currently living in the city). So: Portland might be about to get even more comics-y, right when it seemed like that wouldn't even be possible.