History
The launch of Ghost Machine was announced on October 12, 2023 at the New York Comic Con. It was touted as a cooperative media company that would publish creator-owned comics through Image Comics.[1][2] The company made the announcement at the convention's the Lunar retailer breakfast, with its first convention panel held on October 13,[5] and produced a Ghost Machine #1 ashcan comic, as a giveway to visitors to the company's booth.[4][5]
The company's founding writers and artists are: Brad Meltzer, Jason Fabok, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, Geoff Johns, Lamont Magee, Francis Manapul, Peter J. Tomasi, Maytal Zchut and Brad Anderson. It was also indicated that other creators would be joining the company after they completed their prior commitments to other publishers. Ghost Machine was conceived with the idea that its founding creators would be exclusive to the company and would jointly own, operate and profit from their creations.[1] The group ownership of the imprint's properties is reflected in the editorial page of its inaugural publication, Ghost Machine #1, under the headline "Welcome to the First Fully Shared Creator-Owned Universes!" In the accompanying text, the creators state, "We completely co-own our company, characters, and universes together, sharing in publishing, but also in media, merchandise, and beyond."[6] Novelist/television writer Brad Meltzer explained the rationale for the company, pointing to how in the American comics history, historically, writers and artists were not able to control or earn considerable profit from creations that went on to become highly lucrative for publishers, like Superman, saying, "The entertainment industry is an ecosystem, and it is ever changing...When you tell the stories of comics themselves, the creator doesn't always come first."[1]
Pointing to the 2023 Writer's Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes (the latter of which was still ongoing at the time of Ghost Machine's launch), the company further explained in a press release:[7]
"'As the recent Hollywood strikes have shown, creatives are disenfranchised with the traditional industry model – creators seek increased empowerment as a natural progression to an ever-changing entertainment landscape. Ghost Machine's enterprising business model is at the forefront of this evolution with the characters and full company ownership shared by its creators in every way.'[7]"
"'Our ambition for Ghost Machine is to push beyond superheroes, introducing new genres, characters and shared universes, completely co-owned by all the creators involved. We see this as the future of how creatives will work and retain creative control and meaningfully participate in success like never before. Our passion is for the magic of graphic storytelling and the emotional resonance of compelling characters. But we are not just a comic book company – we are the first wholly creator-owned and operated media company of its kind, born out of a desire to create and succeed together.'[8]"
This was interpreted by Russ Burlingame of ComicBook.com to mean that Ghost Machine would not restrict itself to publishing screen-friendly intellectual properties, but a media company that would facilitate development of those properties into media adaptations, and Burligame noted that several of the company's founding creators had experience producing work for film and television. It was not clear, however, whether all of the founders would have an equal stake in all of the properties, or if each individual creator owned their individual properties, which had been the standard arrangement at Image Comics since its founding.[8]
The company's founders stressed that they would be creating stories set in genres outside the superhero genre in which many of them had already done work, with Johns saying, "We want to create beyond superheroes." Echoing this, Hitch said of the stories, "Heroes yes. Capes no."[3] The company's launch schedule was to commence with Geiger: Ground Zero, a two-issue series by Johns and Frank released in November 2023 that serves as a prequel to their 2021 miniseries of the same name. This would be followed in January 2024 with the company's first "official" release,[5] Ghost Machine #1, a 64-page special, and then that April with a series of books that would comprise "four shared universes of character-centered titles."[2][9] The Unnamed, whose first ongoing titles would be Geiger and Redcoat; Rook: Exodus, a sprawling science fiction epic set in the future; Family Odysseys, which centers upon a family of time travelers.[2]
At its launch the company also stated that its slate of books would include an as-yet untitled horror-based universe co-created by what the company indicated at its launch was a prominent artist[9] still under contract with another publisher,[5] and whose identity would be announced at a later date.[9] Bleeding Cool reported that the name of that series was The Soulless,[4] but on December 1, 2023, the company announced that the unnamed creator was Brazilian artist Ivan Reis, and that the universe was Hyde Street, which would also be the eponymous title of that universe's central series, which Reis would illustrate with Johns as writer.[10][11]
On December 6, 2023, media sources reported that Danish artist Peter Snejbjerg would be joining Ghost Machine in an exclusive capacity, as its eleventh creator. Snejbjerg's first work is the book Hornsby and Halo, in collaboration with Tomasi as writer, with whom Snejbjerg previously collaborated on the supernatural DC Comics series The Light Brigade. Hornsby and Halo centers upon a pair of teenagers, one a demon, and the other an angel, who endeavor to maintain the cosmic peace between Heaven and Hell. An installment of the series appears in Ghost Machine #1.[12][13][14]
On the aforementioned editorial page of Ghost Machine #1, The company stated that these initial creators represented the imprint's "first wave" of writers and artists.[6] In May 2024, it was announced that colorist Brad Anderson and letterer Rob Leigh had signed exclusivity deals with Ghost Machine.[15]
