Picture this.

It was 1992, Marvel Comics was going from strength to strength.

They had the best comic books artists at the time and sales were sky high.

A small number of fan favourite artists were at the pinnacle of the industry.

Commanding a loyal following they brought soaring sales whatever comic book titles they were working on.

Todd McFarlane had breathed new life into the Amazing Spider-Man title with his artwork (pencils) by giving Spider-Man's costume a new look by adding much larger eyes to his face mask.

This was the first major change to the classic red and blue costume in decades and the fans loved it.

A spin off title, Spider-Man, was launched with McFarlane writing and drawing it.

Erik Larsen took over art duties on the Amazing Spider-Man when McFarlane started the new Spider-Man title.

He kept many aspects of McFarlane’s design but put his own stamp and style on the book.

He also followed McFarlane to draw the new Spider-Man title when McFarlane left to do new projects and work on his own character.

Jim Lee was pencilling the Uncanny X-Men, further enhancing their popularity.

He also changed the character’s costumes, which were later used in the X-Men animated series and was widely loved by the fans.

Mark Silvestri had been drawing (or pencilling) the Uncanny X-Men prior to Jim Lee and was now on the solo Wolverine title.

And finally, artist Jim Valentino was making waves drawing the newest version of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

This was a revamp about a handful of super powered characters, originating from different planets, in our solar system banding together to save the galaxy from constant threats.

This is a recurring theme in comic books!

Also, these titles, especially the new title relaunches, set sales records with some of the first issues selling 8 million copies each!

Today's top selling comic book title sells just over 150 thousand copies each in mid-2003.

Championing the rights of artists and creating new individual art studios to attract and develop new talent the ‘sensational six’ each created new characters which soared to the top of the charts.

The fans (myself included) flocked to see what their favourite artists could do.

Todd McFarlane created Todd McFarlane Productions.

He wrote and drew the number one best selling comic book title Spawn about a former government hitman turned unwilling servant of darkness.

This book regularly outsold the previous sales titan, X-Men. Spawn was later made into a movie and animated series.

The comic is still going strong today though McFarlane no longer writes or draws the title.

This was another sales smash hit. Another title, Stormwatch about a super powered armed wing of the United Nations followed soon after.

Rob Liefeld created Extreme Productions and brought out Youngblood again self-written, drawn and again, snapped up by the fans. Many spin-offs followed.

Erik Larsen produced, wrote and drew The Savage Dragon which is about a super powered cop, which he is still publishing today.

He is also the Publisher of Image Comics.

Mark Silvestri formed Top Cow Productions and released Cyberforce, his own creation. He later created Witchblade drawn by Michael Turner and The Darkness written by Garth Ennis.

Many of these artists had little or no experience in writing so as a result the comic books looked great but the stories lacked a certain depth.

After the initial flurry, fan interest began to wane under the glut of new titles.

Then the cracks began to show.

One.

Rob Liefeld left Image Comics due to differences with the other seven founders.

There had been rumours that he had poached artists from Marc Silvestri's Top Cow Productions.

This resulted in Silvestri leaving Image with his company, Top Cow. He returned soon after Liefeld left.

He left this project when sales fell below the level necessary to maintain the contract and Jim Lee took over production of all four titles.

He formed two publishing companies in quick succession to each other, Maximum Press and Awesome Publishing, and had the talent of writer Alan Moore behind some of his creations.

This was not enough however and both companies folded due to cash flow problems.

He recently relaunched his original title Youngblood with the help of fan favourite British writer Mark Millar.

Still a force in the industry and not afraid of taking risks, I feel the best is yet to come from Rob Liefeld.

Also, Crimson, a story about a boy who was attacked by vampires and found himself a part of their world.

Crimson was created and drawn by Humberto Ramos and he gained a large fan following due to his ability to keep a deadline and produce regular, stunning manga-esque artwork.

Jim Lee himself is back on art duties recently drawing Batman and pencilling Superman.

With all this talent in his stable, Jim Lee later sold his Wildstorm Productions company to DC Comics for business reasons.

It is now a separate imprint there with many great titles including, the renamed Wildcats written by Joe Casey.

Planetary was written by Warren Ellis and a revamped Stormwatch: Team Achilles written by Micah Ian Wright.

Later, through Jim Valentino, Image began recruiting talent promising more creative freedoms and full ownership of characters devised.

This strategy worked and Image is still today, after over 11 years, the third largest publisher of comic books after Marvel and DC Comics.

With titles such as Powers written by Brian Michael Bendis which is about a cop who solves crimes committed by and against super powered people.

Witchblade, a policewoman who finds a super powered gauntlet (glove) that only women can wear and survive, also a popular TV series.

A Tomb Raider comic book based on the global smash hit computer/console game character Lara Croft was created to popular acclaim.

This concept was created and written by J. Michael Straczynski who wrote the massive sci-fi TV show Babylon 5.

Image Comics has survived through some hard times but has shown a remarkable resilience.

I predict they will be around for a long time to come.

Robert Kirkman's Invincible and The Walking Dead are two of the newest smash hits from Image and Joe Casey and Tom Scoli's Godland is also turning heads for it's fresh retro vibe.

The recent Ultra by the Luna Brothers was also a great book.

Look out for all these titles!

Next, on our whistle stop tour of comic book publishers is the giant, DC Comics!