Erik Larsen's WildCATS #14 in Japanese

Once upon a time, in the fall of 1994, the six Image Comics co-founders all swapped books.  As part of this, Erik Larsen wrote and drew WildC.A.T.s #14, in which the characters from his series Freak Force and Savage Dragon mixed it up with Jim Lee's Covert Action Team.

What's interesting to note is that this issue was localized for Japanese readers, even though Larsen's own titles never were.

The sixth collection of WildC.A.T.s comics translated into Japanese was released by Dengeki Comics on August 15, 1998.  It not only included Larsen's issue #14, but also issue #13 (the concluding installment of a story arc by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont, which guest-starred Claremont's Huntsman characters) and #15 (the first of a short-lived run by James Robinson and Travis Charest).

Here are some excerpts:

The front cover, utilizing artwork from WildC.A.T.s #13.

The back cover.

This guide to the Freak Force characters served as a forward to issue #14.

The first page featuring Freak Force in this issue.

Freak Force leaps into action.  Note that Ricochet's "Yee-haw!" is left unaltered.

Can you find the reference to Terminator 2?

Dragon enters the picture.  Note that the editor's note regarding Dragon and Grifter's prior encounter is untranslated, and references an issue never released in Japan.

And to wrap things up, I give you the same two pages not included in the Savage Dragon: Possessed trade paperback:

A brief history of Image Comics

For decades, Marvel and DC Comics have had a stranglehold on the American comic book industry.  The Big Two and their respective superhero universes have dominated the hearts, minds, and wallets of fans and dictated the way creative talent are treated.   The term "work-for-hire" didn't exist when the comic book industry was born in the 1930s and '40s.  Thus, publishers regularly took away all rights from creators often without any formal contract.  And when copyright law was revised in the 1970s, the contracts that companies began offering favored the corporations over individuals.  But there were glimmers of hope.  Self-publishing became a viable option, and smaller publishers like Eclipse and even Marvel's Epic imprint offered creators a chance to own their characters and stories.  But the company-owned Marvel and DC superheroes still topped the bestsellers lists.  But then, in the early 1990s, something happened to change the comics world forever.

By 1991, seven artists best known for their work on Marvel titles were becoming enormously popular.  Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen were getting noticed for their work on Spider-Man.  Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, and Marc Silvestri all did eye-catching artwork for X-Men.  Rob Liefeld retooled the X-Men spin-off New Mutants into X-Force, introducing the mysterious cyborg hero Cable and the wisecracking assassin Deadpool along the way.  And Jim Valentino (previously known for autobiographical comics and the superhero satire normalman) guided Guardians of the Galaxy to be the most successful non-Spider-Man or X-Men-related book from Marvel at the time.  So, the question was, was the name recognition and fanbase of the artists driving the books' success, or was it the popularity of the characters?  While these artists were mostly happy with the people they worked with at Marvel, there was some unease.  Trading cards, t-shirts, and video game covers reused their artwork, without any sort of compensation whatsoever.  And characters created by them (like Jim Lee's X-Man Gambit) were being made into action figures, and an X-Men cartoon based visually on their work was right around the corner.

Around this time, the publisher Malibu Comics courted Liefeld, Larsen, and Valentino, saying they would publish anything created by them.  In mid-1991, Liefeld took out an ad in Comic Buyer's Guide for The Executioners.  It was meant to be a mutant superhero team book published by Malibu in association with an imprint devised by Liefeld called Image.  Liefeld got the name from a TV commercial for a camera with the tagline "Image is everything".  Marvel threatened legal action, and said they would fire Liefeld from X-Force, so the book was scrapped.  But Liefeld in association with his friend Hank Kanalz reworked the book to feature a team they developed in the late 80s, the government-sponsored Youngblood.  But Liefeld didn't want to launch Image on his own, so he got McFarlane (then taking a hiatus from comics due to the birth of his first child), Valentino, and Larsen on board.  During a comic book art auction in New York City, they talked Lee, Portacio, and Silvestri into joining them, and promptly went to Marvel's offices to tell them off.  They then went to DC's offices (where Lee had never been before), only to say that they wouldn't work for them either.

In early 1992, the formation of Image Comics was officially announced, leading to a drop in Marvel stock.  Malibu would help distribute Image's books for the first year, but the Image partners still called the shots.  Youngblood was finally released that spring to massive success.  Many of the Image partners dusted off characters that they created in their youth, now that they would retain all rights.  McFarlane introduced Spawn (the first issue of which is the bestselling non-Marvel or DC comic),  a government assassin whose deal with the devil brings him back to Earth as a powerful undead being. Larsen revamped his character as the Savage Dragon, a more character-driven superhero book with a green, fin-headed guy at the center.

Lee and Silvestri both came out with series that had a similar aesthetic to the Marvel series they had cut their teeth on, Uncanny X-Men.  Lee and longtime friend Brandon Choi unleashed WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams, a team made up largely of members and descendants of the Kherubim, a benevolent alien race that crash-landed on Earth eons ago along with the sinister Daemonites.  Silvestri's Cyber Force told the tale of a ragtag band of mutants rebelling against the wicked corporation that turned them into cyborgs.  Both titles were based on characters that their respective creators had created in the past but never used.  WildC.A.T.s and Cyber Force also both lead to multiple titles set in the same universe.  Lee used WildC.A.T.s as a springboard for other "WildStorm Universe" titles such as Gen 13, StormWatch, and Deathblow.  The "Top Cow Universe" that rose from Silvestri's Cyber Force would include such popular titles as Witchblade and The Darkness.

Valentino had planned to put out a series called The Pact at the start of Image, but shelved it after seeing a glut of team books in the company's initial lineup.  So, he instead unveiled ShadowHawk, a vigilante not unlike Batman, but with brutal methods and an unrevealed (at first) identity.  Eventually, Paul Johnstone, the first ShadowHawk introduced to readers, died from AIDS, and a little later, the young Eddie Collins took up the mantle.

Portacio had planned to collaborate with veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont on Claremont's character The Huntsman, though that book failed to materialize (Claremont did get use Huntsman and company in story-arcs of WildC.A.T.s and Cyber Force he guest-wrote, however).  Portacio's own series, WetWorks, was delayed for over two years due to Portacio dealing with his sister's illness and eventual death.  WetWorks, which ended up being part of the WildStorm Universe, focused on a military team enhanced by golden symbiotes.

Soon, other creators joined Image.  Some notable books including Sam Kieth's surreal urban-bum-hero-in-Wonderland saga The Maxx, Dale Keown's Hulk-like Pitt, and 1963, a dead-on homage to early 60s Marvel comics, written by Watchman's Alan Moore, with art by his erstwhile Swamp Thing collaborators Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch, among others.  There was some controversy.  While anyone who creates a book published by Image Central owns their work outright, it was a different story for those who worked for the Image partners' respective studios.  WildStorm, Top Cow, McFarlane Productions, and Liefeld's Extreme Studios all partook in work-for-hire practices not much better than those at the Big Two.  This was seen by Bissette and the comics journal world as unbelievably hypocritical.

Lee did use his Homage imprint to showcase other people's creator-owned works, such as Kurt Busiek's Astro City, Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, and James Robinson's Leave It to Chance. Other popular indie titles like Groo, Bone, and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all found a home at Image during this period.  The work from Liefeld's studio was given a big boost when Alan Moore took over Liefeld's Superman analogue Supreme.  Unfortunately, when Liefeld was accused of trying to steal artist Michael Turner away from Silvestri's studio, he ultimately left Image in a huff.

Only 2 years later, in 1998, it was announced that Lee was selling his studio and family of characters to DC Comics.  With only four partners left and a changing, unstable market, Image was hurting for material to publish, and ended up releasing just about every kind of comic under the sun.  From 1999 to 2004, Valentino was named the company's publisher (Larsen replaced him in 2004, and would in turn be replaced by former Liefeld assistant Eric Stephenson a few years later).

In 2003, Robert Kirkman (who had become involved with Image due to collaborating with Larsen on the latter's character SuperPatriot) pitched a zombie apocalypse comic that supposedly involved an alien invasion.  When the comic, now called The Walking Dead, was released that fall, Kirkman revealed to Image that the claim about alien invasion in the series was a red herring.

Kirkman even managed to get Liefeld involved with Image once again.  While Liefeld is still no longer a partner in the company, he currently publishes several books through Image, several which have gained cult following.  Kirkman became the first new Image partner since the company's launch, and vowed to never work for Marvel or DC again.

Image's publications have grown even more popular over the last decade.  Many creators (like Grant Morrison and Bryan K. Vaughn) known for their more mainstream work, come to Image in order to create stories and characters that they own whole-cloth.  And Image's deals with creators prevents the publisher from having any involvement with movie or non-comic merchandise rights.  Thus, ensuring the creators benefit the most from their creations, not the publisher.

A brief history of Troma Entertainment

One of the longest-running and most beloved independent film companies in recent memory is Troma Entertainment, the NYC-based outfit established and owned by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz.  Ever since Troma was formed back in 1974, it has given the world memorable characters such as the Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, and worked with present and future stars including Stan Lee, Kevin Eastman, James Gunn, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Back in the 1960s, Kaufman and Herz attended Yale University, and both shared a love for filmmaking.  During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kaufman and Herz produced several different film projects, sometimes working with a pre-fame Oliver Stone.  Even though the two formed Troma in 1974, it would be a few more years before they would officially produce a film under the studio's name.

"Squeeze Play" was a sex comedy (one of the first), echoing the Woman's Rights Movement by pitting a team of women against their husbands and boyfriends in a game of softball.  At first, no theater was interested in showing the movie, but when one theater took a chance on it, it became a surprising success.

"Squeeze Play" was followed by three more "sexy comedies", "Waitress!", "Stuck on You", and "The First Turn-On".  Eventually, Kaufman and Herz decided to move away from this genre, as the major studios were copying the formula in films like the "Porky's" series.  Around this time, Troma also produced two films directed by Kaufman's brother Charles, the slasher movie "Mother's Day", and the "Kentucky Fried Movie"-esque comedy anthology "When Nature Calls".

During the 1970s, Kaufman also worked on films like "Rocky", "Saturday Night Fever", and "My Dinner with Andre", scouting locations and sometimes playing bit roles.  But he had to be part of the Directors Guild in order to do so.  So many of the Troma-produced films were attributed to the pseudonymous "Samuel Weil", to prevent Kaufman from violating the Guild's strict rules.

It was during the production of "Rocky" that Kaufman hit upon the idea for making a film set in a health club.   Some years later, Kaufman and Herz read an article declaring that horror films were dead.  Thus, Troma began development on a project tentatively called "Health Club Horror".

But Kaufman was struggling to make the concept work.  The film, as written at the time, would have featured a villainous monster killing equally villainous people.  It was only when Kaufman thought up the conceit of making the film a comedy with a heroic monster that things started to click.  "Health Club Horror" was eventually retitled "The Toxic Avenger".

The first major screening of "The Toxic Avenger" was a disaster, as even the Troma fans in attendance were turned off by the film's abundance of sex and outlandish blood and gore.  It wasn't until the Bleecker Street Cinemas in New York started showing the film in 1986 that "Toxie" became an icon to horror fans over the globe.

Troma followed up "The Toxic Avenger" with a similar film called "Class of Nuke 'Em High".  "Nuke 'Em High" was also a violent comedy satirizing the nuclear industry and the Power Elite (or as they're better known today, the 1%).  It was also successful, but Troma's next project wound being surprisingly controversial.

"Troma's War", the most expensive film in the company's history, was meant to be a commentary on the Reagan era's jingoistic films such as "Rambo".  But trouble started early when the Directors Guild found out Kaufman was the real Samuel Weil, and forced him to leave their union.  Likewise the MPAA made Troma trim out some of the best scenes in order to achieve an "R" rating.  This especially infuriated Kaufman and Herz, as their director's cut of the film was calculated to be no more extreme than the mainstream action films of the day.

With "Troma's War" bombing at the box office, Troma went back to the well with a Toxic Avenger sequel.  With backing from the Japanese firm Gaga Communications, Toxie, and the Troma Team, were given the chance to go to Tokyo.  But when the first cut of the film was around four hours long, Kaufman panicked.  He then decided to split the film in two.  Thus, "The Toxic Avenger Part II" and "The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie" were released.  But the more cartoonish violence and toned-down nature of these sequels left fans very disappointed.

But the Toxie sequels helped open doors for Troma in the mainstream entertainment world.  Fred Wolf Films, the producer of the 1980s and 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon expressed interest in adapting Toxie to animation.  And Gaga Communications, along with Pac-Man producer Namco wanted to make a film with Troma for the Japanese market.

Troma, along with Gaga and Namco, produced the film "Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD", a superhero comedy.  Kaufman wanted to make a more extreme film, but almost everyone else, including the Japanese studios, Herz, and then-Troma bigshot Jeff Sass, were dead set on creating a more family-friendly movie.  In the end, the PG-13 and unrated (equivalent to a soft "R") cuts of "Kabukiman" pleased neither parties.  DiC Entertainment head Andy Heyward, however, developed a pitch for a Kabukiman cartoon with Troma, since his kids liked the film.  But due to Anti-Japanese sentiment in the States (this was when Sony bought Columbia Pictures, for example), the Kabukiman cartoon was never made, and the "Kabukiman" film wouldn't be released in America for about half-a-decade.

Fred Wolf and Troma had considerably more success with the "Toxic Crusaders" cartoon.  That show spawned a line of action figures (from TMNT toy makers Playmates), several video games and comics, and assorted merchandise.  In 1991, Troma made a deal with New Line (a then-independent studio that had distributed the Ninja Turtles movies) to produce a live-action Toxic Crusaders movie.  It looked like every was set in place.  Kaufman even assigned directing duties on the second and third Nuke 'Em High films to another filmmaker, since the contract allowed him the chance to direct New Line's picture.  But New Line's mid-1993 deadline came and went, and the film wasn't produced.

The mid-1990s could be seen as a dark point in Lloyd Kaufman's life.  Not only did Troma sue New Line, and win an untold amount in damages, but Lloyd's father Stanley passed away, and his wife Pat suffered a near-fatal case of breast cancer.  Around this time, Kaufman was planning a Tromatic take on Shakespeare's classic, "Romeo & Juliet".

It wasn't until he teamed up with a younger writer named James Gunn that "Tromeo & Juliet" began to really take shape.  More extreme than the Troma films before, "Tromeo" was a major critical success.  Kaufman and Gunn collaborated on the best-selling book "All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger", which would lead to more books from him (including a novelization of the first Toxie movie).

Troma's further projects have included "Terror Firmer" (a satire of Kaufman's career and filmmaking style), a fourth Toxie film, "Tales from the Crapper" (salvaging footage from an aborted webseries), "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead" (a vicious takedown of the fast food industry), and "Return to Nuke 'Em High" (a two-part film ala "Kill Bill").

Troma has also distributed films from up and coming filmmakers.  Before Trey Parker and Matt Stone hit it big with "South Park", their first feature "Cannibal! The Musical" was released by Troma.  Parker and Stone have made cameos in later Troma productions, alongside comic book icons Stan Lee and Kevin Eastman, notorious porn actor Ron Jeremy, and the late Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead.

Toxie continues to be a cultural icon, even starring in a popular stage musical.  Both a big-budget remake film and fifth entry in the original series have been mulled for years, with Arnold Schwarzenegger attached to the former.

But one thing's for sure.  Troma's endurance in a constantly changing industry is due to its irreverent sense of humor and the personality that Kaufman brings to the company as its public face.  And the Troma brand has a created a loyal fanbase that will keep the spirit of Troma alive for many years to come.