Berkeley-based Image Comics held its own mini comic-con on July 2, organizing Image Expo 2013, an unusual single publisher-focused comics media event, where they announced a slew of new Image titles as well as a new DRM-free digital content storefront that could change the digital publishing business for more than just comics. In a report on Image Comics' business profile, publisher Eric Stephenson said Image sales are split almost evenly between bookstores and comics shops, with overall sales up 38% over last year and digital sales growing to 15% of its revenue.
Held on a day when BART, the Bay Area public transportation system, was out-of-commission due to a transit workers’ strike, Image Expo drew about 500 fans to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (across the street from the Moscone Convention Center, the former home of Wondercon). The second not-quite-annual Image Expo 2013 was definitely not a huge fan convention like Wondercon or even like Image Expo 2012. Nope, this was a much more intimate affair with a tightly-focused agenda geared toward hardcore Image fans, retailers and press.
“This isn’t meant to be a ‘fan convention’—it is meant to be a press event,” focused on Image Comics and its books and authors said Jennifer de Guzman, Image’s public relations and marketing director. “Last year, we did a more traditional convention. This year, we decided to play to some of our strengths.”

In Image’s case, their strengths include their vast array of creator-owned titles, their roster of fan-favorite writers and artists, and their close ties to comics shop retailers—the people who can make or break a title with fans.

Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson provided an overview of Image’s origins, and shared some upbeat pie charts and graphs showing Image’s sales growth (Image reports that sales are trending up 38% percent from last year, with 43% of its sales from bookstores, 42% from the direct market, and 15% from digital). Stephenson then introduced their marquee new titles along with several creators who were there in person, and star comics writer Mark Millar, who chimed in via a prerecorded message from Scotland.
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